Career Opportunities
My professional life began with a surprise lie-detector test, and a belated start date that went down in history — as the day Ronald Reagan was shot
Incipient panic inspired me to answer a catchall help-wanted ad — Calling All College Grads — during my initial job search in New York City. The role was described as “junior management position in retail.” Since I’d worked for two years at a record store while obtaining my bachelors degree, for the first time in my brief post-college employment quest I felt fully qualified.
This “unique opportunity” turned out to be a training program for branch managers at the freshly christened and franchised American Savings Bank. Visualizing myself behind a desk, I imagined eight-hour days spent filling out forms while wearing the drab navy-blue Brooks Brothers suit that my dad insisted was essential to any working man’s closet. Upon reflection, I calculated that my status as a proud bohemian unconcerned about money just might work in my favor; I could be trusted around large amounts of cash. And on a purely pragmatic level, I realized (or rationalized) that working at a bank would be a steady gig if nothing else.
The interview transpired in the back office of a mint-condition Midtown branch; the Grand Opening was just weeks away. Thin carpets, brittle motel-grade furniture and the thick scent of disinfectant filled the empty rooms. A stone-faced female interviewer, possibly not long out of college herself, volleyed rote queries across an uncluttered desk. Perusing my resume, she expressed deep skepticism (non-verbally), never directly asking yet clearly wondering why in the world I had applied for a banking position. I stressed my “extensive” retail experience and (mostly untested) people-management skills. Declaring my willingness to accept a spot at any branch that was reachable by subway cracked her stern demeanor. She stifled a laugh but hey, I was determined to gain a foothold in New York.
The bank called back mere hours later, not long after I’d returned to my temporary room. We scheduled another interview for the very next day, this time at an address all the way downtown in the Finanical District.
Nervously, I managed to board a train headed in the right direction. Surfacing near City Hall, I proceeded away from the Brooklyn Bridge and headed toward the monumental court buildings. Immediately I got lost, wandering on an anonymous side street. Just before freakout set in, I spotted a sign marked Chambers Street at the other end of the block.
Walking the gauntlet of men (and a few women) in near-identical suits and topcoats, I edged my way into the lobby of an elderly office building. A noisy elevator ejected me into the waiting room of Wall Street Security Inc. What? I double-checked the address; this was it. A paunchy middle-aged man with the Irish-American complexion familiar from my father’s side of the family — freckles and blondish red hair — stood up from behind a desk and abruptly stated my name as a question. “Mark Coleman?” Before I could reply “yes” he had turned away and started walking down the hall, assuming I’d tag along.
We wound up in a windowless room: unadorned brown walls, off-white acoustic tiles barely clinging to the ceiling. A deep silver metal suitcase lay open on a battered wooden desk. Without speaking, my nameless escort curtly nodded toward the two chairs facing the suitcase. My seat was the one that resembled the electric chair in a low-budget prison movie.
A cushion shaped like a toilet seat rested where I was meant to deposit my butt. Dangling from the chair’s arms and back were white straps that resembled bandages with wires attached. Settling in, I flashed back to an underground newspaper article from ten years before. As a 13 year old hippie, I’d come across a radical self-help article titled How To Scam The Man’s Lie Detector or something similar. The specific tactic that resurfaced here in 1981 was “tighten the muscles in your ass.” But the spongy pillow underneath me rendered this impossible. The Man now knew the score.
Meanwhile my interlocutor had settled into his chair, and revved up the polygraph. From inside his silver suitcase emerged a worn console with dials, buttons and switches. On one side of the console sat a series of jacks with rubber tubing and wires attached; on top were needles poised to hop and skip across a looped roll of paper. He strapped a sort of straight-jacket across my midriff, and then fastened thin sensors the size of band-aids around the ring and index fingers of my right hand. An armband-sensor gripped my left bicep.
In ten minutes we covered a mix of neutral questions culled from my resume, alternated with more pointed inquiries relating to theft and deceit. Since my limbs were tightly bound, I mentally crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.
Remaining expressionless the entire time, the polygraph operator didn’t mention results when we finished. “The readout goes back to the bank and they’ll be in touch.” Unsure how to conclude our encounter, on the way out I said “thanks” which seemed to catch him off guard as, for the first time, he displayed a reaction approaching human emotion: his raised eyebrows said c’mon buddy ya gotta be kidding me.
The American Savings Bank must’ve been desperate for warm bodies attached to college-educated minds. They offered me the job two days later, and I accepted on the spot.
*
Women who spoke with the most exotic Noo Yawk accents imaginable staffed the receptionist’s desk at every place of business I entered. Or so it resounded in my Midwestern ears. Right after accepting the training position at American Savings Bank, maybe a week into my odyssey, I belatedly checked in at the editorial offices of Sugar y Azucar magazine. Or in the words of the elaborately coiffed and manicured young woman who greeted me, “Shuga Ezookuh.” This was not a nutritional handbook, but a trade journal for manufacturers of refined sugar and suppliers such as my father’s employer. In fact, my dad enjoyed a warm long-distance friendship with Sugar y Azucar publisher Richard Slimermeyer; they often met up at industry events once or twice a year, with their wives in tow, and had visited each other’s respective homes in Cincinnati and New Jersey.
