Besides me and Rob, at least two other full-time sample clerk workers generally also worked in the Greff Fabrics sample room each day, as well as one white guy in his mid-to-late 20's who only worked part-time as a sample clerk, as a second job during the hours when he wasn't working at his full-time job as a clerk in a bookstore at the Port of New York Authority bus terminal.
Because the part-time sample clerk was the sample clerk with the most seniority in the non-unionized Greff Fabrics sample room, his main job was assisting Rob in taking the many orders for textile fabrics samples requested by the Greff Fabrics customers and clients that were called into the sample room each day by the Greff Fabrics salesmen; in an historical era before this kind of textile sample order request process had yet been computerized.
Each textile fabric with a different design or color combination that Greff Fabrics sold to its retail customers, own store customers and other wholesalers had an individual code number; and on the 6 rows of shelves-- that reminded me of university library stacks--in the Greff Fabrics sample room basement, there were hundreds of numbered samples. So after being handed by Rob or the part-time sample clerk who had the most seniority an order blank that contained a list of textile fabrics samples that needed to be pulled, it was the job of me and the other sample clerk or clerks who had less seniority to locate the textile sample that corresponded to the listed number. And then pull the textile sample from one of the 6 rows of shelves and bring the textile sample pulled to Rob--who then arranged for it to be shipped or mailed to the appropriate retail store, wholesaler or individual customer.
