Hats off for the Office Ladies

                                        Early post-college photo. 1981 at Vic and Fred's wedding. 

                                            No wonder my co-workers thought I was a kid!

Whilst listening to a podcast about yet another possibly innocent person (Letters From Sing Sing, first episode) convicted of murder, I heard an advertisement for a podcast featuring strong women. March, it seems, is Women's History Month. It kinda seems like all year should be filled with Women's History, but that's an argument for a different day. 😊

I was cleaning our bathroom as I listened to that podcast. I'd been meaning clean for several days, but waited until I was "in the mood". Podcasts make perfect company for cleaning! I began thinking back about the many strong, smart, talented women I've been privileged to work with during my employment years. 

Co-workers, supervisors, and contractors: 

-at my very first "real" job, as office manager at Gamble Robinson, a grocery wholesaler in Sioux Falls, SD. Nancy, the person who'd been the office manager suffered a stroke at age 33. She was out indefinitely. It was an office of four women, not including me. I didn't have the first idea about how to be an office manager I was fortunate that Karen was the go-to for training. She was understandably a bit pissy when they brought a no-nothing college girl in to be the top office dog. Nancy was a formidable wife, mother, and great worker. It took me a while, but I won Karen and the crew over by treating them with respect.  When I eventually left the Sioux Falls Office, Karen took over as Office Manager. Thanks, Karen!

-From Sioux Falls, I moved up (down) to the Omaha Branch of Gamble Robinson, located in the Old Market. There I met three totally different strong women. Netta was a large passionate Italian mother/wife - picture puffy black hair and lots of makeup. Lila was a chainsmoking lesbian - a bit cranky until I pierced her crabby defenses. She called me "Kid".  And Pat, the personal secretary to the division chief. Pat was a Creston native, a stately older woman (probably all of 55 😏). Those three taught me a great deal. You are not forgotten, ladies!

-When Paul and I were married in 1982, women from both of my former offices attended. The friendship was strong! Paul and I moved to Osage for his job. I eventually landed a local job at Fox River Mills - a sock and glove manufacturer in town. My experience using an IBM System 36 computer teamed me up with Karla, the original computer department of one. The two of us were charged with managing data and entering orders by hand. Karla - who still works there - taught me a lot. There were lots of great female co-workers - so good at their jobs at the awesome Fox River. 

-When we moved to Creston in 1986, I finally landed a job at First National Bank in bookkeeping in March of 1987. There I learned how to pronounce each strange family name while stuffing statements into envelopes, and preparing them for mailing. (Ripperger is pronounced Reebarger) Sandy, Cathy, and Pam were great coworkers. Eventually, I was promoted to loan clerk and had my own little cubby-hole desk upstairs. There I got to better know Sharon - the marketing director and Lamona, the only female loan officer. Syd and Barb were in customer service out front - helping people with account needs. Artie was the chief teller with a dedicated team around her. Eventually, a new girl was hired fresh out of college. Julie is now the bank president! The bank was full of strong excellent women. 

-My next job in an office/co-worker setting was in the mid-1990s at Gits Manufacturing where I was a product manager. This was the most challenging job of my career. Purchasing and manufacturing lead times (how long it took to procure or manufacture) were over a year at times. Jeanie and Cynthia helped train (and counsel) me through the ups and downs. We had some good times in a little office amid each manufacturing process. Twins Tracy and Toni were also fun to work with. We're all still Facebook pals.  

-After two grueling years at GITS, I saw an advertisement in the local paper - looking to hire a Recycling Educator for three counties. This is easily my favorite ever job. At my first trash conference I met three amazing women - Susan, Barb and Pam were peers doing similar jobs. We met periodically to share resources and support. They meant the world to me. 

I was an office of one - located in Creston's Restored Depot home of City Offices and the city congregate mealsite. Judy was the Creston City Clerk - and the brains of the operation. My grant-funded was managed and paid for by the county - so several times a week I hiked a couple of blocks over to the Union County Auditor's office. There I reunited with Sandy (former bank pal) who was now the elected Auditor. Her team was great to work with - Angie and Joanie. I also got to know the treasurer, Linda, and the recorder, Paula with their staffs. Friendly and top-notch! 

                                                           Jen and Becky on a tour

-After the grant ran out, I was promoted to Landfill/Recycling manager. My office moved to the Union County Landfill where I worked with dedicated scale operators - all women. Marie, Carolyn, and Beth all were wonderful with customers, so kind and efficient. There was one woman I won't name who the contractor fired after she threatened me. She didn't like the new office with my oversite and told me she had a gun and knew how to use it. Scary! Good thing, Christine, a young female environmental consultant attended monthly board meetings and partnered with me in managing the joint! 

