Work, Part II

If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen

After I graduated from pole climbing, I was told to report to work the following day.  I would meet my gang of employees and start my job as a resident installation foreman for New Jersey Bell Telephone.

“Fresh meat!” The speaker was about seven feet, hugely muscled, tattooed. with a buzz cut.
“Excuse me?” I’d heard him, but I hoped he wouldn’t speak to me like that again.
“I said, ‘fresh meat.’ Where are you from, baby? You’re new, right?”
I nodded.
“So, which side? Business or residential?”
“Residential.”
”You just get out of pole school or what?”
“Hey, looky, look! It’s our new management hire!” A very spiffy, buff man with slicked-back hair and a wide smile was standing at my elbow. ”Howdy, Mary Ellen.”
“Molly.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” the fresh meat guy said, spitting on the ground. “She’s one of them bitches?”
“Watch your filthy mouth Halloway and fuck off!” The spiffy man extended his freshly manicured hand. “Welcome to hell, Molly. I’m Marco Lopez, and I will be your tour guide.”

Marco Lopez had been a telephone installer for five years. He took some college courses and applied to become an outside foreman just as Ma Bell was being sanctioned for having no women, few blacks or Hispanics in management. Marco had a five-year plan, and I was an unwitting part, the part where he blamed everything that went wrong during the two months he was training me on me. Guy falls off a ladder, my fault. Female installer kicks a customer, my fault. Guy crashes truck into a wall, me again. Being the youngest child whose sisters frequently blamed, I accepted responsibility for things I had not done, ranging in importance from telling the guys about a change in the schedule to knocking the entire town of Nutley out of service. Well, the Nutley thing was sort of my fault. I had a new, clueless installer stuck on a pole trying to choose which wire to disengage. Someone (me) had to make an executive decision, so I did, and well, Nutley went dark. However, Marco went much further, using me as the fall guy for things I had no knowledge of or participation in. Frequently I overheard him on the garage phone saying, “Moynahan fucked up.”

Marco wore very tight, pastel shirts, a pen protector, and affected a sort of Miami Vice vibe. He was sexist, racist, and ignorant, but his spiel was impressive, and his ability to lie was awe-inspiring. He called me “Honey” or “Molly, baby”. He lectured me as we made an endless loop from the garage to the jobs where the installers were working, to the Central Office where he made disgusting remarks to the female clerks that worked there, to the diner where he explained his ambition to become a district manager and buy a fiberglass boat and a Corvette.

Technically he taught me nothing, which came as no surprise to his gang who claimed he knew shit since he’d barely performed the job before he was promoted. But maybe it wasn’t his fault I was so ignorant. I’d managed to glide through phone school relying on charm, humor, and a certain amount of flirting. My phone never rang, but my teachers passed me anyway. I actually had no idea what I was doing. Looking at schematics of telephones reminded me of my year of algebra when I didn’t learn a single thing. My perception of the job was that you handed out the orders, yelled at the installers, and then drove around harassing them. I still didn’t understand what made the phones ring and in a month Marco would leave and I would be the new foreman of his residential gang.

The worst aspect of my job was being continually sexually harassed. The other managers, the men in the Central Office, male customers, made audible remarks about my body, my age, and my sexual prowess. Female customers referred to me as Marco’s girlfriend or asked if I was his wife, possibly delivering lunch. They expressed shock and concern when I explained I was shadowing him to become his boss. I didn’t tell them that my salary and benefits would make up for the supposed danger of falling off a pole or electrocution, rabid dogs, and irate customers. Arriving at a house to see whether the installer was nearly finished I would hear the customer telling the installer, “your girlfriend’s here.” There would be muttering, and then the guy would walk outside, clearly embarrassed to have me as a boss and annoyed at the idea of discussing his work with someone so young and ill-informed. And I would be irritated because I wasn’t his girlfriend and if I were, I wouldn’t be stalking him in a hideous white Hornet with New Jersey Bell Telephone in huge letters across its side. When I informed the customer how much longer the job might take, he or she would look at the installer for corroboration, or, once, this woman laughed hysterically and said, “Honey, you just seem like a lost little girl!”

