Finding My Place at Patrick Dry Goods

          I took the bus downtown to 2^nd south and walked over to 2^nd west from there.

          Patrick Dry Goods had three floors.  On the first floor one could pick out fabric and towels or order them by catalogue.  The second floor carried notions and the third floor carried some baby clothes and socks – mostly through catalogue – but did keep certain brands within the warehouse.

          The elevator used in the building seemed ancient compared to the building itself. It reminded me of the broken (and noisy) elevator in Thoroughly Modern Millie.except the gate pulled down instead of horizonal center.  And there was no dancing.

Mostly items were purchased from name brands and then sold to Ma and Pa stores who couldn’t afford to purchase directly from the name brands as they were unable to meet the minimum amount required.  Patrick’s was like the middle man between the two.

I was hired as a secretary.  My job entailed photographing items, creating catalogue pages, and assisting with the orders.  Secretary was my title, but the job description just sounds so different from what I think of as secretarial.

I liked my boss – though I often wondered how he came to be in that position.  He appeared to have no spine – wasn’t good at making decisions – or perhaps he really did value the opinions of those around him.  I think he included us so that we would make the decisions and he wouldn’t have to.

The first floor and vice president couldn’t seem to keep a secretary – or perhaps he never had one.  Quite opposite from my boss.  He was a control freak.  He had the final say on everything.  Including manipulating my boss – who would let him.

The forms we filled out had three parts.  The white copy to go to the customer, the yellow copy to be filed under the manufacturer ordered from, the pink copy to be filed under the customer whose order we would fill and the blue copy was filed numerically.

I thought it was a very good system.  If for some reason we couldn’t find it under the manufacturer, we could refer to the numerical order or the client.  But that was our department.  I didn’t think our vice president was near as organized – didn’t care for his system at all.  And I told him so.

I actually wouldn’t have said anything at all, except he would rotate me and the secretary from the second floor to do his secretarial work as he was without.  Well, maybe he was without because of his dumb filing system – which I may have accepted except I had my own floor to compare it to.

Everything got filed under the name of the manufacturer.  Everything.  A customer had called to find out where the ordered product was and when to expect it.  He had the receipt number, but did not have the name of the manufacturer – and so the vice president asked me to go through each document filed under the manufacturer until I could find it.

That is when I explained to him how much easier it would have been just to separate all the copies in the first place.  If he had done it like we do upstairs, he could refer to the blue copy or the pink copy in the other file – but it always was his way or no way. 

At my suggestion to separate the copies, he flew off the handle and said if I didn’t like his filing system that I didn’t have to do secretarial work for him anymore.  I didn’t like it and so I returned back upstairs.

Of course, the rest of the week I wondered if I would get fired for speaking my mind – the secretary from the 2^nd floor said she was impressed and wish she would have had the nerve to speak her mind like I did.  Whatever.  I did not do any more secretarial for the vice president.  I stayed on the third floor and sometimes would assist with overflow stock on the forth.

It wasn’t a bad job.  I ended up leaving to work in strip mall mailbox location.  Patrick’s remained strong for another year or so after I quit.  I think Wal-Mart contributed to their downfall. Don’t know what is located there now.  Last time I saw it, the building was vacant.