Literally Just Some Book Report of Studs Terkel's "Working"
My overall thoughts
Studs Terkel's "Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do" is a book of interviews conducted in the early 1970s. Its age shows strongly in certain aspects, but the experiences of the interviewees are largely relatable to anyone today. It's impactful to read the things that people complained about 50 years ago that are still just as much of a problem for people today. It's interesting to note some of the predictions people made about the future and how certain things have changed as technology has advanced while other things have very much stayed the same.
I really liked hearing all the different perspectives in this book. It helps me to know that a lot of people have a lot of the same issues with work that I do. Knowing I'm not alone or weird for having those issues and negative feelings about them helps somewhat with accepting and dealing with those issues and feelings. It seems most people feel very similar on a lot of issues, but we don't talk about them, especially in the workplace where there's always some risk sharing any negative opinions about your employer. It would be nice if that wasn't the case, but this book is a great resource for that information if it's not freely available in real life interactions.
It's quite a thick book at nearly 600 pages (or just over 600 pages if you count the introduction and prefaces), so it covers a wide breadth of jobs and related topics. I initially titled this project "A very inexhaustive book review of Studs Terkel's 'Working'" until I started to try to organize all my notes together. I didn't realize I had noted as much as I did and didn't expect to spend 12+ hours or 2 entire Saturday afternoons writing this, but I'm glad now that it's complete. I tried to separate this into different sections and, much like the source material, I think the various parts of this report will still make just about as much sense as the report in its entirety.
What do people do all day?
People do all sorts of stuff ranging from farming, modeling, prostitution, law enforcement, customer service, management, advertising, factory labor, healthcare, and so on. The book tends to not get into much detail on any one job. I'd find it interesting to know more specifics about most jobs, but if it got into any more detail, it would be prohibitively lengthy. Same goes for this review, which is why I'll leave it at that. Regardless of what people do, even at the highest level of the organizational hierarchy, people mostly do what they're told without being given a satisfying reason. Some people choose what they do (business owners), typically at a significant sacrifice to themselves, or some people choose to not do much of anything (retirees), but often they don't have the ability or resources to do what they'd really want to do or what they'd find meaningful.
How do people feel about what they do?
A lot of people feel unsatisfied with their jobs. There are a lot of mentions of dehumanization.
Cathleen Moran, Hospital Aide: She shares what I imagine is a very common sentiment: she works (Page 471) "As least as possible. Two days on a weekend, just to get me through school, like money for books and stuff." Replace "books and stuff" with "groceries and bills" and that sounds like the majority of working people to me. Although she expresses a lot of problems with and distaste for her job, she says "You’re gonna think I’m nuts, but I do my work well. If I come a quarter after seven, they’re surprised. They don’t mind, because I get my work done before the allotted time. I won’t have anybody saying I did something lousy."
Steve Dubi, Steelworker: (Page 554) "You're not regarded. You're just a number out there. Just like a prisoner." (Page 555) "Forty years of hard work and what have I got to show for it? Nothing... I’m ready for retirement. But the home we live in isn’t paid for yet. The car I’m driving isn’t paid for yet. Nothing to show for forty years of work.”
Ray Wax, Stock Broker: (Page 339) "People like me start out with a feeling that there's a place for them in society, that they really have a useful function. They see it destroyed by the cynicism of the market." (Page 340) "I'm just being manipulated and moved around... We [brokers] pretend we have status in the community, but we're expendable"
There are several mentions that corporations don't value employees as humans and rather they value humans less than the machines that the humans use to do their work.
Ernest Bradshaw, Bank Audit Department Head: (Page 400) "A man should be treated as a human, not as a million-dollar piece of machinery. People aren’t treated as good as an IBM machine is."
Phil Stallings, Ford Assembly Line Spot Welder: (Page 160) "I don’t understand how come more guys don’t flip. Because you’re nothing more than a machine when you hit this type of thing. They give better care to that machine than they will to you. They’ll have more respect, give more attention to that machine. And you know this. Somehow you get the feeling that the machine is better than you are. (Laughs.) You really begin to wonder. What price do they put on me? Look at the price they put on the machine. If that machine breaks down, there’s somebody out there to fix it right away. If I break down, I’m just pushed over to the other side till another man takes my place. The only thing they have on their mind is to keep that line running."
Not only do workers feel dehumanized, but customers/clients/patients/consumers also get dehumanized.
Kitty Scanlan, Occupational Therapist: (Page 494) "A hospital is a dehumanizing institution. People get in and they become arms or legs or kidneys or bladders or something besides Joe Smith the human being. If a hospital was a good place for people to work, it would meet the patient’s needs. There would be no need for me."
Betsy De Lacy, Patients' Representative: (Page 498) "I don't feel I represent the patient. I represent the hospital." (Page 499) "Computers make it worse than before... The cost of an error is so fantastic. Where if you’ve paid ten dollars and I’ve written down a receipt for a hundred, it’s a simple little mistake. All I had to do was scratch out the hundred and write ten. Now if that kind of error’s made, it ties everything up for five days... People see hospitals as money first and health second..."
Nora Watson, Editor/Health Care Literature Writer: (Page 521) "Jobs are not big enough for people... A job like mine, if you really put your spirit into it, you would sabotage immediately. You don't dare. So you absent your spirit from it. My mind has been so divorced from my job, except as a source of income, it's really absurd." Her work encourages stagnation and conformity. Overachievers are punished for rocking the boat.
Some people feel they're good at what they do and that's satisfying - there's pride in doing something well, regardless of if doing that thing is meaningful
Babe Secoli, Supermarket Checker: She manages to enjoy what most would consider a menial low wage job by taking pride in doing a job well and not letting other people get her down. (Page 284) "I love my job. I've got very nice bosses... They don't bother you as long as you do your work... I'm a checker and I'm very proud of it. There's some, they say, 'a checker - ugh!' I'm not ashamed that I wear a uniform and nurses shoes and that I got varicose veins. I'm makin' an honest living. Whoever looks down on me, they're lower than I am."
Eugene Russell, Piano Tuner: (Page 322) "Everything we do in our lives has something to do with respectability. What it appears to someone else is not too important as long as we do a good job and as long as we do it honestly. It’s the real life."