When I returned home after close to twelve hours of nodding, smiling and pretending that my colleague’s crude jokes were amusing, after having older union men openly accuse me of sleeping with executives to get my job, after having strangers call me a “dyke bitch” when I passed them in the garage, I was more exhausted than I’d ever been in my entire life. It was physical but mainly mental, being ignored or harassed or challenged or dismissed, each day had a Sisyphean quality in that I didn’t notice any progress, the person I had a decent exchange with one day would turn around and be mean and crude the next. I wanted to do nothing but sit, drink, smoke, and listen to Lou Reed, but first I would put on my running clothes and pound out some of the rage I was feeling towards my co-workers. Their hatred for me was impersonal, but that didn’t help.

“Most people think you sucked someone’s cock to get here,” Marco said on the second day we rode together.
“There’s a lawsuit. I have a degree from Rutgers.”
“Honey, they don’t give a flying fuck about the law suit or your degree. All they see is some bimbo sitting behind a desk, dicking around with their jobs. And I have a degree from the streets.”
“I’m not a bimbo. I have straight As from Rutgers and need to make a living.”
“Doesn’t daddy pay your rent?”
I wanted to slap him. 

The installers didn’t hate me half as much as they hated Marco. I was ignorant, not evil. I was eager to be of help and brought them cold drinks, coffee, and an occasional donut, which wasn’t stated in the Bell System practices but seemed to help when someone was asked to work overtime or I needed a guy to help another guy on a rough job. When one of the men asked me why I dressed like a man, I loosened the bun and chose slightly more feminine clothes.

The first morning I had the gang to myself, I distributed their work orders and waited for them to leave. But they sat down, lit cigarettes, and began discussing a John Fogerty concert they planned to attend that weekend.
“Can you go to your first job?” I asked, trying to sound firm yet nice.
“No,” Manny said, winking at me.

The minutes passed, and I realized the time for some of their first jobs that had been rated a .5 (thirty minutes) had already passed. My phone rang and it was Ronnie, the inside foreman. I had only met him once with Marco. He was a very fat, very grumpy guy with a red face.
“Why the fuck are you still there?” he said. ”Have they left for their first job?”
“No. We’re all still here.”
“Give me a fucking break!” Ronnie sounded furious. “Did you tell them to go to work?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say exactly?”
“Can you go to your first job, please?”
“Please? You said, please? Put me on the fucking speaker phone!”
I hit the button.
“Listen up, you dumb sons-of-bitches, go to your first jobs! Now! Get your lazy asses out of the garage and call me, you no-nut bastards! Half-hour lunch, and nobody goes home until all the work is done. Call me after every job and don’t you ever pull this shit again!”
They stood up, put out their cigarettes, and waved goodbye as they left. 

At the end of most days, I returned to the garage, locked the door, turned on the radio, and cried. I spent my time getting lost, ignoring comments about my looks, answering intrusive questions as to why I was doing a man’s job, driving that stupid Hornet, which was uncomfortable and hot, so the day passed in a blur of personal and professional humiliations.

photo by Jennifer Pallian

I was sent an installer from business that tied his line hammer to a wire and attempted to throw it across the roof of a mansion in Lodi. The hammer crashed through a skylight and landed in a huge pot of red sauce being made by the mother-in-law of a major mob lawyer. Her husband was also a mob lawyer, and the red sauce had scalded her. Bell System practices explained how to run a wire using a ladder, how to climb a pole, carefully attaching the wire to the masonry or the aluminum siding, nothing that involved line hammers being thrown through skylights. The blame was given to the installer, a madman named Carlucci, who was famous for cutting corners, but as his temporary foreman, I was implicated. My boss, Ed, called me into his office to inform me that I was lucky that this particular installer was known for using non-approved methods to improve his production.

