#hecht's

My very first job was working at the Maryland Renaissance Festival, which is located in my hometown of Crownsville, MD.  I was in high school and I think you only had to be 14 to work there. I sold turkey legs and cannonballs (deep fried meat balls on a stick) out of a makeshift booth and had to wear a “Renaissance” costume, which ended up being one of my Mom’s maternity dresses from the 1970′s.  We didn’t have a sink to wash the extremely greasy turkey leg pans...we washed the dishes with a hose in the gravel adjacent to the booth.We had to listen to the pickle man yelling and screaming about buying his “pickles” (it was all a lewd tactic to sell more merchandise); we’d have to bow to the King and Queen and their royal court as they strolled by. It was a weekend only job and I remember hating getting up early. My best friend worked with me and she had a torrid love affair with one of the older employees. There were bees everywhere. Needless to say I didn’t go back the next year.

I worked at the movies in Annapolis Harbour Center for a while, then worked at Friendly’s, which was a disorganized mess (as all are). I was a waitress and I hated scooping out the ice cream. We had to make a bunch of the food ourselves so I was always in the weeds. I remember one time someone threw up on the floor and no one did anything about it. I wasn’t about to clean it up.

In college I worked at a young women’s clothing store called Georgetown Cotton and Co. This was a dangerous place to work because you could spend your entire paycheck buying clothes, shoes and jewelry with your employee discount. For a while I worked at the Annapolis Mall location, just when I was home for holidays. When I transferred from Salisbury State (on the Eastern Shore of Maryland) to Towson State University (just outside the city line in Baltimore) I started working at their location in Towson Town Center store. I quickly became friends with my co-workers Lashawnte, Kweisi and Nicole. Now Nicole was the ultimately bad influence over everyone. She was the manager and she used to close up the store, take boxes full of clothes, shoes and just walk out with them. When I saw how easy it was, I started doing it too. I’d load up the Ranger Rick mobile (my maroon Datsun Nissan Sentra) with clothes and shoes. Then I would let my friends come in and shop, pretend to ring the up and they’d walk out with a brand new wardrobe. I’m not proud of the fact that I did this, but it happened. Nicole eventually got caught but somehow made out with a car that the company had bought for her. Those were crazy times.

Also in college I worked as a “floater” employee at Hecht Co, a local department store. This meant that I filled in as an employee in different departments each shift. I used to get high with my friend Kelly and then go to work completely blitzed. One shift I’d be in Women’s Petites, the next in Men’s Furnishings. The best of all, however, was working in Women’s Furs. I was first of all stoned, and second of all knew absolutely nothing about selling furs. I was lucky it was a slow day or else I’d have been in really big trouble. Ironically enough, while working there I found a bag of weed on the escalator. This couldn’t have been more appropo. I remember seeing it as I rode the escalator up, just kind of sitting there at the end of the rolling staircase. I was afraid to pick it up because of the security cameras, but eventually ended up taking another loop around and picking it up. I’m sure that bag got me high before my next shift. 

My job after graduating from college was at Donna’s Restaurant/Cafe in Baltimore. I started out at the fine dining restaurant at the BMA, as a hostess. I wasn’t the best at this job--I’d always piss off the waitstaff by double seating them. It was boring (you spent all night at le stande du hostess, as we called it), but I got to work with two of my best friends, along with a bunch of really cool people. Eventually I was promoted to server and I was much better at that. I ultimately moved to the Coffee Bar in Charles Village and worked there as waitress until I moved to California for Graduate School. We had to deal with homeless people locking themselves in the bathroom, or hanging out near the outside dining area yelling and screaming about the merits of Penicillin. Luckily, similar to the BMA, I made tons of friends, many of whom I keep in touch with today.