Some people are workaholics and derive enjoyment and/or satisfaction from working (excessively)
This theme is touched on at various points that workaholics get personal fulfillment out of working hard and that's what drives them/brings them joy. They typically admit they don't understand people who don't live to work the way they do. This can lead to problems when they expect the same work ethic out of others.
Steven Simonyi-Gindele, Publisher (Publishing House Co-Owner): Steven shares the sentiment that (Page 449) "[People] must be willing to take whatever they find and they must grow from that... [during the great depression] people really wanted to work. Now the thing is to want something meaningful. I despise that word." Later he seems to contradict himself denouncing that work should be meaningful, but expressing how he finds meaning in work by doing his best. (Page 450) "This is a lie about meaningful work. It comes from teachers, Ph.D.'s who've never really worked... If I've done my best, I find my work meaningful." I find this line hilarious: (Page 450) "I try to assign as many tasks as possible to my staff, so I can reduce my work." He could've said something like "I need to delegate to be able to do all the work I need to do each day," but instead he phrased it like he's just avoiding as much work as possible which at least would make him one of the most honest bosses I've encountered.
Ken Brown, Executive (Business Owner): (Page 463) "I don't like an employee that comes in and it's a cut and dried deal: 'I work so much a week,' and walks out at five o'clock." (Page 465) "I think everybody should work. The world problem that bothers me more than anything is the attitude of younger people. The opportunities they have, and no desire. I hate to see anybody that feels the world owes them a living. All this welfare. The largest percentage of them don't want to do anything." (Page 466) "I'm enjoying [working hard] every day. I don't have to get away for a weekend to enjoy it." Despite saying he enjoys his work ethic, he admits (Page 466) "I probably go through twenty tablets [of mylanta] a day" due to ulcers and he reports sleeping about 4 hours each night.
Some people are retired
Different people have different takes on being retired and how they do handle it. A number of people, especially those that have found meaning in their work, opt to work as long as possible (some examples will be below in the "On Finding Meaning" section). Some people enjoy filling their time with leisure activities and others find difficulty being unoccupied. Some people are ready to retire, but don't have the means to do so.
Barbara Terwilliger, Multi-Talented and Independently Wealthy: (Page 424) "... idleness is an evil. I don't think man can maintain his balance or sanity in idleness. Human beings must work to create some coherence. You do it only through work and through love. And you can only count on work."
Joe Zmuda, Ex-Shipping Clerk: Joe seems to have learned how to live well in retirement despite saying (Page 430) "The first two years [of retirement], I was downhearted." He budgets to live within his means, he mentions enjoying fishing, meeting friends at the local tavern to play pool, going to lodge meetings, and sharing songs, memories, and special occasions like his cousin's wedding with friends and family. He has quite the memory and recalls a date from his youth: (Page 432) "When that goddarn [amusement park ride] went down, she like fainted. I had to hold her. I had to hold her hat. I had to hold her fur piece. I had to hold myself. When we got off, the words she used are not allowed to be printed. Outside of that she was a sweet kid. About fifty-three years ago. This is what we talk about."
Harold Patrick, Freight Elevator Operator: (Page 568) "There's all kinds of problems in retiring. The inflation makes it difficult for a man to retire because the money he gets is wiped out and the number of years he has to be in a union in order to acquire a pension is such that he never reaches it. Most of my friends died on the verge of getting pensions." Although he's forced to continue working an unimaginative, undesirable job, he finds joy in owning a piece of land, sharing it so his children can build homes for their families, growing food, and enjoying the wildlife there.
Other Thoughts
On finding meaning
There are some common themes as far as ways different people find meaning in their work. Maybe the most compelling testimonials were from people who worked towards a meaningful cause. Often times, these causes were rooted in a personal passion or past experience such as Carmelita the nurse who takes exquisite care of nursing home residents after she recovered from being bedridden herself. Other times, people accidentally found themselves in a position where they felt they were making a meaningful difference in the lives of people they work directly with, such as Pat Zimmerman, Walter Lundquist, and Philip Da Vinci who all work a job that is more challenging and less fiscally rewarding than the traditional equivalent of the role they each serve, yet the meaning behind their work motivates them more than anything else. In a similar vein, enjoying your job is a well known cliché to not feel dragged down by your work. This seems to generally be plausible to accomplish for people who possess a known, strong passion like George Allen. These examples are some of the more difficult ones to replicate in practice, which is also what makes them more compelling. We typically expect a greater payoff for a greater exerted effort. There is also a social component of work that can bring meaning. Glenn Stribling and Nino Guidici share a similar sentiment that relying on others and being someone who can be or must be relied upon gives meaning to their work. Additionally, simply enjoying the company of coworkers, clients, or customers can also serve a similar purpose like Tom Patrick mentions. On the other hand, Cathleen Moran expresses resentment at having to engage in conversation with patients she cares for. As in any other aspect of life, other people can make work more difficult or more enjoyable. Perhaps in a simpler dimension, seeing the tangible results of your work can provide a sense of accomplishment and purpose. This is expressed most commonly by people who do physical labor like Nick Lindsay and Carl Murray Bates. Other workers like Phil Stallings and Jim Grayson work on an assembly line and feel their tiny part of assembling cars is meaningless since they never get to see the end product. Phil compares the assembly line to an endless serpent. I think everyone can intuitively agree that having some evidence of your work is more satisfying than not. One of the most obvious yet remarkable things about this book is how many people dislike their work, or at least some aspects of their work. There are people like Fred Ringley who acknowledged their distaste for their job and decided to make a change something completely different and potentially looked down upon, but ultimately more satisfying. Even after finding that more satisfying occupation, Fred maintains his ability to change his life again in the future. Mario Anichini describes his experience returning to stonework that he enjoyed as a child after 25 miserable years working as a butcher out of necessity. Trying different things or returning to things that you previously enjoyed doing is a powerful option to try to find meaning in work. Regardless of what you do and how you feel about it, there is still potential to find meaning in your work by doing your best. Babe Secoli seems more than happy to work as a supermarket checker by doing her job well. Another aspect that Babe embodies is disregarding other people's beliefs and thoughts about you. Jill Torrance echoes this sentiment. Other people's opinions are fickle and not important to your life in the grand scheme of things, so you should not give them too much weight. It's better to concern yourself with what is in your control and put your best effort forth to accomplish whatever it is you care to do. Finally, I think Rebecca Sweeny's quote below is powerful even though I'm not sure how I want to interpret it. I can at least say that finding meaning - finding your calling - is a process and not so much about an achievement or a destination. From the rest of the book and from my own experience, I can confidently conclude that finding meaning is not about external measures of success such as money and status. What brings you meaning is up to you to determine, seek, and maintain.