“Carlucci’s been suspended for this dumb shit before, so you’re lucky. Everyone knows he’s a fucking nut.“
“I’m sorry.”
I could see pity in Ed’s eyes. Pity and exasperation.
“Look, you better accept the fact that everything’s getting blamed on you for being a woman and having no experience.”
I nodded.
“You being given a hard time?”
I nodded again. I wasn’t about to cry. Crying was unacceptable.
“Fuck ‘em! Get out there and light a fire under their butts.”

Then something happened that reminded me of how naïve I’d been to think I was prepared for this new life. Two months into running the gang, I had started to feel less incompetent when Danny Bauer walked into my office, leaned over my desk, looked down my shirt, and said, “Hi ya, boss.”

The last time I’d seen him, he was naked in my bed, snorting cocaine off a picture of my parents. I didn’t breathe for what felt like a minute. My pulse sped up, and I put my sweaty palms flat against the gray metal desk.

“What are you doing here?” I could not meet his look.
“I’m your new installer. Check the transfer papers.”

And sure enough, he was. He was also married with three children. He told me he was single. This removed any sense I had of control. No matter how carefully I poured my drinks into potted plants during meetings or refused to participate in conversations about “tight pussies” or how to keep from “blowing your wad” too quickly, no matter how many times I refused to meet at a strip club or asked the men to stop passing around a Hustler centerfold, I was still an interloper who ruined the old boy’s club. After a month, Danny had a serious argument with a customer about how to run a wire. He used profanity, and Ronnie called me and told me to go to the job, apologize to the customer, confiscate his van keys, and suspend him from the job. When I arrived at the address, he was sitting on the van’s bumper smoking a cigarette.

“Hey, boss, lady! How’s it going?”
“I need your van keys, Danny. And you’re suspended.”
He offered me a cigarette and I accepted. We smoked in silence.
“I’m sorry,” I finally said. “This is weird.”
”Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.” He took off his tool belt and threw it in the van, handed me the keys, and saluted.
“You want a ride back to the garage?”
“No thanks.” He looked at me. “Hey, maybe don’t come to work tomorrow.”

The next day, there was a wildcat strike of installers across Northern New Jersey. I crossed a line of installers, and when I got inside, all the other supervisors slammed their doors. I called my mother.

“How can you have caused a strike? What did you do?”
“I had to suspend a guy for swearing at a customer. The union decided it was unjust.”
I didn’t tell her the same guy had been in my bed for three days.
“Honey, can you say you’re sorry?”
“Mom, the installer called the lady a ‘dumb cunt.’”
“People in England think cunt’s a funny word.”
“In New Jersey, it’s not funny. It was like On the Waterfront. I had to walk a gauntlet.”
“Are you Brando?”
“Seriously, they all hate me.”

Ronnie called to tell me to come see him. When I walked in, he spoke without looking up. “We’re letting Bauer off the suspension. I’m telling the gangs you made a mistake. Sorry.”
I sat down in the only other chair. “You ordered me to suspend him.”
“Yeah. This is coming from the top.” He tried to smile, but I could see he wasn’t happy about throwing me so far under the bus.
“Can’t someone else take the blame?”
“Yeah, no. Tough call. Walk it off, Moynahan.”
The next day, everyone returned to work.

After six months of running the gang, my relationship with the men was nearly civil. It was my co-workers who kept up the hostile, sexist comments. One afternoon, Ed, the district manager, invited the five female hires to meet in his office to discuss how things were going. I was excited about bonding with the other women. I hoped to gain a sense of solidarity and possibly communicate with Ed about the challenges of being a female supervisor. But it turned out the other four college hire women were not suffering as badly as I. Harriet was an openly gay, very overweight woman whose hobby was competitive weight lifting. Kelly was the tallest woman I had ever seen, with thick glasses and no chin. Marlene had gone through the Marines twice and was also very overweight. Lynn could only be described with a phrase Catherine used, unkindly, as ‘aggressively ugly.’

