Participating in The Time to Write offered by Poets and Writers on Monday morning continues to provide a gift of remembrances leading to a blog. A recent prompt related to Odd Jobs was mainly designed as a 15-minute fiction exploration, but we are always given the opportunity to modify or take the prompt in the direction that fits our writing. I found myself remembering three different temp jobs that were a windfall of great information and helped to guide me both as Artistic Director/Choreographer of Avodah and in my personal life.
Word-processing, databases and spreadsheets were just beginning to be popular tools in the business community in the mid-1980s. Fortunately, many years before, when I was just out of high school, my father had “required” me to take a typing course before moving to New York City to begin my adventure in the dance community there. While the skill didn’t come in very handy in the early 1960s, it sure did during graduate school where I was able to type both my husband’s dissertation and my own. It also made it very easy for me to pass the tests for word processing, which was my entry into the temp world of New York City. Later I would add Lotus 1 2 3 and Dbase to my software navigation skills.
As my main reason for being in NYC was to develop the Avodah Dance Ensemble as a modern dance company there and to get bookings for performances throughout the United States, a full-time job would be limiting. The temp world was just right. I could work around the dance company’s schedule. Three jobs proved to be very meaningful, providing not only work but valuable information for running my dance company and my personal life.
Shortly after arriving full time in the City, one of my first temp jobs was in the word processing room of Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft. Located in lower Manhattan, the office was quite elegant. I sensed it was an important law firm, as the documents I worked on related to the Agent Orange case. Cadwalader was counsel for the defendant chemical manufacturers brokering out-of-court settlements. Sometimes I could read in The New York Times about what was happening related to the Agent Orange negotiations. Later I would learn that Cadwalader, founded in 1792, was the oldest continuously operating law firm in New York City. To learn more, visit Wikipedia. As I remember, on a regular workday there were 12 of us in the word processing room. Since I didn’t celebrate Christmas, I had quite a lucrative “gig” there one holiday at the pay of $25 per hour. I was the only one in the word processing room that day and there was only one attorney at work. He kept me busy full time for nearly 23 hours, until I said, “Enough. I am blurry eyed, and I can’t make sense of your notes.” He was disappointed that I wouldn’t continue working any longer, but he ended up graciously sending me home in a car and thanking me.
What I learned from my experience at Cadwalader was how the cooperative efforts of many attorneys working on the same brief, and the continuous editing that went on, made the brief as strong as possible. It changed how I choreographed for the dance company. I welcomed more input from the dancers, and I saw the importance of editing and reworking pieces until I felt satisfied. Over the years as new dancers learned repertory, I was much more open to what they could bring to a role, rather than demanding that they get the steps right and recreate the choreography as it had originally been done. Thank you, attorneys from Cadwalader for providing an excellent example of teamwork and editing, editing and editing.
The next temp job started out as a one-day assignment at CBS’s Foundation office. This was in the mid-1980s and the office was located in the CBS corporate headquarters at 51 W. 52nd Street. I was thrilled to get the assignment because this was an important foundation that gave out grants in the arts. My boss for the day, Nancy Risser, was very pleased with my work and invited me into her office to ask me some questions about myself and express some needs of the Foundation. They were looking for someone to work on a database system so they could keep track of their expanding grant giving and applications. She asked if I had ever worked on the software dBase. I said no but I would be willing to learn. After working two days for free, I was hired to work up to 25 hours a week on the dbase software, accommodating my schedule with the dance company. So began a two-year, regular part-time job with the CBS Foundation’s office and a friendship with Nancy, who would later become a Board member of the Avodah Dance Ensemble.
Not only was CBS a great part-time job but it enabled me to learn more about grant writing, and how foundations worked – a great resource for me as I handled the business side of Avodah, including grant writing. Our grant support greatly increased over the next 18 years based on what I learned in the two years at CBS. The job came to an end during the challenges that CBS faced from a hostile takeover by Ted Turner. The restructuring resulted in the Foundation’s office going from a healthy team of nine to just two, and alas I was back on the temp circuit! A big thank you to Nancy Risser and to Helen Brown, the head of the department, for all the information I learned about fundraising and grant writing.
The last temp job I had was at US Trust Bank, a boutique bank handling large portfolios, among them, large-scale university endowments. My temp job was in the performance measurement department where I was introduced to the software they used to see the performance of their managers compared to the relevant indexes such as the S & P and Dow Jones. Reports were sent to clients so they could determine the effectiveness of their manager. I did not know the first thing about finance, not even the basics such as the difference between a stock and a bond. I got along very well with my boss and picked up the software quickly. When my temp assignment for the week was over, Renee Cook, the head of the department, asked if I might consider coming on if a position opened. I said sure, if it was part-time and I could work around my dance company’s schedule. Before long I returned as a temp. Shortly after that Renee was at a retreat for heads of department with the bank President. When he heard she had a Ph.D. working as a temp, he said he wanted me permanently on board. I soon had a part-time job of 25 hours a week. Sometimes when university endowment staff visited, I was brought in to demonstrate the performance-measurement software the bank used. I found it rather amusing that I was always introduced as “Dr. Tucker” at such times, sharing a task that any administrative assistant who might not have graduated from college could do. The position served US Trust’s purposes, and provided me with an excellent part-time job that included company benefits such as profit sharing. I was there for four years until I was able to be full time with the dance company. The especially valuable part was that I learned about stocks and bonds and the importance of diversification in a portfolio. That has served me well especially now, as a widow. Thank you, Renee Cook, for unlocking financial information that continues to guide me.
While I had many other in-and-out quick temp jobs where I learned a thing or two, these three experience provided excellent information that I was able to incorporate into my life. Thank you, Dad, for insisting I learn to type, providing me with a skill that has come in very handy!!