Carl Murray Bates, Stonemason: (Page xlviii-xlix) "There’s not a house in this country that I haven’t built that I don’t look at every time I go by. (Laughs.)... That’s the work of my hands... I can’t imagine a job where you go home and maybe go by a year later and you don’t know what you’ve done. My work, I can see what I did the first day I started. All my work is set right out there in the open and I can look at it as I go by. It’s something I can see the rest of my life."
Mike Lefevre, Steelworker: (Page xxxi) "You can’t take pride any more. You remember when a guy could point to a house he built, how many logs he stacked. He built it and he was proud of it. I don’t really think I could be proud if a contractor built a home for me. I would be tempted to get in there and kick the carpenter in the ass (laughs), and take the saw away from him. ’Cause I would have to be part of it, you know."
Jill Torrance, Model: (Page 53-54) "One day someone will say you're great. In the next studio, they'll say you're terrible. It changes from minute to minute: acceptance, rejection. Suddenly it doesn't mean anything. Why should you base your whole day on how you look in the morning?"
Nino Guidici, Pharmacist: (Page 315) "A lot of people, it’s drudgery to go to work. Not me... It’s a normal thing for me than just not doing anything. I figure that I’m kinda needed. If you don’t show up, you might be putting somebody out a day. If I took off and walked down the street for an hour, I like to hear him say, “Where in the heck have you been? Gee whiz, it was busy. I needed you.” Some fellas would call that a bawlin’ out and get mad. I wouldn’t. If you come down and they’d say, “We really didn’t need you,” I might as well quit. I like to feel kinda needed. It kinda feels good. You say, well, you’re of some value."
Ruth Lindstrom, Practical Nurse: (Page 483) "I’m never gonna retire. What for? As long as I can be useful and needed someplace, I’ll work. Even if I can’t scrub floors, I’ll do some other things. When that day comes when I can’t work, I’ll be a lost soul."
Pat Zimmerman, Alternative School Teacher: (Page 493) "I don’t make any judgments about my work, whether it’s great or worthless. It’s just what I do best. It’s the only job I want to do. I work hard because I have to. I get tired. At four I feel as though I’m ready to die. (Laughs.) I don’t feel bad about it. This is my life. I just am."
Carmelita Lester, Practical Nurse at a Nursing Home: She's clearly passionate about providing genuine care. She talks about her personal experience with an undiagnosed wholly debilitating disease that was miraculously cured, according to her, by her faith. After that experience, it seems she's dedicated to serving people who are in a situation similar to hers. (Page 504) "I feel sorry for everybody who cannot help themselves. For that reason I never rest. As soon as I’m off one case I am on another."
Fred Ringley, Ex-Salesman, Farmer: (Page 532-533) "We were caught up in the American Dream. You’ve gotta have a house. You’ve gotta have a country club. You’ve gotta have two cars. Here you are at ten grand and getting nowhere. So I doubled my salary. I also doubled my grief... We got nervous and we started drinking more and smoking more. Finally, one day we sat down. We have everything and we are poor." After successfully switching life paths and becoming a farmer: (Page 536) "My personal status with somebody else may have gone down. My personal status with myself has gone up a hundred percent." Fred finishes by confirming he retains the ability and motive to move on to greener pastures, should the opportunity or desire strike. (Page 537) "But one thing we’ve still got—the one thing my wife would not let me get rid of—is we still got the trailer. We can go again if we have to. If we found something better, maybe a higher mountain top to live on, we’d go live there."
Philip Da Vinci, Lawyer: (Page 537) "I finally got into something where I actually felt useful. It’s been two years now. I’m still a lawyer, but it’s different." (Page 539) "Here you’re aware of the suffering of your client... You get to know them intimately. We’re very close. I’ve been in their houses. They come to my house. I know them all by their first names... They’re my friends. The people I worked with at the company, I never saw them after five o’clock. I would never think of sharing my thoughts with those people. The people I work with here are my life."
Mario Anichini, Stonecutter: Mario is evidence that you can change careers late in life and that returning to doing something you enjoyed as a kid can bring remarkable fulfillment. (Page 543-544) "In Italy I was working in marble a little bit. I was a young kid. In Lucca, a young kid do this, do that. Little by little I learned. When I was about twenty I came to this country here. I couldn’t do anything like that, because of here we had a Depression. From ’27 year to ’55 I was a butcher. For twenty-eight years... I started to get a little ulcer in my stomach. I had sciatica. So I hadda quit. So I stay for one year, I don’t do nothing. But after, I feel I could do something. The plaster business, the tomb business. As soon as I started it, I started to feel better... People will laugh. Every time they see me, they see me better and better."
Walter Lundquist, Industrial Designer: (Page 527) "Now fifty percent of my time is taken up with antiwar work. Of course, nobody pays for this kind of message. The big problem I’m facing is how to support my family. I’m straddling two worlds and I’m trying to move over into the sane one. But I can’t make a living out of it."
Glenn Stribling, Car Service Station Owner: (Page 545-546) "There’s never a day long enough. We never get through. And that’s a good way to have it, ‘cause people rely on you and you rely on them..."
Father Leonard Dubi, Priest: (Page 559) "...If I decided I could not be happy and personally fulfilled, I'd step out as a priest. The work of a priest is to bring life to people. If I don't have that life inside me, I can't give that life away." (Page 564) "To be free is to have some kind of say-so about your life."
Jack Currier, Adult Educator: (Page 564) "In order to do a better job, I have to become a better man..." (Page 565) "I can imagine being fired from my job. But there's no way [my boss] could deprive me of the satisfaction that comes from doing my job well."
Tom Patrick, Fireman: (Page 580) "I couldn't wait to go to work, because I felt at ease with these people."