Ed’s lips quivered as he claimed to be surprised by my situation in a garage with sixty men. He also suggested I was responsible for the harassment. “You need to be professional. Be careful how you dress.”
The other women nodded and looked at me as if I were wearing nothing but a G-string.
“The men will only respect you if you respect yourself,” Martha said. The other three women nodded.
“This has nothing to do with clothes. This is how I dress every day, and it still happens!”

I was wearing hideous, pleated, dark polyester pants, a button-down Oxford shirt, and steel-tipped black boots. My face was scrubbed clean of makeup, and my hair was pulled back into a tight bun. “Are you saying it’s my fault?”
Ed shrugged. “You’re the only one complaining,” he said, winking at me.
“I can’t help being female,” I said. No one responded. “Maybe I need to wear a bag over my head!”

I was leading a double life, and neither one was working. Most of the other employees at New Jersey Bell integrated their work life with their personal lives, but I kept mine segregated. I signed up for a twice-weekly four-hour acting class at Terry Schreiber’s studio on Washington Square in Manhattan. Twice a week, I left work and drove home, changing in the car, running to the PATH station, trying to slip out of the skin of an incompetent boss to an aspiring actress.

In my freshman year at Rutgers, I was unexpectedly cast in a main stage production of Synge’s tragic play Riders to the Sea. The play is about people who can’t swim riding ponies in the ocean and frequently drowning. It’s Irish and morbid, although much of the language is beautiful. I was likely cast on the strength of my looks and my name. I was sent to the New Jersey Pine Barrens to learn how to spin wool and was taught by a woman who wore a nineteenth-century dress who carded and spun wool on a wheel. The spinning saved me from mortification when the audience started giggling as drowned man after drowned man was carried in on planks and identified by their keening, spinning female relatives. The director’s wife played my mother and her scenery chewing, along with her terrible Irish brogue, completed the debacle.

My New York classmates were either bankrolled by their parents or worked as waiters, bartenders, or drug dealers. No one but me had a “grown-up” job. I felt alien, skeptical, exhausted, and angry whenever I walked into the dark theater. For four hours, I would silence the voices in my head that told me I had fucked up my life and try to find a space to welcome new ideas. Schreiber didn’t waste any time figuring out how to break you down emotionally.

We performed a singing exercise that required you to choose a simple song and sing it loudly while walking like an elephant or a bear, using a cartoon voice, dropping into a low octave, or yelling. After you warmed up, Terry told you to sit on the edge of the stage and sing in your real voice while quietly issuing directions. I hated my voice and singing. Brigid told me I was flat, and when we sang, I was only allowed to chime in with brief bits like ‘Cheri, baby.” My mother sang, and I remembered her voice as pretty. The song she sang was The Streets of Laredo with the dying cowboy, but I couldn’t remember the words, so I chose another favorite, she loved Ray Charles, You Are My Sunshine.

“Sing to your unborn child, Molly.” I couldn’t see anyone beyond the stage lights, but the room was full of other acting students. My longing to be someone’s mother was my secret hope. I feared it would never happen since I was a drunk and a fuck-up. As I sang, I could feel my heart opening and my voice strengthening, but his next cue nearly made me walk out. “Sing to your father, Molly.”
My voice faltered, cracked, and stopped. “I would never do that.”
“That’s the point.”
“I can’t. He wouldn’t like it.”
“Try. Be brave. Make him listen.”

I put my father in the center of the first row, his silver hair gleaming in the light. His face was shadowed, but he was there. I opened my mouth, and this tiny voice emerged. I told him he was my sunshine, my only sunshine, tears streaming down my face. He smiled, but then he looked sad, and then he stood up and walked away. I faltered.
“Don’t stop!” Terry shouted.
“He’s gone,” I said. I was sobbing.
“Make him come back.”
“I can’t.”
“Try, Molly.”