-Nealy ten years later, I was hired for the career job I'd been dreaming of at the Department of Natural Resources. By then I was age 50, no longer a "kid". At DNR I met and appreciated so many excellent female co-workers. Traveling together for program audits and visits was a highlight. Becky, Angie, Amy, and my supervisor Jen were the women I worked with the most.  I must not forget about fab external program partners - Shelly, Mary, and Kathleen. They are all excellent and dedicated public servants. I miss them but enjoy following their family escapades on social media. 

I've likely forgotten to name some of the office women I was blessed to work with. And there are a few that, though they didn't threaten me with a gun, weren't my favorites. I'm sure I make that list for some. Some people - men and women - live for the drama. It's not my thing.  

What I looked like at the end of my work days

While writing this blog I was thinking of the new normal. Many people no longer work in an office setting. I loved the one day a week I was able to telework when employed by the State of Iowa. But I never considered doing that more than 2 days a week. I'm not sure how well I'd get to know co-workers without frequent in-person contact. I believe employers need to find ways to build teams and for strong employees to mentor others. It's a changing work world - they'll figure it out! Because there are so many strong, smart women in charge. 

Ch ch ch changes

Our local newspaper, The Des Moines Register has a "can't miss" section, call "2 Cents Worth". It's a short anonymous blast by readers. Yes, the proverbial train wreck that one can't stop looking at. I admit it's a guilty pleasure of mine. Topics range from politics (local and beyond) to dog poop to thanks for turning that wallet in at the mall.

Recently a post (or a letter to the editor) blasted our local grocery store chain, HyVee, for changing. The poster thought they should "stick to just providing good food". Gee, I'll bet the brain trust at HyVee never thought of that... (this is what I do - read the posts and ridicule them).

The grocery industry is near to my heart because this was my first foray into the working world. Dateline: Gamble Robinson Company, May 1980, Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Unsuspecting young college graduate - fresh from four years of fun and "book learning". I quickly figured out that college accounting and economics had nothing to do with the real world of being an Office Manager at a grocery wholesale operation.

The other employees in the office (not 4-year college graduates) were kind enough to teach me everything I needed to know. It was a crash course in real life working world. I grew up a great deal during that year in Sioux Falls.

Today, Gamble Robinson is gone - swept up years ago by another, larger corporation. I miss the Snoboy fruits and vegetables logo! The second location I worked at, Gamble Robinson in Omaha, is now a parking lot at the Old Market.

My point? Times change. The grocery industry is really changing. Prepared meals are a big thing. Amazon purchased Whole Foods. If you don't change - you could become a parking lot. The Fareway Company (another grocery chain - sticks to food, not open Sundays) has a model of not changing. It has worked well for that company to-date. It will be interesting to see if Fareway survives with this MO as Millenials become the largest group.

Giving Back

It's been a while since I put myself out there, volunteering. I've been looking for opportunities and finally, thanks to a conversation with a co-worker, got hooked up with Lutheran Services of Iowa (LSI). I'm a  rookie classroom assistant in their English as a Second Language program for refugees. After I contacted them about my interest in the program, the application process was fairly rigorous, including a TB test at the Polk County health center.

I volunteer once a week for two hours in a classroom with an instructor named Sue. She does a great job of being very inclusive - getting all the 12-14 attendees involved. For the first hour, we all work together as they practice listening, speaking and writing. For the second hour, I have had the chance to work one-on-one with a participant - using flashcards and worksheets. That has been especially fulfilling for me - though I need to work on ways to assist the person I'm working with better. I hope it comes with experience!

This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for this opportunity to meet new people from places I've never heard of. Paul and I are off to Saint Louis to be with our family. I hope you have a lovely holiday! 

Characterization

So to continue...I've known some real characters in my life. After Pablo and I got hitched, we moved to Osage - in Northern Iowa. I kept working for Gamble Robinson, the grocery wholesaler, as a traveling office manager. I flew out of Mason City in small planes up to Minneapolis and over to Green Bay, WI. Then I visited various small grocery wholesalers the company owned - helping install IBM System 32 computers and code produce for input into the system. Those computers were about the size of a couch - with a place to sit under the keyboard and a screen not much larger than my current cell phone screen. I didn't imagine back then I would have my own computer in my home one day.

That's the screen - to the left of the paper spindle, left of the keyboard. Tiny!

The first site I visited when I started traveling was in Menominee, MI - it's on the upper peninsula, just past Wisconsin. The branch there was a tiny thing - run by a guy with his aunt who was the office manager. They were nice as pie. In fact they fed me some! Plus all the other great food good Germans know about - man they can cook up there.  

 

How do you get sheets for this?