George Allen, Football Coach: (Page 387) "We've been working in the off-season as much as twelve, fourteen, fifteen hours a day. When the season begins, it's seven days a week, morning, noon, and night... If you enjoy your job, it isn't work. It's fun. If you detest going to work, then you're looking for ways to beat the clock."
Rebecca Sweeny: (Page 531) "When I was in high school I thought a vocation was a particular calling. Here's a voice 'Come, follow me.' My idea of a calling now is not: 'Come.' It's what I'm doing right now, not what I'm going to be. Life is a calling."
On the overall concept of business and working, how work changes over time
There are multiple mentions of monopolization of various industries. Smaller businesses are destroyed or bought out by larger businesses.
Ernest Bradshaw, Bank Audit Department Head: (Page 399) "These big corporations are gonna keep on growing and the people become less and less. The human being doesn't count any more. In any large corporation it's the buck that counts."
Larry Ross, Ex-President of Conglomerate and current Consultant: (Page 411) "My guess is that twenty corporations will control about forty percent of the consumer goods market."
Career-oriented people are often gunning for their boss' jobs while those bosses are scared of people taking their jobs from the bottom and scared of being reprimanded or fired from higher bosses not satisfied with their team's work.
Lilith Reynolds, Project Coordinator: (Page 344-345) "There's a theory I have. An employee's advancement depends on what his supervisor thinks of him, not on what the people working for him think. The regional director's job depends on his friendship in Washington. So the best thing for him to do is not challenge the system, not make waves. His future depends on being nice to the people who are making the decisions to make the cuts that are hurting his employees. So he's silent. But the people down here, the field representatives, who know what's going on, make waves. So the director tries to get rid of the most troublesome."
Larry Ross, Ex-President of Conglomerate and current Consultant: (Page 412) "If [an executive] comes before his board of directors, there's always the vise. The poor sonofabitch is caught in the squeeze from the people below and the people above... I left that world because suddenly the power and the status were empty. I'd been there, and when i got there it was nothing. Suddenly you have a feeling of little boys playing at business."
It seems as time goes on, workers in low positions in any organization's hierarchy (i.e. people who do the majority of the work and work directly with customers/clients) have less control and more regulations to deal with.
Steve Carmichael, Government Relations Coordinator: Explains how the system drains you and resists change even when you have the best intentions. (Page 341) "I’ll run into one administrator and try to institute a change and then I’ll go to someone else and connive to get the change. Gradually your effectiveness wears down. Pretty soon you no longer identify as the bright guy with the ideas. You become the fly in the ointment. You’re criticized by your superiors and your subordinates. Not in a direct manner. Indirectly, by being ignored. They say I’m unrealistic. One of the fellas that works with me said, “It’s a dream to believe this program will take sixteen-, seventeen-year-old dropouts and make something of their lives.” This may well be true, but if I’m going to believe that I can’t believe my job has any worth."
Nino Guidici, Pharmacist: Younger readers may not know that pharmacists at one point had some ability to independently provide medicine/medical treatment. Pharmacists in the past would, not uncommonly, make medicines specific to a patient's needs, for example creating a tincture or solution with a specific dose of medicine or a combination of medicines. However, now (Page 313) "All we do is count pills. Count out twelve on the counter, put 'em in here, count out twelve more... Today was a little out of the ordinary. I made an ointment... Doctors used to write out their own formulas and we made most of these things. Most of the work is now done in the laboratory. The real druggist is found in the manufacturing firms."
I enjoyed when multiple different people with the same job shared their different perspectives
Phil Stallings and Jim Grayson are both Ford Spot Welders
Jim is a business administration student who seems more openly displeased with assembly line work than Phil. So much so that Jim retaliates against his foreman (Page 167) "I seldom miss a day’s work and I do my work well. But this guy’s been riding me about any little thing. One night he said the wrong thing. I was going on my break. You’re supposed to wear your safety glasses all the time. They don’t enforce these things. I took mine off just to wipe my forehead. He said, “Get your glasses on!” It’s these nagging little things building up all the time. Always on my back. So I grabbed him, shook him up a little bit."
Phil also seems dissatisfied with the work, but Phil's response is to try work hard and keep his head down enough to rise through the ranks at Ford and become a utility man so he has more variation in his work. Jim responds (Page 168) "Well, that’s a hell of an ambition. That’s like the difference between the gravedigger and the one who brings the coffin down. So (laughs), he can have it. My ambition is higher than Phil’s. There’s no time for the human side in this work. I have other aims... Once I get into industrial relations—I got corporate law planned—then it won’t be a job any more ’cause I will enjoy what I’m doing. It’s the difference between a job and a career. This is not a career."
Three police officer interviews appear in this book, as well as one firefighter who was previously a police officer.
Vincent Maher is very authoritarian and describes using threats and physical violence to establish and maintain control in public and in his own family. He has been accused of being a bigot and some of his comments can lead a reader to understand why that might be.
His interview opens with a complaint about being accused of brutality. (Page 129) "I make an arrest on someone who commits a crime of violence. I have to resort to a physical type of arrest to subdue him, I might have to shoot the person. I’m chastised for being brutal. It’s all right for him to do what he wants to do against myself or legitimate people, but in no way I can touch him. I don’t see the justice. I’ve been accused of being a bigot, a hypocrite, and a few other niceties. I’m a human being with a job. I judge people on face value. Just because a guy wears long hair doesn’t make him a radical."
(Page 132) "You walk up to some of these people and they’ll spit in your face. If you let them, then I’ve lost what I am as a policeman, because now I’ve let the bad overrule me. So I have to get physical sometimes. It isn’t done in a brutal sense. I call it a corrective measure. You get these derelicts on the street. I’ve dealt with these people for years. You whack ’em on the sole of the foot. It isn’t brutal, but it stings and he gets the message: he’s not supposed to be sleeping on the street. “Get up!” You get him on his feet and say, “Now go on back to junk heaven that you live in and get some sleep.” Someone coming down the street sees me use the stick on the sole of his foot is gonna scream that I’m brutal."
(Page 133) "There’s a picture in the Loop—Sweet Sweetback’s Badassss Song—it is strictly hate-white. Nobody pickets that. You can imagine an anti-Negro flick? These people can get away with anything they want. But if you try it, zero, you’ll get nailed. The radicals and the black militants, they’re the dangers."