Ushering me into his midtown Manhattan office, Dick emitted flushed-face warmth and aromatic joviality. The aftermath of a two-martini lunch, I decided. After apologizing for not having an entry-level position to offer, he launched a rambling monologue about trade-magazine publishing and how the best thing about it was “doing business with a stand-up guy like your dad.” It almost felt like he was trying to get me to buy an ad.
The meeting was over in twenty minutes, short and ahem, sweet. Hanging around the office after we were finished, I was flummoxed by the minimalist layout: three adjacent cubicles where the editors labored, a separate room for the two-person art department, a tiny library in a converted closet, and Dick’s corner office. The atmosphere was quiet, almost hushed: not exactly a hectic newsroom. An attempt at conversing with the frosted-blonde receptionist quickly declined from polite to pointless. Rescue came when Barbara, the svelte and cerebral-appearing middle-aged woman who’d been introduced as Senior Editor of Sugar y Azucar, called me over to her executive cubbyhole. She spoke in a mid-Atlantic accent and her subdued sense of style stood in stark contrast to the receptionist. Barbara exuded a subtle-but-sure breath of worldliness, an air of sophistication decidedly at odds with her surroundings.
“Mark, hold on a minute before you leave. Let me put you in touch with Luther Miller, my old boss at Railway Age. When I heard you talking to Dick just now, I remembered that Luther recently mentioned that Railway Age needs an associate editor. Reporting on the railroad business might not be what you’ve set out to do but you won’t find a better editor than Luther — he’s an old newspaper man, a real pro.
“Railway Age is the oldest trade magazine in the country. Honestly, the company needs new blood. Almost everybody who works there is pushing retirement age. If you don’t mind, I’ll also put in a call to Bob Lewis, the publisher. Meanwhile you can drop off your resume for Luther. Here’s the address.”
As I prostrated myself in thanks, Barbara smiled and waved me away while Dick fixed me with an inscrutable look and laughed loudly. “We certainly can’t have YOU working in a bank.” I took that as a compliment.
Barbara’s recommendation was all that Railway Age required. Or else Simmons-Boardman Publishing Co. was desperate for warm bodies too. My follow-up phone call to the American Savings Bank was awkward, and mercifully brief.
Simmons-Boardman Publishing took up the entire 17th floor of an unassuming office tower on Hudson Street. In 1981, the western fringes of Soho were commercial and industrial. Walking to work at rush hour on March 30, I heard the heavy metal clanking of printing presses rebounding through open windows. On King Street, I came upon a boisterous group of young men gathered in the driveway entrance of a vacant parking garage. I can’t recall exactly what they wore; probably jeans and t-shirts under light jackets. But I remember thinking they weren’t dressed for 9–5 type employment. Their carrying-on rang in my ears down the rest of the block.
I had no idea that the old garage was a nightclub. Not just any run-of-the mill disco, either. This garage turned out to be the famed Paradise Garage, home base of the innovative and trend-setting DJ Larry Levan.
I presented myself to the receptionist at the appointed hour of 9 AM. A red-haired woman, fortyish and friendly, greeted me in dense Outer-Bouroughese. “You must be Mark. Mistuh Milluh ain’t heah yet, deah. June’ll be outna minute. Have a seat.”
The wait was only five minutes but I fidgeted, having no idea what would come next. My heels were cool by the time managing editor June Meyer appeared.
As it turned out, I was in good hands. June was gruff but kindly, a middle-aged grandmother who lived in Queens. Her husband was a retired firefighter, and her son-in-law was currently “with the department.” In the ensuing months, June supervised me like a patient schoolteacher, gently correcting my misspellings and grammatical lapses. But in general her professional demeanor resembled a drill sergeant’s. She was iron-willed about enforcing deadlines and keeping the printers on schedule.
June kept the chitchat to a minimum that first day. Once she’d escorted me to the stark cubicle next to hers, she disappeared into the editor-in-chief’s corner office, where my surprisingly cursory job interview had taken place nearly three weeks previous.
So there I sat at an empty metal desk, staring at the manual typewriter. I stood up, opened the top drawer on a file cabinet. There I found folder after folder marking the stages of magazine production: manuscripts, page proofs, blue lines. Not knowing where to begin, I nudged the drawer and it slammed shut, loudly. I turned around and saw Luther Miller, my new boss, standing at the entrance of the cubicle.
“If you had been sitting here,” he said blandly, “reading the paper and drinking coffee when I walked in By God I would’ve fired you. Good morning, Mark, and welcome.” Luther was in his fifties, medium height with a full head of grey hair, mentally keen though obviously far from physically fit. He was fond of massaging his ample belly while verbally holding forth.
