Ma Bell: Plain Jane

Plain Jane

1974!!!  Happy New Year!  I was going to make this a great year for myself and my kids.  I wasn't expecting miracles, I wasn't asking for help from anyone, I wasn't looking for sympathy from anyone, I wasn't asking for advice.  I was just going to do this single mom thing the best that I could.  All I needed to do was work through January, and I could escape to my own place.  My very own place where it would be quieter, where I would not have anyone undermining my authority with the kids, I wouldn't be answering to anyone, we could do whatever I wanted when I wanted.  I had waited for this escape for a while, and I had earned it in tears and bruises and bad memories.

But there were those awful people that I worked with.  I was just going to have to make the best of it.  One of the worst people in the office sat right behind me.  She was a short, overweight, unattractive, old maid with a whiskey voice.  I could feel her eyes on me all day long.  We had shelves above our desk to put our reference material on.  We didn't have that many books but too many to fit in a drawer or on the desk.  Jane, the old maid, had completely moved her books over to the left side of her shelf to watch me from behind.  I scooted my chair as far as I could over to the left, which prompted her to adjust her books; she put a few on the left and a few on the right, now she could see me, and I couldn't escape.  Witch!  Not that there was anything to look at unless she was just hot for me.  Maybe she liked my short skirts and platform heels?  Maybe she had a thing for redheads?  I didn't want to find out.

Mary, one of the girls in the UN group, and I were becoming pretty friendly.  She was my ally.  She didn't take crap off anyone; if they said something, she always had a killer comeback.  I hadn't learned to be very vocal yet, not with co-workers anyway.  I was a little intimidated, I guess, because I was on a new hire probationary period for 3 months.  I was a little afraid to do anything that might cause a problem because I had to keep this job.  Mary knew that, and she was there for me, vocally.  I thought they didn't like me, just me, but they didn't like her even more but for different reasons.  They didn't like the dislikes because we were young, but then they would personalize it for each of us.

Jane had just one company that she worked on; that was all she could handle, so Mary and I worked together on everything else.  We only had one keypunch machine and one machine to transmit the ads, so we were frequently in the back room, glassed-in and soundproof.  Our backs were to the rest of the office, so they couldn't see or hear us, and we took advantage of it.  The copier was also back there, and everyone on the floor came to use that.  When the door would open, we would become silent angels again.

Sometimes all three of us would be in the back room together.  One keypunching, one transmitting, and one using the copier.  Jane talked to herself, not a little, all of the time.  I had to listen to it at my desk all day long.  I finally zoned out on anything that she said.  She could be talking to me, and I wouldn't know it.  Then she would have to get her short self up and walk to my desk.  "I was talking to you!"  "Who me?"  And then she would heave a big, husky sigh that sounded like the demon in The Exorcist, "Yes."  "Sorry."  Giggle, giggle.  In those days, one could smoke at their desks.  She smoked exotically like Bette Davis in a starring role.  Holding her cig daintily, she would blow the smoke in my hair.  And if the phone rang, she would stampede to answer it.  Nine times out of 10, it would be one of the salesmen, and she would flirt with them in her best truck driver voice and laugh with her phlegmy laugh, and then cough. And cough some more.

Thinking back, I don't remember her ever talking about friends or doing any activities.  Maybe she was lonely.  Maybe she couldn't keep any friends; maybe the bottle was her friend.  I know that I smelled booze on her more than once in the morning.  Who knows what people do?  But she was a mean, narrow-minded woman.  She loved to gossip and run to the supervisor over everything.  You couldn't be nice to her; it just didn't work.  So we just had to laugh it off.  She would be talking to herself back in the soundproof room, and I would pantomime her words and add gestures for Mary's amusement.  It was a contest to see who would have to leave the room first to keep from laughing out loud.  And then we would tease her while she was talking to herself.  We would say, "pssst" and keep our heads down working.  She would stop and ask, "Were you talking to me?"  In a mock surprise, we would answer, "NO."  And keep on working.  We were on the 4th or 5th floor of the building.  She would get up and get next to the windows, and we would do the same thing, "pssst."  She would turn around real quick, and we would have our heads down working.  She would just look puzzled.  Was it mean?  Maybe, but I call it payback.  We didn't run to the boss whining about her; we just handled it our way.

The cute guy France was coming back to the copier pretty frequently.  If I was back there, he would talk to me and flirt.  It was all innocent.  If Jane was back there, she would stop working on listening and watching.  As soon as France would leave, she would exit the room and swarm on her fellow troublemakers and tell them who knows what.  They would look back at me, so I knew that I was the topic of discussion.  And then the boss would go over and get in on it.  She was probably telling then that I was groping him or something worse.  It was funny but not cool.  I just made mental notes for use at a later time.

And that is just one of the group that I had to deal with every day, 5 days a week.  One was bad, but when you added all of them together, it was pretty overwhelming.

And Jane was not the worst one of them.  Wait until you meet Peggy.