(Page 134) "I handed one parent a stick. I said, “Lady, when I leave this room and you don’t apply that stick to this young lady’s mouth, I will. I’ll also sign charges against you for contributing to the delinquency of this child. You don’t know how to be a parent.” If I was sitting at a table with my father and threw a temper tantrum, I got knocked on my rear end. When I was picked up I was told, “You eat it, ’cause it’s there.” The law is there. If you don’t want the law and you don’t like my country, get out."
(Page 136) "Sometimes I feel like a father out there. You don’t really want to paddle your kid’s rear end. It hurts you ten times more than it does him. But you have to put the point across, and if it becomes necessary to use a little constructive criticism . . . I will think of my father a lot of times. No way did he spare the rod on my rump. And I never hated him for it, no way. I loved him for it. My sons adore me. My wife can’t understand this. If they do something wrong in my presence—(mumbles) even though I don’t live in that house —they get punished. My wife said, “You’re so hard with them at times, yet they worship the ground you walk on.” When I used the belt on them I’d always tell them why. They understand and they accept it. My oldest boy is now on the honor rolls at Notre Dame High School."
Renault Robinson, quite contrary to Vincent's strong belief in the authority he represents, shares insight into systemic issues with the police force.
(Page 137) "A lot of young blacks are misdirected when they first join the force. I soon became disenchanted. I watched the double standard at work, blacks being treated one way and whites the other. I learned one thing: whites control the vice and gambling in this city. They make most of the money out of it and very few are arrested. The people being arrested are blacks."
(Page 140) "A large amount of young white officers are gung ho [to go to black neighborhoods]. It’s an opportunity to make a lot of arrests, make money, and do a lot of other things. In their opinion, black people are all criminals, no morals, dirty and nasty. So the black people don’t cooperate with the police and they have good cause not to. On the other hand, they’re begging for more police service. They’re overpatrolled and underprotected."
(Page 141-142 describes a litany of reportedly frivolous misconduct charges against Renault) "About five years ago he organized the Afro-American Patrolmen’s League “to improve relationships between the black community and the police. We felt, as policemen, we were the only organized group that could do something about it. Everything else seemed to be failing. We felt as black policemen we could effect a change. The police department would like to get rid of us. I’m still on the force. I don’t know for how long. I got suspender a numbers of times. My losses totaled about fifteen thousand dollars.” He served a thirty-day suspension, “which will be another thousand.” The charge: conduct unbecoming an officer. He had been passing out League literature to black policemen at the station and was arrested on the spot for disorderly conduct. “White officers pass out leaflets all day long. There are twenty-four white groups and not one was ever arrested or bothered. If you go into any police station right now you’ll find at least five or six different brochures on the bulletin board about organization activities.” He has been suspended for “Traffic violations” numerous times. “I got five tickets, written the same day. It was impossible.” He was recently fined two hundred dollars for parking illegally—a matter of tickets and arithmetic. He had been suspended for failing to follow the “proper medical role procedure.” He has just been informed that dismissal charges have been instituted against him by the superintendent. The circumstance: He was attending a play at a local theater in the company of his wife and a colleague. He had been invited by the management to comment on the work; thus, his presence. Fifteen policemen sought to eject him and his party. They refused to leave. In court, the charge was disorderly conduct. His wife and his friend were acquitted, he was found guilty. He has, for the second time, been assigned to the Traffic Division, pending charges. When the League was formed, he Suddenly had been transferred from his plainclothesman job in the black area to the Loop."
Bob Patrick recalls his experience on the emergency service patrol team which includes saving multiple lives on various occasions. His perspective is focused more on how he helps people in his work and how he actively disregarded prejudices on more than one occasion. He also shares experiences of very morbid, disturbing situations and how he feels about those and deals with those situations and feelings.
(Page 573) "One of the calls we went on was a baby in convulsions, stopped breathing. The elevator was out of order and we ran up eight flights of stairs. This was a colored baby. It was blue. I had taken the baby from the aunt and my partner and I rushed down the stairs with the mother. In the radio car I gave the baby mouth to mouth resuscitation. The baby had regurgitated and started breathing again. The doctor at the hospital said whatever it was, we had gotten it up. The sergeant wanted to write it up because of the problem we were having in the area. For a white cop doin’ what I did. But I didn’t want it. I said I would do it for anybody, regardless of black or white. They wrote it up and gave me a citation. The guys from the precinct was kidding me that I was now integrated. The mother had said she was willing to even change the baby’s name to Robert after what I did."
(Page 574) "Fifty to seventy-five percent of our calls are for oxygen. I had people that were pronounced DOA by a doctor—dead on arrival. We have resuscitated them. I had brought him back. The man had lived for eight hours after I had brought him back. The doctor was flabbergasted. He had written letters on it and thought we were the greatest rescue team in New York City. We give oxygen until the arrival of the ambulance. Most of the time we beat the ambulance. We set up a net for jumpers. We caught a person jumping from twenty-three stories in Manhattan. It musta looked like a postage stamp to him. We caught a girl from a high school four stories high. If it saves one life, it’s worth it, this net."
(Page 574) "We get some terrible collisions. The cars are absolutely like accordions. The first week we had a head-on collision on a parkway. I was just passing by when it happened and we jumped out. There were parents in there and a girl and a boy about six years old. I carried the girl out. She had no face. Then we carried out the parents. The father had lived until we jacked him out and he had collapsed. The whole family was DOA. It happens twenty-four hours a day."
(Page 574-575) "A patrolman will call you for a guy that’s DOA for a month. He hanged himself. I’m cuttin’ him down. You’re dancing to get out of the way of the maggots. I caught myself dancing in the middle of the livingroom, trying to get a ring off a DOA for a month, while the maggots are jumping all over my pants."
(Page 575) "One time we had a guy trapped between the platform and the train. His body was below, his head was above. He was talking to the doctor. He had a couple of kids home. In order to get him out we had to use a Z-bar, to jack the train away from the platform. The doctor said, “The minute you jack this train away from the platform, he’s gonna go.” He was talkin’ and smokin’ with us for about fifteen minutes. The minute we jacked, he was gone. (Snaps fingers.) I couldn’t believe I could snuff out life, just like that. We just jacked this thing away and his life. And to give him a cigarette before it happened was even worse."