In graduate school I had many different jobs--TA, RA, Associate Instructor of Composition and Introduction to Literature. However, when I moved to San Francisco I found out just how difficult it was to find a job in my field. I ended up working at this little specialty food shop called Yum. My boss Paul was seriously mental and anal retentive. One of their clams to fame was having over 100 different sodas from around the world in glass bottles. i remember one time I was restocking a certain brand of soda and accidentally dropped a bottle. Paul went ballistic--like it was the end of the world. He was working my last nerve. At the same time I was getting hypomanic and had little to no control over my actions.  One day he was showing me how to do something on the computer, and was just being ultra condescending, as usual.. I had finally had enough. I walked to the back, took my shirt off and proceeded to yell at the top of my lungs “Fuck you Paul, you’re an asshole and i hope your business fails.” Ironically enough within a year the shop had closed.’

After Yum I worked at Gap Kids on California St. This was your typical retail job--never enough hours, crappy pay and bitchy co-workers. Except for the employee discount I hated the job. When I returned to grad school I resumed my teaching, which I enjoyed very much.

So then came the cross country move to Erie. I knew it would be next to impossible to find a job in my field. I got a job teaching one Composition class at Gannon University. My students were so far from the students I had at UC Davis. First off there was no diversity. Second of all they just weren’t very smart. Third of all I gave them interesting assignments like reading David Sedaris essays and they just all stared at me blankly. Not to mention the abysmal pay. One colleague had 3 jobs doing adjunct work at 3 different colleges in the area and still qualified for food stamps. i managed to hang on for a semester and then rolled.

My all time worst job followed Gannon. I had a friend who worked for the Erie Social Security office and said he could likely get me a job. I actually started out applying for a higher paying job--they didn’t hire me because of something I said in the interview that made it seem like I was going to move back to California.  They later called me in to interview for a lower paying job, which was much more stressful. I debated and even though I had major reservations, the promise of a Federal job with good benefits forced me to accept the position. I worked as a Service Representative, on the firing line, the first person you see when you walk into the office. I had to endure 3 months of televised training from Dallas. My mentor would sleep while I watched hours of boring television on benefits, full retirement age, and issuing Social Security Cards. The systems were so antiquated that the computer I worked on was a black screen with a numerical green menu. I felt like I’d been transported back to the 80′s. I quickly found out that dealing with the public at a Social Security Office was a living hell. I got called a bitch, among other things. I had to take the brunt of every client’s anger with the system. I used to go to lunch with my husband and cry in the car almost every day. But the thing was, i was really good at my job. People that had been there for years would come up to me and seek answers to really difficult questions. When faced with a soul crushing bureaucratic job you have to find humor in each day. For me it was names that I came across while issuing Social Security cards. I actually made up a top ten list and sent it to all my friends: 

 Blythe's Top Ten Claimant Name's--ALL FROM THE ERIE PA SOC SEC OFFICE

:1)      Kornayzier

2)      Korquoja (dad) and Korjonn (son)

3)      Lakieta Melonaise—In the words of my co-worker Carolyn:   "It's melon with mayonnaise on it...isn't it?!"

4)      Canyeasia, Taranekia and Envonyia (sisters)

5)      Jakareon Dyzere and Jakaree Dyzereah (relatives, I think brothers?)

6)      Cornasia Blue (and a relative of hers i think, Passion Blue

)7)      Thaiquang

8)      Tajehona L.T. and Dajehona L.L.T. (sisters)

9)      Zetia—acutal conversation I had with a pregnant claimant: "Oh guurrl...I'm gonna name her after that new Cholesterol medicine"—look it up on google!

10)  Jizzelle

The other thing that saved me was making friends with some of my colleagues. My closest friend there was a man named David. We were complete opposites. He was conservative, from the country outside Erie, and loved Nascar and country music. I’m liberal, urban, and hate Nascar and country music. He was also a quadriplegic. And significantly more “disabled” than most of the claimants we waited on. I loved working with him. He was funny and would make fun of the claimants with me. I felt very protective of him and would get upset when people got sassy with him. It was truly opposites attract.

Hutzler's (Courtesy of Jacques Kelly Collection, photo circa 1910)

Check out our full photo gallery of old Baltimore department stores here.