Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Queens County Revisited: The 1970's (23)

Before the 1980's, if you were the first culturally-straight looking white person to telephone in response to an employer's want ad in a local New York City newspaper's classified section, you could often still get offered the job immediately by the employer, without the employer even checking your references, if--after interviewing you--the employer felt you would "fit in" and be able to learn the work quickly; and if the employer needed somebody to do the work right away and could picture you as being the one doing it.

And since the ex-Long Island Railroad worker had suddenly quit his Bulova Parts Department Clerk job to return to his LIRR job after its strike ended, Bulova was in need of somebody to hire right away; and being both the first person to answer its classified want ad and being white and young (and looking culturally-straight and "corporate"in a suit and tie and without a beard or long hair), I was hired right away as its new Parts Department Clerk. But only after first being interviewed by a well-dressed, culturally-straight-looking white woman in her late 20's in Bulova's upstairs personnel office department on the 3rd floor; and then sent downstairs to the assistant supervisor of the Parts Department--a white woman in her 50's who wore glasses and was not as well-dressed or as fashionably-dressed as the younger woman in the personnel office had been.

The main function of the Parts Department Clerk in my work area of Bulova's building in Woodside, Queens was to respond to the requests of jewelers and jewelry stores around the U.S.A.--who sold and repaired Bulova watches and Bulova clocks-- for replacement parts for Bulova-manufactured watches and Bulova clocks. Ironically--since I still considered myself a New Left "movement" activist in the 1970's--the most common clock replacement part that jewelers and jewelry stores around the U.S.A. requested, was called the "Movement" part of the Bulova clocks. And the second most requested replacement part was for the "pendelums" of the Bulova wall clocks.