By Lady Gray, October 4, 2016 — There was one particular job interview I had that I cannot forget. The interviewer asked me a question no one had ever asked before. He asked, “What was the very first job that you ever had?” Then he added that he was “not interested in the jobs I listed on my resume.”
Unlike other teens, I did not get summer jobs. My parents believed that going to school was my job and since they wanted me to go to college, I was to concentrate on my education. I thought for a few moments and then, I smiled.
“It was 1954,” I told him. “My mom took me to work with her at the dry cleaners.” I went on to explain that I was four years old and my mother had taken a part-time job as a clerk at the neighborhood dry cleaners. She was paid $4.50 an hour to wait on customers. She would take in the items to be cleaned and write out the receipts. She also worked the steam presser from time to time and she got $2 or $3, depending on the clothes she pressed. Since she sewed, she also did alterations and she was allowed to set her own price for that. I remember her telling me that the Jewish man she worked for was a very nice boss because others might not have made that arrangement with her. They would have just paid her the minimum hourly rate no matter what she did.
My mom would take me to work with her on the less busy days. She felt I was a little too “busy” to leave with my great-grandmother. My dad, my mom, and I rented the third-floor apartment in my great-grandparents’ home, but the person I interacted with most was Pop Pop, my great-grandfather. He worked on a coal truck during the day, so if I spent time with Nana (my great-grandmother), I would be reading, coloring or watching television. If it was her baking day, we spent time in the kitchen baking cookies.
However, on Wednesdays and Thursdays, I went to work with my mother. She made sure I had books to read. She had me bring something to color or if it was not busy she would draw a picture that I would try to copy or color. On rainy days, not too many people came in, so my mother and I would play Tic-Tac-Toe or Connect the Dots. My mom did not believe the word “bored” should ever come out of my mouth, so she always made sure I had something to do.
This brings me to my first job. My mom told me I would be her official “stamper.” When people came in to pick up their dry cleaning, they would give my mom their receipts and the money for the cleaning. My mother gave them their items, collected the money and gave them their change if there was any due. The receipt would be stamped PAID with a big rubber stamp and put in a drawer. My mother decided to give that job to me. She told me she would give me a nickel for every receipt I stamped. Wow, a whole nickel! That was the price of a big Tootsie Roll or a handful of gum-drops. I could even buy a marshmallow candy ice cream cone. Of course, mommy made sure that I put part of my earnings in my piggy bank.
Nothing gave me more pleasure than slamming that big rubber stamp down on the receipt and seeing PAID on it in big red letters. I would keep my nickels on the table so I could see how many I earned. By the end of the week, I was one happy four year old. Sometimes, people would drop an extra nickel on the table but I was not sure if they knew the money was for me.
One day while making the round to his three dry cleaner stores, my mom’s boss stopped by to ask if everything was okay. He saw my nickels on the table. “My goodness, whose money is that?” he asked looking at me and smiling. “It’s mine, I answered proudly, “That’s my pay and right now, I have 30 nickels.” “Your pay; 30 nickels, well, what did you do to earn so much money?” I think he was impressed after I explained what I did. Then, he asked me to count out 20 nickels for him and when I did, he gave me a dollar bill. Oh my goodness, a whole dollar bill! Then he said, “You keep doing the best work you can and you will see many more of those.” I never forgot those words.
The interviewer who had asked me about my first job was very moved by my story but I think he was more impressed with how I told it. I got a job writing articles for his newsletter. I had actually applied to work in the copy room.