(Page 575) "I’m afraid that after seein’ so much of this I can come home and hear my kid in pain and not feel for him. So far it hasn’t happened. I hope to God it never happens. I hope to God I always feel."
(Page 576) "They feel a life is more important than anything else. Most cops feel this, yes."
(Page 577) "When we had him face down a patrolman grabbed him by the hair and slammed his face into the ground. I grabbed his wrist, “Hey, that’s not necessary. The guy’s handcuffed, he’s secure.” I brushed the kid’s hair out of his eyes. He had mod long hair. My kid has mod hair. The guy says, “What’s the matter with you?” I said, “Knock it off, you’re not gonna slam the kid.”"
(Page 577) "It sounds like a fairy tale to the guys at the bar, in one ear and out the other. After a rough tour, a guy’s dead, shot, people stabbed, you go into a bar where the guys work on Wall Street, margin clerks, “How ya doin’? What’s new?” You say, “You wouldn’t understand.” They couldn’t comprehend what I did just last night. With my wife, sometimes I come home after twelve and she knows somethin’s up. She waits up. “What happened?” Sometimes I’m shaking, trembling. I tell her, “We had a guy . . .” (Sighs.) I feel better and I go to bed. I can sleep."
(Page 578) "I feel like I’m helpin’ people. When you come into a crowd, and a guy’s been hit by a car, they call you. Ambulance is standing there dumbfounded, and the people are, too. When you give orders to tell this one to get a blanket, this one to get a telephone book, so I can splint a leg and wrap it with my own belt off my gun, that looks good in front of the public. They say, “Gee, who are these guys?”"
(Page 578) "This morning I read the paper about that cop that was shot up. His six-year-old son wrote a letter: “Hope you get better, Dad.” My wife was fixin’ breakfast. I said, “Did you read the paper, hon?” She says, “Not yet.” “Did you read the letter this cop’s son sent to his father when he was in the hospital?” She says, “No.” “Well, he’s dead now.” So I read the part of it and I started to choke. I says, “What the hell . . .” I dropped the paper just to get my attention away. I divided my attention to my son that was in the swing. What the hell. All the shit I seen and did and I gotta read a letter . . . But it made me feel like I’m still maybe a while away from feeling like I have no feeling left. I knew I still had feelings left. I still have quite a few jobs to go . . ."
Tom Patrick is a fireman, but he recounts his previous experience as a police officer. It's not clear to me if the Vince he mentions is Vincent Maher or a different Vince, but Vince seems similarly aggressive and authoritarian. Tom also mentions the problem with arrest quotas that Renault Robinson acknowledged.
(Page 582) "I was with a cop who arrested a guy for starin’ at him! Starin’ at him! The cop I was with, Vince, he had a baby face and the guy on the bus stop kept lookin’ at him because this cop never shaved. He said, “Motherfucker, what’re you lookin’ at?” The guy said, “I’m just lookin’.” I said, “The guy probably thinks you’re not a cop ’cause you got a pretty face.” Vince puts the night stick under the guy’s chin. Naturally when a guy puts a night stick under your chin, you push it away. As soon as you do that, you got an assault. He arrested the guy. The guy was waitin’ for a bus! With this same Vince, another kid came around, a Puerto Rican seventeen years old. They all knew me. He says, “Hi, baby,” and he slapped my hand like that. “How you doin’, man?” Vince said, “What’re ya lettin’ the kid talk to you like that for?” I said, “This is the way they talk, this is their language. They ain’t meanin’ to be offensive.” He says, “Hey fucko, come over here.” He grabbed him by the shirt. He said, “You fucker, talk mister, sir, to this cop.” He flung the kid down the ramp. We had a little police room. His girl started crying. I went down after this Vince, I said, “What’re you doin’? You lock that fuckin’ kid up, I’m against you. That fuckin’ kid’s a good friend of mine, you’re fuckin’ wrong.” He said, “I’m not gonna lock him up, I’m just gonna scare him. You gotta teach people. You gotta keep ‘em down.”"
(Page 584) "The more arrests you make, they got the assumption you’re a better cop, which is not right. They put pressure on me to make arrests. You gotta get out and you gotta shanghai people because you got the sergeant on your back. It comes down to either you or the next guy. You got a family and you got everybody fuckin’ everybody . . . It’s crazy, know what I mean?"
Some interesting difficulties with work
There are certain jobs that seem great and highly desirable to many people, but in reality they still have problems. To some degree they have similar problems to most other jobs. For example, there was an entire section of professional athletes. It's interesting to hear the negatives of professional sports. It's easy to assume it's all rainbows and sunshine for big league players, but injuries and constant travel and poor treatment from executives still sucks for athletes even if they're rich and famous.
Eric Nesterenko, Hockey Player: Eric presents the idea of "pure play" as in playing for the sake of fun and enjoying the game, rather than playing for your parents approval or playing in a highly organized group for profit. (Page 381-382) "There’s an irony that one get paid for playing, that play should bring in money. When you sell play, that makes it hard for pure, recreational play, for play as an art, to exist. It’s corrupted, it’s made harder, perhaps it’s brutalized, but it’s still there." (Page 383) "It can’t be just a job. It’s not worth playing just for money. It’s a way of life. When we were kids there was the release in playing, the sweetness in being able to move and control your body. This is what play is. Beating somebody is secondary. When I was a kid, to really move was my delight. I felt released because I could move around anybody. I was free. That exists on the pro level, but there’s the money aspect. You know they’re making an awful lot of money off you. You know you’re just a piece of property. When an older player’s gone, it’s not just his body. With modern training methods you can play a long time. But you just get fed up with the whole business. It becomes a job, just a shitty job. (Laughs.)" (Page 383-384) Eric also summarizes what's so appealing to so many people about sports "The whole object of a pro game is to win. That is what we sell. We sell it to a lot of people who don’t win at all in their regular lives. They involve themselves with their team, a winning team."