My routine, I soon discovered, would be straightforward to a fault. Each morning began with The Journal of Commerce, which I combed for items about the railroads, making copies for June, Luther and the magazine’s publisher Robert Lewis. In every issue of Railway Age, I was responsible for researching and writing three regular features: New Products, People & Promotions, and my favorite, 100 Years Ago in Railway Age. I was also charged with editing one of the three bylined columns, Looking At Labor by the biweekly’s Chicago correspondent. “See if you can make sense of his torturous prose,” Luther said. So concluded our first editorial meeting, in a blue cloud of Viceroy fumes, as June let loose a hoarse giggle.
Luther was a no-nonsense editor of the old school, applying his twin standards of clarity and brevity to learned treatises on arcane subjects like refrigerated boxcars or The Future of the Caboose. The written word was what he immersed himself in every minute of the working day, interspersing his magazine duties with discourse on everything from the daily Times crossword puzzle to a recent Philip Roth novel (thumbs down on The Ghost Writer). He studied each issue of Railway Age like a raptor, zeroing in for the kill at the first sight of a typo or tautology. Luther abhorred faulty logic.
In matter of days, I determined Railway Age was a train to nowhere. It also became readily apparent that I wasn’t destined to conquer the world of trade magazines. After the first week or so, I managed to complete the grunt work on time: translating press releases, digging up items from the magazine’s rich archives. But the impetus for pursuing longer stories proved to be elusive. My excuse: I was an under-qualified college kid trying to fake it alongside grown-ups who knew what they were doing.
The mail cart arrived around 9:45 every morning. I would accept several bundles of envelopes from Manny, ruler of the mailroom. Garrulous and childlike, Manny was a disabled Vet. He handed over his packages with inane patter, groan-inducing jokes customized for each recipient.
“Avoid engaging in conversation with Manny,” Luther stated flatly that first morning. “If you get him started on Korea, he can turn psychotic in an instant.” My father had seen combat in the Korean War; Manny looked to me as if he was old enough to have fought in World War I.
Sorting actual mail from all the generic submissions and junk took forever the first time. Finally, I was left with a pile of press releases and promotional announcements, and no way to gauge their value. It occurred to me then precisely how little I knew about railroads. So I thought about lunch, more out of boredom than hunger.
Around one o’clock I was still fantasizing about food and struggling with signal switchers when a stricken June Meyer gave me the news. President Reagan had been shot outside a hotel in Washington, barely three months after his inauguration.
June turned on her radio, and left it on for the duration of the workday. Luther conferred with Mr. Lewis in the hallway before he abruptly bolted for the lobby. “There’s a television set above the bar on Spring Street.”
It soon became obvious, from the news bulletins and intuition, that Ronald Reagan would survive the bullets from John Hinckley’s gun. I spent the afternoon thumbing back issues of Railway Age and reflecting on the assassination of John Lennon just four months previous. I wrote his obituary in The Michigan Daily; it was my final article for the student-run newspaper. The thundering pronouncement I’d been so proud of — “last night The Sixties finally ended” — suddenly sounded hollow. Clearly, the election of such a conservative president had ended the lingering countercultural era once and for all. After the shooting, Reagan’s truly awesome resilience just underlined the point. Whatever you thought of his politics and persona (not much in my case), the old actor was tough, enduring. And so was the reactionary social revolution he represented.
Not long after five o’clock Luther stuck his head in my cubicle and invited me for a beer. Startled, I accepted. “Good. Meet me in the lobby in five minutes.”
Our destination was about four blocks north, just off Seventh Avenue South, a corner bar tucked away in the web of twisting sides-streets at the heart of Greenwich Village. My apartment was only a few blocks away yet I had almost no idea where we were. Luther referred to the place as Mary’s, adding that was merely the bartender’s name and not the official name of the tavern. We bellied up and ordered two bottles of Budweiser. Well, I tried to order Heineken and received such a withering glance from Luther that I was relieved when Mary ignored my request and brought me a Bud.
Another round was delivered seconds after Luther sank his last gulp. When a third round materialized the same way, fifteen minutes later, the taciturn woman behind the bar didn’t touch the shrinking pile of bills and coins on the counter. Thanking Mary for the beers, Luther explained to me, “any decent bartender in New York will buy the third round.”
Another three — or four — rounds came and went until Luther suddenly rose to his feet and bid me farewell. I finished my beer in silence and then followed suit. I was out on the street, smashed, by 7:30. I somehow made my way to West 4th Street. A dirty piece of paper stuck to my shoe. It was a ten-dollar bill! I stopped at the first restaurant in my path, one of the few Mexican places in the neighborhood, where I devoured a mediocre burrito. After that I navigated the final blocks and stumbled upstairs to my single room. Though it was early I flopped on the bed and listened to funky and soulful WBLS-FM on my trusty clock radio for a pleasantly hazy hour.
When I awoke the next day, I was a (hungover) workingman at last.
