Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (26 page)

I don’t look down on my job in any way. I couldn’t say I despise myself for doing it. I feel better at it than I did at the office. I’m more free. And, yeah—it’s meaningful to society. (Laughs.)

I was told a story one time by a doctor. Years ago, in France, they had a setup where these princes and lords and God knows what they had floating around. If you didn’t stand in favor with the king, they’d give you the lowest job, of cleaning the streets of Paris—which must have been a mess in those days. One lord goofed up somewhere along the line, so they put him in charge of it. And he did such a wonderful job that he was commended for it. The worst job in the French kingdom and he was patted on the back for what he did. That was the first story I ever heard about garbage where it really meant something.

 

POSTSCRIPT:
Several months after the conversation he sent me a note: “Nick and I are still on the job, but to me the alleys are getting larger and the cans larger. Getting old.”

 

It’s an automatic thing, waiting on people. It doesn’t require any thought.
It’s almost a reflex action. I set my toilet articles up, towels—and I’m ready. We have all the things that men normally would have in their cabinets at home: creams, face lotions, mouth washes, hair preparations. I don’t do porter work, clean up. That’s all done by the hotel. I work for a concession.

They come in. They wash their hands after using the service—you hope. (A soft chuckle.) I go through the old brush routine, stand back, expecting a tip. A quarter is what you expect when you hand the guy a towel and a couple of licks of the broom. Okay. You don’t always get it. For service over and beyond the call of duty, you expect more. That’s when he wants Vitalis on his hair, Aqua Velva on his face, and wants Murine for his eyes. We render that too, sometimes.

One thing that reduced our intake, that’s when they stopped using the Liberty halves. I’m not talking about the Kennedy halves, they’re not too much in circulation. They’d throw you a half. He don’t have it in his pocket any more. Now he throws you a quarter. You’d be surprised the difference it makes. A big tip is the only thing that is uppermost in any attendant’s mind, because that’s what you’re there for. You’re, there to sell service and you only have about a minute and a half to impress the person. The only thing you can do is be alert, to let the man know that you’re aware of him. That’s the way he judges you.

It builds his ego up a little bit. By the same token, he can be deflated by the right person. An attendant or a captain in a dining room or a doorman—I don’t care who you are, if you’re President of the United States or United States Steel, if you walk into any washroom, you like to be recognized. If you’re with a client—“Hello, Mr. Jones”—that impresses the client. This guy really gets around. The washroom attendant knows him. I’m building him up. If he’s been in before and is rude in one way or another, I can always be busy doing something else.

I can just separate the wheat from the chaff. I know live ones from almost lookin’ at them from so-called deadheads. There’s a bit of snob in me anyway. If you don’t appeal to me the way I think you should, I’m not going to slight you, but there could be just a little difference in the attention you get.

Oh yes, there’s been a change in fifteen years. Not in the size of the tip. That’s pretty well standardized, a quarter. The clientele are different. I always felt that a good servant is a little snobbish. I don’t enjoy waiting on my peers. I feel that if I’m gonna occupy a position that’s menial, let it be to someone perhaps a cut above me. It’s just a personal feeling. I’m not gonna let him feel that—the salesman or the person off the street. Now our customers are not too liberal. Most people who come to conventions today don’t have big expense accounts any more. Everybody feels it all down the line.

It’s open now to the public. Young black and white suddenly become aware of this washroom. It’s just off the street. They’re in here like flies. A lot of this stuff is new to them: “What is this, a barber shop?” It’s free. Sometimes you think you’re down in the subway. It’s a parade, in and out. Some of ’em are real bad boys that are downtown. When they come in, you don’t know if it’s a rip-off or what it is. It has happened. Seven, eight years ago, it was not heard of. It never crossed anybody’s mind.

They just don’t know. I’m not talking about young people. Some of the older people, they come from downstate, a little town . . . One other thing has changed in the past few years, the life style, in dressin’. Sometimes you make a mistake. You figure the wrong guy is a bum, and he’s very affluent.

It has its ups and downs. You meet a few celebrities. It’s always to your best advantage to recognize them. We got a lot of bigwigs from city hall for lunch. The mayor comes quite often. Judges . . .

Most of the time I’m sitting down here reading, a paper or a book. I got a locker full of one thing or another. The day goes. I have a shine man in the back. At least you have someone to talk to. That takes a little of your monotony off it. Deadly sometimes.

I’m not particularly proud of what I’m doing. The shine man and I discuss it quite freely. In my own habitat I don’t go around saying I’m a washroom attendant at the Palmer House. Outside of my immediate family, very few people know what I do. They do know I work at the Palmer House and let that suffice. You say Palmer House, they automatically assume you’re a waiter.

This man shining shoes, he’s had several offers—he’s a very good bootblack—where he could make more money. But he wouldn’t take ’em because the jobs were too open. He didn’t want to be
seen
shining shoes. To quote him, “Too many pretty girls pass by.” (Laughs.)

No, I’m not proud of this work. I can’t do anything heavy. It would be hard to do anything else, so I’m stuck. I’ve become inured to it now. It doesn’t affect me one way or the other. Several years ago (pause)—I couldn’t begin to tell you how
menial
the job was. I was frustrated with myself—for being put in that position. The years piled up and now it doesn’t even occur to me, doesn’t cross my mind. I was placed in a very unusual position. It’s very hard for me to realize it even now. It took a little while, but it don’t take too long, really. Especially when you see other people doing it too. That’s one thing that sped it along. If it were myself alone—but I see others doin’ it. So it can’t be so bad.