Bruce Fletcher, Quiz Kid (TV and Radio Show Cast Member): (Page 513) Bruce received a lot of attention appearing on radio and TV starting at the age of 7 and ultimately came to regret it. "I would have preferred to grow up in my own particular fashion. Had I grown up as others did, I would have come out a much better person... I wish it had never happened." I think in the 21st century, most people are familiar with tragedies of various child stars, but I find it noteworthy to read the same thing happening in the early 1940s.
James Carson, Yacht Broker: Based simply on the job title, I was eager to read this interview. I was expecting him to be a gilded car dealership salesman, but in reality he's a matchmaker of people who want to sell used boats and people that want to buy them. Working for himself, he recounts no shortage of troubles with buyers and sellers. (Page 327) "I find unfortunately, after forty-one years in this business, that up to eighty percent of the people take advantage of a situation. (Laughs.) It’s a sour way to look at humanity, but it’s the way I have found it." He gives an example of wining and dining potential buyers on the yacht of their fancy, but they really have no intention of buying and just want a free boat ride. He gives one example (and implies there are many more like it) of a buyer not paying the agreed upon commission upon closing a sale. (Page 330) "I said, “Charlie, what about my commission?” It came to over twenty-eight hundred dollars. He looked at me real blank. He glances at his coat pocket where he’d keep his wallet and said, “Oh, I forgot my checkbook.” He didn’t have to finish the sentence. I knew I was in trouble with this man, ’cause I had nothing in writing. He brought in eight hundred dollars in cash and said, “This is unreported. You don’t have to show it on your books. Internal Revenue will never know anything about it. I’m doing you a favor.” I said, “You’re trying to beat me out of two thousand bucks and put me in a penitentiary."
On civil rights, prejudices, and society
This book, taking place in the early 1970s, has no shortage of comments about civil rights. Women's Liberation and racial integration were two big ones that come up often. It was also funny to me any time I came across a prejudice based on a man's hair being too long, or at least it would be funny if people hadn't taken it so seriously. Nuclear weapons and environmental concerns also surprisingly came up in spots. Unfortunately, a lot of these sentiments based in hate, stereotypes, and/or ignorance still exist today, some of them practically repeated verbatim (see Rose Hoffman). It's a little depressing to think about, but it helps to remember there certainly has been a lot of progress as well that isn't obvious just from reading this book.
Barbara Herrick, Writer/Producer: Barbara gives several examples of the ways that women are treated poorly in her industry and how she herself has been mistreated. One story is of the way a coworker approached her on a business trip. (Page 68) "We were sitting at the bar and he said, “Of course, you’ll be staying in my room.” I said, “What? I have a room.” He said, “I just assumed. You’re here and I’m here and we’re both grown up.” I said, “You assumed? You never even asked me whether I wanted to.” My feelings obviously meant nothing to him. Apparently it was what you did if you’re out of town and the woman is anything but a harelip and you’re ready to go. His assumption was incredible." She recounts the long winded explanation that was necessary to get this man off her back because (Page 69) "I could never say to him, “You don’t even understand how you insulted me.""
Dolores Dante, Waitress: (Page 294) “Everyone says all waitresses have broken homes. What they don’t realize is when people have broken homes they need to make money fast, and do this work. They don’t have broken homes because they’re waitresses.”
Jesusita Novarro, Housewife: (Page 303) "Welfare makes you feel like you’re nothing. Like you’re laying back and not doing anything and it’s falling in your lap. But you must understand, mothers, too, work." (Page 304) "It’s living off welfare and feeling that you’re taking something for nothing the way people have said. You get to think maybe you are. You get to think, Why am I so stupid? Why can’t I work? Why do I have to live this way? It’s not enough to live on anyway. You feel degraded... The other day I was at the hospital and I went to pay my bill. This nurse came and gave me the green card. Green card is for welfare. She went right in front of me and gave it to the cashier. She said, “I wish I could stay home and let the money fall in my lap.” I felt rotten. I was just burning inside. You hear this all the way around you. The doctor doesn’t even look at you. People are ashamed to show that green card." (Page 305) "How are you going to get people off welfare if they’re constantly being pushed down? If they’re constantly feeling they’re not good for anything?" In addition to her challenges leading to being on welfare and with the welfare system, she comments on war in a way I think relates to a lot of people's own perspectives. We all simply have too much of our own troubles to worry about to do anything about larger issues. (Page 305) "There will always be war. There always has been. The way the world is run, yes, there will always be war. Why? I really don’t know. Nobody has ever told me. I was so busy handling my own affairs and taking care of my children and trying to make my own money and calling up welfare when my checks are late or something has been stolen. All I know is what’s going on here. I’m an intelligent woman up to a certain point, and after that . . . I wish I knew. I guess the big shots decided the war. I don’t question it, because I’ve been busy fighting my own little war for so long."
Rose Hoffman, Public School Teacher: Rose makes a number of comments based on race. One of them is something that is still repeated today. (Page 484) "They have these Spanish workers that are supposed to help the Puerto Rican children in their TESL [Teaching English as a Second Language] program. I’m shocked that English is the second language. When my parents came over I didn’t learn Jewish as a first language at the taxpayers’ expense. The Polish didn’t learn Polish as a first language. But now they’ve got these Spanish-speaking children learning that at our expense. To me, this is a sin. As long as they’re in this country, English should be the first language."
Tim Devlin, Janitor and Ex-Salesman: Tim became disillusioned with his job as a salesman and, as a result, with the entire system in which he found himself. (Page 255) "I fell in love and thought it was the most beautiful experience in the world. Shortly after I was married I found out that my wife—I’m not blaming her—was interested in money. She was judging me against other people my age. Was I a financial success? I put in long hours. I got this feeling I was just a machine. I felt at the end of the week, Here’s the money. Now do you love me? Am I a better man? I was selling a photocopy machine for $1,250. My commission was $300. The total value of the machine was $480. I thought, Jesus Christ, there’s something wrong here. If it costs $480, why can’t it be sold for $480—for as small a margin of profit as possible, not for as much profit as possible? I’m looking toward a utopian society, ain’t I? I didn’t feel proud of myself... What the hell am I doing? I don’t enjoy it. My marriage is turning sour. I’m making good money. I have a company car. This is what my wife wants, but I feel bad. I begin to question things. It blew the whole marriage."
