Friday, January 24, 2014

Greff Fabrics Blues, 1971 (xiii)

Although the Snelling and Snelling placement counselor was neither an intellectual nor apparently very knowledgeable about many other subjects, on the one subject of how to find some kind of job for anyone who walked into her office, she seemed to know all the ins-and-outs that there was to know about that subject.

And, since she realized she could make just as much money placing job applicants who weren't white as she could placing the job applicants who were white, she did not automatically screen out African-American job applicants, as did many of the placement counselors/flesh peddlers at other private employment agencies.

So even an unemployed, economically desperate African-American high school graduate or African-American college graduate who got interviewed by her in her Snelling and Snelling office would discover that she was able to sell him or her to one of her clients who needed a low-wage job slot to be filled; and the African-American job applicant would discover that she could, indeed, produce some kind of job for him or her in the Fall of 1971.

So that's how I ended up getting hired as a low-wage sample room clerk at Greff Fabrics in September 1971.