So, I tried. I raised my voice and put everything into the song until I was hoarse. He didn’t come back.
“That’s the truth.” Terry walked into the light, facing my classmates. He must have known I was preparing to leave because he touched my shoulder. “You just witnessed something perfect and real.”

My fellow students looked sad. I felt embarrassed. I wanted to say something about how it wasn’t normal to sing to your father, but what did I know? There were girls whose fathers called them ”Princess,” let them dance on their feet, and hugged them easily. I had never danced with my father.

“How is the job going?” He never called. It was always my mother. Just like he never answered the phone. I felt shy.
“It’s hard.”
”Your mother said you caused a strike?”
“The installers ringed the garage with their trucks. I had to walk past them all. The next day, the inside foreman said I’d made a mistake. He was the one who told me I had to suspend the guy. They blame everything on me.”
“That’s tough,” he said. “You’re doing something very difficult.”

I waited for him to tell me something at home was wrong, my mother had hurt herself, and I was needed. It didn’t seem possible he had just called to talk to me.

He didn’t speak for a minute. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I have to make money so no one can ever tell me what to do ever again.”
This time we were both quiet.
“Come home soon. Your mother misses you.”
Do you miss me? I wondered. “I’m taking acting classes in New York. I had to sing You Are My Sunshine to someone.”
”Another student?”
“My teacher made me sing it to you. You walked out. I kept singing but you never came back.”
He sighed. “I’m so sorry, Molly.” He understood.
We were both quiet. I could tell him I needed help, that I was drinking all the time, that sometimes I went to the edge of places, cliffs, and high buildings, and longed to go over the edge. But I didn’t.

I was discouraged. One man in the garage, Doug, the business foreman, treated me kindly. A few times when I came back into the garage as late as nine, he was still there and stopped at my door to ask how the day went. I didn’t feel any sexual tension, and Doug seemed to genuinely care when he asked whether I was still taking acting classes and how long the commute from Hoboken took me. Early on, before I recognized how perilous my position at work was, I told Marco a few things, such as the fact that I was studying acting in New York City and I lived in Hoboken. Later, I would regret my indiscretion as Marco used acting to make me appear even more unqualified. The other managers lived in the New Jersey suburbs, Lodi, Clifton, Rutherford, or Pompton Lakes. No one lived in Hoboken or went into “the city” unless it was to see Cats or visit Chinatown. Marco also told people I grew up in Princeton as a way to mark me as a snob. Doug treated me like a regular person. I asked him questions about certain procedures, and he was helpful and encouraging. Since Alison spent most nights with her boyfriend, it felt nice to have a friend.

One afternoon in March I was helping a new installer run a wire down several streets, across a busy intersection, connecting to a very cut-up pole. The job was a disaster. The installer was clueless and I wasn’t much better. We had to use a ladder to work on the pole; it was too damaged to climb and time kept slipping away. We went hours past quitting time. It was dark and cold with sleet creating a slick of ice. The installer wanted to flag the job, but leaving a customer out of service was taboo. At the moment, we were both convinced we’d never get the work done, Doug drove up in his car with doughnuts and hot coffee. I gave my guy the much-needed coffee, Doug stopped traffic, and we finished the work. As I walked back to my car, he stopped me.

“Listen, a bunch of us are going to the Lamplighter. You should come.”
I knew the bar as I passed it on my way home to Hoboken. “Really?”
“Sure. It will be fun. Have a few pops and then you’re almost home.”
“Okay.” I drove back to the garage, took my hair down, and put on some lipstick. I felt like I’d finally made a friend at work. The parking lot was almost full, but I didn’t recognize anyone’s car. When I pushed open the door, the bar was dark. After a moment, my eyes adjusted, and I spotted Doug sitting alone in a booth.

