first job after college

I worked for the year between graduating from college and starting law school. I worked for a nasty man who had a vile temper and made no effort to not throw angry abusive tantrums if he felt like it.

In those days, phones were plugged into the wall with official phone company installation and a phone company line. Once, Peter angrily demanded I get him a cup of coffee. This was in 1975 and I was a confirmed feminist. I had talked to him during my interview about how I would not do coffee. It was a trending thing for other young adult women I knew in 1975.

When Peter screamed "Get off your ass and get me a cup of coffee" I said, calmly, demurely, "I don't do coffee. We talked about that."

He ripped his office phone out of the wall, ripping the fat phone company cord and threw the phone at me. Not a phone like today. PHones in those days, which were all leased from phone companies, were clunkier, heavier.

That phone sailed out his office door and whizzed by my head.

"Now will you get me that coffe?" he nastily shouted.

"I don't do coffee."

Then I did get up and run to the ladies lounge. That job was in an old fashioned building. The women's room on our floor, where our small business subletted a suite, was huge, with many stalls plus a large lounge with sofas, coffee tables and mirrors. And in front of the mirrors, a few chairs. I guess when it was designed women cared about checking hair and make up. It was like a women's restroom lounge in old movies, the kind with an attendant only no attendant for mere data entry or typist females.  But lots of room.

I took naps on those sofas. I hid in that lounge whenever Peter was an asshole. He did not dare enter the ladies room! Not in 1975. Plus he would have had to walk past about 40 women, each at their own little data entry equipment desk. And they all heard his angry tantrums.

He was only angry with me, as if it was part of my job description as his assistant.

When he learned I had not only been accepted to law school but I fully intended to actually go, moving to Minnesota, he fired me. I was relieved. I was going to quite in a few weeks. Not having a job freed up my time to execute my move. Starting law school seemed so huge to me! And, having always leaned into lawyerly thinking, I actually thought, as he was firing me, that I would be able to collect unemployment benefits!

it turned out that I was not eligible for unemployment benefits right away.  One had to work X number of months and I missed the cut off.

Oh, and I had integrity. When the right number of months passed soon thereafter, I was a full time student and I wasn't supposed to get unemployment benefits if I was a full time student.

But I was eligible the summer after my first law year. When he learned that I was indeed eligible and that it would cost him, he sounded like he was spitting nickels in rage. That mofo called me up to scream, 9 months after we had parted company.

When he calmed down, he said I was the smartest person he had ever met and he'd hire me for the summer if I wanted to.

No thanks!  I did a clerkship without pay, collected unemployment.

And when I resumed grad school in the fall, I reported my return to full time school to my unemployment.

Then my dad was angry with me. He said I should have kept taking the checks until they ran out. "How would they know you are in school?"

By then, a year of law school under my belt, I could think of several ways they would know, all connected to my social security number, grants, loans, bank accounts. Plus taking unemployment I was no longer entitled to was fraud and could have become cause to deny me admission to the bar.

The bar association in MN and everywhere, I hope, frowns seriously on overt dishonesty in lawyers.

Getting ten or twelve weeks of unemployment the summer after my first year was sweet, helping to make up for all the angry abuse I had suffered working for that pig.

Once, after I had been working for him a couple months, and he knew I was living with my father, he said "What do you do with all the money I give you?"

Without missing a beat, I said "You don't give me any money, Peter. You pay me for the work I do and I am a good worker."  He did not press. I was ready. I wanted to say the amount he paid me was pathetically low. I got paid $750 a month. Many gals I knew just out of college did office support work as they tried to find their way after college. Unless they had rich parents with good connections to more professional level jobs. Lots of women my age started out as admin assistants, a verbal upgrade from secretaries. When Sandra Day O'Connor graduated from Stanford Law, when she applied for some jobs, the HR department said they did not hire female lawyers but she could apply as a secretary. Ha!

When I did graduate from law school, Land O'Lakes was looking for a staff attorney. I phoned about the job and I was told, seriously, that Land O'Lakes did not hire female lawyers but I was welcome to apply to be a secretary.

The going rate for gals with fresh college diplomas doing office support work was a grand a month and that pig Peter had the nerve to ask 'what do you do with all the money I give you"!

I did not tell him I was living at home to save up for law school.  I didn't tell him I had applied or been accepted to a few law schools until I was getting ready to give two weeks notice.

My lucky day when the jerk fired me.