Greff Fabrics Blues, 1971 (xv)

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.

Greff Fabrics Blues, 1971 (xiv)

In September 1971, Greff Fabrics was located east of Fifth Avenue, on one of the cross streets in the 50's, between 51st Street and 59th Street. After I entered its street-level showroom, in which Greff Fabrics sold drapes and some fabrics to the wealthy white customers who walked into the store, I was soon greeted by a fashionably dressed white woman who looked like she was in her late 50's, who then introduced me to the head bossman, whose name was Mr. Hamilton.

Mr. Hamilton was a beardless white man who dressed in an expensive suit, expensive dress shirt and expensive tie and looked like he was either in his late 50's or early 60s in the Fall of 1971. Something about him made me feel that he was probably a loyal Republican who had voted for Richard Nixon in the 1968 U.S. presidential election. But since I was initially clean-shaven and didn't start growing a beard and stop dressing in my cheap suit, cheap dress shirt and cheap tie until the week after I received my first paycheck, he didn't seem dissastisfied with the latest college graduate sample clerk that Snelling and Snelling had now provided him with. And after briefly introducing himself, Mr. Hamilton then led me from the showroom down the stairs to the basement room in which the Greff Fabrics sample room was located, where he then introduced me to the sample room clerks' immediate supervisor--an African-American guy in his late 20's or early 30's, whose name was Rob.

Rob didn't seem interested in either talking about current events and politics or the state of the Black Liberation Movement in the early 1970s, but he was an easy-going, friendly guy, who was planning to get married in early 1972; and he was a lenient, but, efficient, immediate supervisor. And after Mr. Hamilton went back upstairs to the Greff Fabrics showroom and his office, Rob showed me what work the sample room clerk job entailed.

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.

Greff Fabrics Blues, 1971 (xii)

Unlike the flesh-peddlers/placement counselors at most of the other private employment agencies in Manhattan, the Snelling and Snelling placement counselor/manager realized that screening out from permanent clerical jobs that only required a high school diploma job applicants in their 20's who were economically desperate college graduates--on the grounds that they would be "underemployed" and more likely to quit their jobs sooner than those job applicants who were only high school graduates--made no economic sense, in terms of generating Snelling and Snelling profits and more company-paid fees from her corporate clients.

So, instead of automatically telling the college graduates who walked into Snelling and Snelling's office that they were "overqualified" for the job oopenings she knew of and there were "no jobs for them"--like most of the other counselors at Manhattan's private employment agencies were telling the white liberal arts college graduates by the Fall of 1971--the Snelling and Snelling employment counselor/manager would tell you she could place you in a permanent clerical job--even if you were a liberal arts college grad; and she would then sell you to the business/corporate client who had a permanent clerical job slot to fill, obtain the clerical job for her young college graduate and collect her placement fee from the business firm/corporate client.

Or to put it another way: This experienced career woman in her 40's seemed to know how to place or peddle the flesh of any job applicant who walked into her office within the Fall 1971 labor market in Manhattan better than any other private or public employment placement officer/counselor/manager in New York City at that time.

Greff Fabrics Blues, 1971 (xi)

The Snelling and Snelling placement manager/counselor was a well-dressed, white woman who used lipstick and make-up and who looked like she was approaching her late 40's in the Fall of 1971. And most men would still be likely to consider her to be physically attractive, despite her age. She also looked like somebody who likely lived in some Upper East Side Manhattan apartment rather than in the outer boroughs and--given how many Midtown Manhattan and Upper East Side business firms and corporate accounts apparently relied on her to screen out job applicants or new hires for them--you got the sense that she had been working at Snelling and Snelling for years.

Compared to some of the other placement counselors/flesh-peddlers I had been interviewed by at other Manhattan private employment agencies, she seemed to have the most experience and expertise in knowing how to obtain lucrative fees for herself and her employment agency by fitting the economically desperate job applicants she interviewed into some open job slot that one of her business accounts needed to be filled for the lowest possible wage or salary.

Greff Fabrics Blues, 1971 (x)

By the Fall of 1971, there were few blue-collar factory job openings for male workers being advertised in the want ads section in New York City newspapers; and neither the New York State Employment Agency nor the privately-owned employment agencies in New York City were able to find many permanent blue-collar jobs in any New York City area local factories for people who filled out applications at their offices.

So unless your father or some other family member or a friend already had a blue-collar factory or construction job--or some other kind of blue-collar job--in some New York City-based workplace, and knew of some job-opening at his or her workplace for which he or she could recommend you to be hired for, it was nearly impossible for an unemployed worker to get hired for some permanent blue-collar factory job in New York City in September 1971. Consequently, during that month, my only realistic possibility for finding a new permanent job seemed to be to either find some Manhattan firm that was willing to hire an "underemployed" liberal arts college graduate or try to locate some kind of clerical job in Manhattan; and since my typing speed in the Fall of 1971 did not yet exceed 50 words per minute, I only was then able to apply for clerical, shipping clerk or clerk-typist office jobs--and not straight typist, dictaphone-transciptionist, statistical typist or secretarial jobs--at this time.

But in the Fall of 1971, there were also few Manhattan firms that were willing to directly hire either a liberal arts college graduate or a male clerical worker; and by the Fall of 1971, most Manhattan firms that wished to hire clerical workers were now relying on private, "flesh-peddling" employment agencies in Manhattan, rather than the New York State Employment public agency, to screen out or refer job applicants for them.

So in September 1971, I ended up getting a haircut and shaving off my beard again, dressing up in a suit and tie, taking a bus and subway into Manhattan, and filling out a job application in the Snelling and Snelling "flesh-peddling" employment agency's East Side and Midtown Manhattan office. And after a few minutes of sitting in the reception area next to three or four other dressed-up, culturally straight-looking unemployed job-hunters, I was called to the desk of the Snelling and Snelling placement counselor/flesh-peddler who was an expert at finding some kind of job within the Manhattan business world for high school graduates and college graduates who were still in their early twenties.

Greff Fabrics Blues, 1971 (ix)

During our conversation, Louise hadn't indicated that she was now involved romantically with anyone else. So when she wrote down on a piece of paper her Manhattan apartment's current phone number, handed it to me, and invited me to give her a call soon, I assumed that meant she was still as interested in possibly getting involved with me in the Fall of 1971 as she had seemed to be in the Spring of 1968. And, given the increased feminist consciousness I had acquired between the Spring of 1968 and the Fall of 1971, I was not now reluctant to possibly becoming involved with an older woman like Louise, who did not feel compelled to wait for a younger man she was interested in getting to know to make the first move.

So a few days later, I dialed the telephone number that Louise had invited me to call. But--to my surprise--instead of the telephone being answered by Louise, it was answered by former Columbia Spectator editor Robert. Yet when she asked me to give her a call, Louise hadn't mentioned anything about Robert or indicated that Robert might be the one answering a telephone in her apartment if I called.

After asking Robert to tell Louise that I had called, I quickly said "good-bye" and hung up the receiver. By 1971 I had become more open and interested in getting closer to Louise than I had been in 1968. But my interest in Louise in the Fall of 1971 had been based on my assumption that--like me--she wasn't then dating anyone else I knew from the Columbia scene at that time. And once I realized that Robert might now be romantically interested in or now already involved romantically with Louise, I had no desire to try to compete with him for Louise's affection.

In retrospect, I perhaps should have been willing to try to get closer in the Fall of 1971 to Louise as a friend who wasn't a lover. But in the Fall of 1971, I was then more interested in getting closer as a friend to a woman who also seemed likely and willing to become a lover, than in getting closer as a friend to a woman who already seemed to be involved romantically with another man.