“Where is everybody?” I asked, sitting down.
“They’ll show up. What’s your poison?”
“A glass of white wine.” I looked around. Something felt wrong. “Are you sure they’re coming?”
Doug shrugged. Leaning forward, he whispered, “So what if they don’t? Are you even wearing a bra?”

Why didn’t I leave? I crossed my arms in front of my chest, but I didn’t walk out. Somehow, I believed I could make him act differently. I trusted him and wanted him to treat me like a human being. Also, I was exhausted.

“Please don’t talk to me like that!”
The waitress put down my wine.
“Cheers,” Doug smiled. Maybe I didn’t hear him properly. We clinked glasses. “You don’t like that kind of talk?”
I shook my head.
“Then why the fuck walk around showing off that perfect ass?”
“Why are you being like this?”
“Like what?” he licked his lips and leaned forward.
“Stupid, rude, disgusting. I thought we were friends.”
Doug snorted. “Friends? Really? You think I could be friends with a college-educated twat that shows up in my garage and acts like she can do the job?”
I stood up, grabbed my coat, and left.

As I was fitting my key into the car, Doug grabbed me from behind. He twisted me to face him and shoved me against the door.
“Listen, I’m coming home with you.”
“Are you insane? Get away from me!”

I pulled out of his grasp and got in my car, turned onto Route 3 and realized he was chasing me. He had a new BMW, and I had my father’s ancient Fiat that could barely exceed 60mph. Still, I tried to lose him. I kept driving around in circles, believing he’d give up, but the black BMW was constantly in my rear-view mirror. I was exhausted. I’d been getting up at five o’clock in the morning for more than a year and working a twelve-hour day. Finally, I parked. Doug pulled up behind me and followed me to my door.

“I’m calling the police.”
“No, you’re not. If you don’t fuck me, I’m going to tell everyone you did anyway.”
“Why?”
He shrugged.
“You’re married with kids. What’s wrong with you?”
“Fresh meat, baby. Rare and tasty.”

And then I gave up. I thought about screaming but I was embarrassed and afraid. The street was empty, and I didn’t know my neighbors, and if I did make a scene, what would happen? I knew him. I told myself I was overreacting. I’d slept with people I didn’t love before. Hell, I’d slept with people I barely knew. But this was about trust and betrayal. I was so alone. Fitting the key in the lock, I felt his hand on my lower back. Once, I took a self-defense class in college that advised gouging out the eyes of your attacker. But then what? Anyway, I was a big baby.

“I thought you were my friend. You told me you loved your wife.”

He reached out and ripped my shirt open. I cried the entire time he fucked me. My mind was blank. I recalled a line from Plath’s poem, Tulips, “And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow.”

There was silence except for his groans. I didn’t move beneath him; I didn’t touch him with my hands. When he tried to kiss me, I turned my face away. After he got off, I rolled to face the wall, waiting for him to leave. Neither of us spoke. When the door slammed, I got out of bed and ran a bath. Bringing a bottle of wine into the bathroom, lighting a cigarette, I added the lilac bubble stuff Catherine had given me for Christmas. I threw the clothes I’d worn that day into the trash, climbed into the bathtub, and took a huge gulp of wine. I thought about calling Catherine, but it was late, and then what? If I labeled what happened as a rape, I’d have to tell the police. I’d probably be fired, and maybe Danny would testify about the weekend we’d spent together. He was married, and I’d slept with him.

I stared at the ceiling and tried to understand how I could have been so wrong about Doug. He didn’t just want to sleep with me; he hated me for being a woman, for working in a job reserved for men, for being young and pretty. I was incredibly tired. I was twenty-three years old, and I felt ancient. The idea of going back to work, walking past his office, seemed impossible. But if I called in sick the next day, he’d think he’d broken me. I wasn’t going to disappear. I finished the bottle of wine and scrubbed my skin raw.

—Molly Moynahan