 

 

People are a lot more sophisticated today. It’s so easy to say, “Is the shoe shine boy here?” Very few of ‘em use that expression these days. They make very sure they ask for the shine
man
. This fellow I work with—I wouldn’t call him militant, but he’s perhaps a little more forward than I am—he wouldn’t respond if you called him boy. He’d promptly tell ’em; “We don’t have any shoe shine boy here. We only have men shining shoes.”

The man I hand the towel to is perfectly aware of my presence. Sometimes he wants it to appear that he is unaware of you. You have to be aware of him whether he’s aware of you or not. A very common ploy is for two men to come in discussing a big business deal. I stand with the towels and they just walk right by, talking about thousands of dollars in transactions. I’m to assume they’re so occupied with what they’re doing that they don’t have time for me. They ignore me completely. They don’t bother to wash their hands. (Laughs.) I laugh at them inside. The joke’s on them as far as I’m concerned. Sometimes just for the hell of it, when they go back to the urinal, I’ll have the water running: “Towel, sir?” “No, I gotta hurry and get back to eat.” He’s just come from the toilet. He hasn’t bothered to wash his hands. (Chuckles.)

Truthfully, I don’t carry my feeling of menial work quite that deeply that it hurts me. The only time I feel hurt is when I perform some extra service and don’t get what I thought I deserved. I’m completely hardened now. I just take it in stride.

The whole thing is obsolete. It’s on its way out. This work isn’t necessary in the first place. It’s so superfluous. It was
never
necessary. (Laughs.) It’s just a hustle. Years ago, a black man at night spots and hotels would keep the place clean and whatever you could hustle there was yours. He did pretty good at it. Talked a little too much about how well he was doing. Well, people started to look into it. This could be an operation . . .

 

 

(A long pause.)

 

Uh
—
when did they start taking over?

 

(Softly) That I don’t know. It happened in many cities. I’ve wondered about it myself. I—I don’t know.

 

 

(A long pause.) That’s what he told you?
²³

 

 

Well, that’s a . . . (Trails off.)

 

 

I—I don’t know. I don’t question his word, but . . . (A long pause.) I’ll make an application for Social Security in a couple of months. I’ll be sixty-two. I’m not gonna wait till sixty-five. I might not even be here then. I’ll take what I got comin’ and run. (A soft chuckle.)

I got it all pretty well figured out. I’ll still work a little down here. That’ll give me something. To sit down and do nothing, I don’t look forward to that. There certainly is not gonna be that much money that I can afford to do it. (Laughs.) I’m not well off by any means. To say that I do not need much money now is not true. But I’m not gonna kill myself to get it. I could be a house man here, a waiter, but I can’t handle it now.

 

 

I always wanted to be a writer. My mother was a writer. Sold a couple of short stories. I enjoy reading—thought I might enjoy writing. I thought a little of her talent might rub off on me. Apparently it didn’t. Her desire rubbed off on me, though. (Soft chuckle.) Just an idea . . . Most people like to say how rich and rewarding their jobs are. I can’t say that. (As he laughs softly, he walks off toward the washroom.)

 

POSTSCRIPT:
He is a widower and has five grandchildren. He lives with his two unmarried sisters; one is working, the other is on a pension.

 

Rendering is where you get the scrap—fat and bones—from the butcher shops and cook them into a grease. We receive things people normally don’t want. Years ago, we principally supplied soap factories. But today they make all different products from the residue. Tallows, glycerine, bone meal, poultry feed, fertilizer. The bones usually go to glue. Out of the marrow of the bones is where the glue comes from. People have no interest whatsoever in what they throw out. This rendering process takes it and makes millions of dollars off of it. They export this grease to foreign countries. That’s our big business nowadays.

They bring it in by truck. It’s unloaded an conveyors. Bones go one place, the fats go another. They take it through a cooking process and this is where we get the glue. It may start out like water, but when it cooks over and over, it gets almost like a syrup. It’s just a thickening process.

I started out as a laborer. I became an oiler and from that to repairman. When I labored, I transported the meat and the bones after they were separated. Women were doing that at the time. Today it’s automation. No women now. They were eliminated.

The odor was terrible, but I got used to it. It was less annoying when you stayed right in it. When you left for a week or so, a vacation, you had to come back and get used to the thing all over again. I’ve had people that say, “How do you stand it?” I say it’s like anything else. I don’t say you get exactly used to it, but it does get less annoying in time. It’s not a stink, but it’s not sweet either. It’s a different odor altogether. Whenever meat lays around for a few days it smells like that. But once you cook it, it changes to a different odor. I can’t explain . . .

I sometimes have a little fun with some of the guys. I say, “I work in one of the filthiest places in Chicago, I believe.” Some of ‘em work in tanneries and they say, “Your place is sweet smellin’ besides a tannery.” Some of the others kid me; “How do you survive it?” I say, “Did you know the percentage of stuff that we produce here you use it every day?” They says, “Oh? What?” I says, “You brush your teeth with toothpaste?” “Yes.” “You have glycerine in your toothpaste. We produce that.” They says, “Really?” “Do you eat chickens?” “Yes.” “Well, we produce the poultry food, and this is the residue of some of the stuff you see laying around here looking so bad and smelling so bad.” (Laughs.) They just look at me, mouth open. I say, “I know you have in time past kissed good with lipstick.” “Oh yeah.” “Well, look man, we used to supply one of the biggest lipstick factories of all the grease they use. Now don’t kiss no more girls.” (Laughs.)