Aunt Betty was quite the character. A long time widow, she was in her 60's. Somehow I learned she had a heart-shaped bed. With silk sheets. TMI, you're absolutely right. She and I worked together for a couple weeks so I got to observe her office behavior. It was strange. She had badly colored and permed reddish brown hair. About once every half hour she'd begin feeling her head - to pat down her curls. Then Betty would snatch a pair of shears from her desk drawer and snip off a piece of hair - tossing it in the trash. Haircut selfie!

I finished up working in Menominee just before Easter. Betty gave me a box of homemade caramels. What a sweetie! My next stop was Sheboygan, WI where I experienced my first Sheboygan steak sandwich. Bitchin'! Whenever I watch Diners, Drive-Inns and Dives I think of that town. We watched the chef cook the steaks with onions and butter on a hot griddle we sat at the counter. Delish!

I enjoyed my time traveling in Wisconsin. I was in Fond Du Lac one time in July 1984 when I got the call from my dad that my sister Susi had given birth to my niece Leslie. #fondmemories.

One week I couldn't get a motel (it was some big air show), so I stayed with Paul's brother Denny and sister-in-law Kelli in Port Washington - just down from Sheboygan. It's beautiful country up there. I stayed in their daughter Karen's room. I'm sure son Joe was around somewhere along with their little dog Moe. None of them are really overt characters. Just plain nice people.

After nearly a year of travel, I was ready to stay home and live with my husband again. Heck - we were still practically newlyweds. I saw an advertisement in Osage for a computer person needed at Fox River - the woolen mill right in Osage. I got the job - no more traveling for me. I still love wearing their socks today. After keying orders in for 2 years, it took me a long time to forget the color codes. You can purchase their socks several places in Iowa - good stuff.  

More Characterization in the Big O

I'm digging up some Blogger posts I wrote when I first started - back in 2009. When I had 5 whole readers...Paul and Amy. And I don't know who else. People who mistakenly came upon the blog thinking it was porn? I didn't know how to use labels then...so who knows...

This one continues my current theme - about characters in my life through the years...

In 2009 I had just begun working in Des Moines after making a big change in my life. I had accepted a job at the Department of Natural Resources (I'm not blogging about any of those DNR characters for a long time!).

A friend, Joan McFee, had graciously agreed to allow me to live at her place part time - so I didn't have to drive back and forth to our home in Creston. Joan's niece Krissy (Amy's age - grew up in Creston) was living with Joan too. During our shared evenings, Kristina would describe to me the angst of her first job post-college. The discussion helped dredge up memories of "My First Job".

I recently posted about my first job in Sioux Falls, SD at a grocery wholesaler - and the interesting boss, Kermet. What an education! The mechanic, a guy probably in his upper 50's, who worked on the delivery trucks was also quite a character. His name was Laurence. Laurence liked to take a nip or two while he worked. I couldn't complain though - he helped advise me on the care and maintenance of my 1977 Chevy Monza 4 speed. I didn't know a soul in that town except for the people at work. I valued their advice - liquor soaked or not.

After I worked in Sioux Falls for a mere 8 months, I was asked if I'd like to transfer to the Omaha branch of the company as Office Manager there. Let's see - more money and closer to home? Would I? In a heartbeat! It just so happened that my cute boyfriend had taken a job in Oakland, IA - some 20 miles from Omaha. And my baby sis, Betso was attending Creighton University in Omaha. Ah fate and destiny!

With the help of my high school friend Chris Deardorff, I found a great apartment out near Boy's Town that was bright and airy. I visited the famed Nebraska Furniture Mart and purchased a couch, bed and bedroom furniture, and butcher block kitchen table with chairs. On moving day, there was a mix up and it took Betsy's fierce call to the Mart to get the stuff delivered. It took a few more years for me to get the confidence to do my own bitching at people. (Though I still don't like to)

Pic from Vic's bachelorette Party in Omaha 1981 - Wild Night...looks like I had a head start

Once I moved, I was overjoyed to find out that two of my Atlantic friends were also coming to town. Robyn (of Robbie Dob fame) and Chris Deardorff were making the move for love (Robyn was moving with her husband to be Glenn) and jobs. What fun! The 3 amigos got together nearly every week to cook a meal. On Fridays we'd meet at the Rusty Scupper, a bar/restaurant in West O. It was a fun time in my life. Talk about characters - Robyn and Chris. Love 'em!

Oh yeah...the job. The Omaha branch of Gamble Robinson was located in the Old Market (it's now a parking lot near the brew pub). It was a very old building (read dump) that was below street level - you parked and walked down metal steps to the warehouse. But the location was great - the Old Market is one of my favorite places in the world! I loved lunchtime walks.

The branch manager in Omaha was Ron Nearman, a very nice straight-laced guy. No weapons in his desk! The rest of the staff was a lesson in diversity for me!

• Executive Secretary Pat - the 50ish spinster with a boyfriend. Gruff, crusty exterior. Creston, IA native.
• Lila - 40ish lesbian bookkeeper, quirky and nice once she learned to trust me
• Nedda - 300 pound Italian lady with bouffant hair, married, one child - tender heart
• Karen, the cute blond Unwed mother. Hooked up with a truck driver who delivered to our company long enough to get preggers
• And me - the office manager, by then all of 23 - supposed to be in charge of everyone but Pat.

Then there were the salesmen:

• Pete, a kindly older gentleman who traveled in SW Iowa
• Ed a nice guy who traveled the Council Bluffs area
• Dan, a groovy divorcee
• Lester "Red" Eymann - the most homely man you've ever seen who was lewd and crude and you had to love him! In today's world Red would be a walking sexual harassment poster boy! When I would walk through the sales office sometimes Red would make a slurping noise and say, " I could just eat you up or slurp you." There were many more. I learned to deflect comments like that. Today comments like that wouldn't be tolerated!

Last but not least was Jackson - the lumper. Lumpers were not employed by GR, but they were necessary! They hung around to help unload semis as they arrived, and were paid in cash by truck drivers. Jackson was a large black man with a friendly personality. He liked to gamble and drink. When he was flush, he would head to Sioux City to the dog track. There weren't any casinos in Council Bluffs back then and that was the closest track. I heard that after I left, Jackson appeared in the picture window into the manager's office, buck naked after one bender....guess he was on a hot streak....

Out in the warehouse there were lots of good guys. They taught me things about bananas (get your mind out of the gutter). Bananas arrive in the country Kelly green. They must be ripened in special rooms with gas before you get them. Other refrigerated rooms in our warehouse were damp and some were dry. GR employed a crew of mainly African American women who prepared the chopped veggies/lettuce etc. that the company sold to restaurants.

My desk in Omaha was an old wooden one - I pulled it out in the morning and pushed it back in each night. I worked long hours, and worked early every Saturday morning to complete a report. Those were the days of early IBM mainframes so I learned to run the computer with its tiny little LED screen. I "Balanced" the books each month, which was a huge challenge since it seemed huge amounts of produce seemed to disappear. Then I'd be out in the warehouse quizzing the staff.

They must have liked me, because when Paul and I moved (we were married in 1982) to Osage, IA in 1984 they created a job for me, traveling up to Wisconsin to do training in small branches up there. I do love my Snoboy (Gamble Robinson's brand) stuff! I found an old Snoboy wood box in an Atlantic antique store and a Snoboy cranberry ad in Valley Junction. Maybe first jobs aren't so bad after all...

My first job - it went on and on

So the saga of my first job (with Snoboy grocery wholesaler Gamble Robinson) didn't end in Sioux Falls. It didn't end in Omaha. Yes, folks it even moved with me to Osage, Iowa. Paul and I got married on 8/28/82. (Insert wedding bell sounds).

After honeymooning in Seattle, and Victoria and Vancouver in Canada, we settled back (yes we lived in a little bit of sin prior to getting married, but keep in mind Paul had knee surgery and my sis Betsy also lived there all summer) into our third floor walk up two bedroom apartment on Littlejohn Circle in Council Bluffs, the armpit of the nation. It was partway in between Paul's job in Oakland, IA (the bellybutton lint of the nation) and my job in the Old Market (in a groinish office) in a cool part of Omaha. We weren't supposed to have pets, so we snuck Bucko the cat in anyway.

In late 1983 Paul applied for a job as District Conservationist in Mitchell County - one of the flat, low workload soil conservation jobs with the federal government. Despite my quest to be a independent workin' gal, I decided to follow my man to northern Iowa. The folks at Snoboy asked me to stay on as Office Mgr. Supervisor. I would travel to small company offices in Northern Iowa and Eastern Wisconsin.

So I began flying out of Mason City on 12 seater airplanes, through Minneapolis and then to Green Bay, WI. I hit hotspots like Sheboygan, Fon du Lac and Menominee. Man those towns had great restaurants. Plus when you're in the food biz, the managers know all the best eating spots. I also got to meet all the nice and interesting people working at the small warehouses. At one place the manager's elderly aunt worked as office manager. It was Easter and she brought homemade caramels for me. While she was working, she would start patting her hair, then snatching the sheers from her desk, she'd hack off an offending piece of hair. I heard tell she had a heart shaped bed! (you hear the darndest things at fruit houses).

Yep, I burned out of that job pretty quickly. Being gone Monday through Friday made it hard on our young marriage. Wait...that's what I'm doing again now...(without the newlywed part). Flying on those small planes was stressful - especially that time we flew through a thunder storm. I applied for a job at a local manufacturing plant - a woolen mill called Fox River. Stay tuned to this blog to hear more of the continuing exciting saga.