Frank Decker, Interstate Truckdriver: (Page 210) "It’s a strange thing about truckers, they’re very conservative. They come from a rural background or they think of themselves as businessmen. But underneath the veneer they’re really very democratic and softhearted and liberal. But they don’t realize it. You tell ’em they’re liberal and you’re liable to get your head knocked off. But when you start talking about things, the war, kids, when you really get down to it, they’re for everything that’s liberal. But they want a conservative label on it. It’s a strange paradox."
Charlie Blossom, Copy Boy: Charlie found a way to (temporarily) enjoy his job despite disagreeing with the system in which he participated. (Page 439) "I was enjoying my job, because I was answering the phone most of the time. People would call up and complain or have a problem. I’d say, “This is a capitalist newspaper and as long as it’s a capitalistic newspaper it’s not gonna serve you, because its purpose is not to serve you. Its purpose is to make money for its owner."
Ralph Werner, Department Store Salesman: (Page 456) "You noticed the American flag on my lapel, which I wore every day for a year now. I got four stickers all over my car. I think America is the greatest country in the history of the world. One of the reasons? Free enterprise. You can go to your heart’s content in life. You can set your goals anywhere you want to set ’em in America. This is all part of the American spirit, to compete, to be better, to be number one. To go as far as you can. If the next man can’t go that far, don’t stop and wait for him. Life will pass you up." He claims to enjoy and be driven by competition and the desire the be the best at whatever he does, but then weirdly claims to aspire to be a typical middle-class American. (Page 457) "Oh, yes, I can see myself in the future with a family, with a home, being called a typical middle-class American. I don’t see myself going up to the upper class. I don’t feel the need to. I’m going to prevent myself from being lower class. I would like to stay just middle class. I feel you can get a better taste of life."
Kay Stepkin, Director of Bakery Cooperative: Kay was ahead of her time, coining "the third place" before Ray Oldenburg in the 1980s. (Page 467-468) "I see us living in a completely schizophrenic society. We live in one place, work in another place, and play in a third. You have to talk differently depending on who you’re talking to. You work in one place, get to know the people, you go home at night and you’re lonely because you don’t know anyone in your neighborhood. I see this [bakery cooperative] as a means of bringing all that together. I like the idea of people living together and working together."
Carmelita Lester, Practical Nurse at a Nursing Home: (Page 502) In America, people doesn’t keep their old people at home. At a certain age they put them away in America. In my country, the old people stay in the home until they die. But here, not like that. It’s surprising to me. They put them away. The first thing they think of is a nursing home. Some of these people don’t need a nursing home. If they have their own bedroom at home, look at television or listen to the radio or they have themselves busy knitting...
Nick Lindsay, Carpenter: Nick touches on the compromise of spending time to do a job well versus the quality of the product. This stood out to me since the concept of efficiency and squeezing every last drop of value out of everything and everyone possible has been taken to the extreme. (Page 518-519) "I’m gonna hang your door. Suppose you pay me five dollars an hour. I’m gonna have to hang that door fast. ’Cause if I don’t hang that door fast, you’re gonna run out of money before I get it hung. No man can hurry and hang it right... If you can build a house cheap and really get it to a man that needs it, that’s kind of a social satisfaction for you. At the same time, you wish you could have done a fancier job, a more unique kind of a job." Nick changes the topic abruptly to the ways in which workers can be taken advantage of to take part in potentially terrible acts. (Page 519) "I worked at an H-bomb plant in South Carolina... It might be that I should be persuaded it was inappropriate... There was three thousand laborers. Each time we built one of these reactors there would be a whole town to support it. We built a dozen or so towns in this one county." (Page 520) "We all understood we were making H-bombs and tried to get it done before the Russians built theirs, see? That’s what everybody thought... It was a living wage in that part of the country for the first time since the boll weevil had been through. And boy, you can’t downrate that. It seems like the vast comedy of things when a Yankee come and got us to build their H-bomb, part of the fine comedy that she should come and give us the first living wage since the War of Northern Aggression—for this."
Walter Lundquist, Industrial Designer: (Page 525) "I wanted to make a lot of money and become famous... The American Dream. (Laughs.) That beautiful, ugly, vicious dream that we all, in some way, have. I wanted to be a key man in the industry. Over the years I realized there isn’t any key man—that every man, every human is a commodity to be exploited. And destroyed and cast aside." Walter was ahead of his time in terms of environmentalism. (Page 525) "Now you take nice things and make them into some dumb package. Some plastic thing which is not biodegrade-able, which will not decompose, which fills the society where you want to scream, “We’re drowning in plastics!”" (Page 525) "Vaginal sprays are now on the market. Why is a woman spraying her vagina? Because she’s tastier?... God! What a cunt-lapping society we’ve become!"
Rebecca Sweeny, Multi-Talented: (Page 528) "I attended the university at night and got a job as a bank teller. I realized there were no black people employed at the bank. So I went in and talked to the personnel man and the president. Before I knew it, people were no longer talking to me. I used to come in all smiles and people’d say, “Hi.” Now I was getting the cold shoulder. One young woman—I had talked religion with her, she was a Lutheran —said she agreed with me but didn’t want to lose her job... One day a Negro girl applied for a job. As soon as I saw her leave the bank I followed her... Caught her on the street. She thought I was nuts. I told her if she wasn’t hired, to go to the FEPC and keep in touch with me. A few days later she called me. And a few days after that I was fired."
Jack Currier, Adult Education Teacher: (Page 564) "My father is the comptroller, treasurer, and a member of the board of directors of a large corporation. His title, salary, his house in the suburbs, everything about his life—the successful American life—is right out of the picture book. But I wouldn’t trade places with him for a million dollars. My father’s spent his life adding up numbers for somebody else. Any connection between his real life and his work seems to be missing. I feel, with all my doubts about the institution I work for, with the sense of hypocrisy, there’s a connection."
Harold Patrick, Frieght Elevator Operator: (Page 571) "I believe socialism is gonna be the future... it's socialized, the production. But the means of returns are not socialized."
Father Leonard Dubi, Priest: (Page 563) By organizing, "Tremendous changes have occurred in their [his congregation's] lives. They are able to understand that their problems in society are not just caused by what they used to consider goofy little minority groups... What these people are seeing now is a common enemy... city hall... the private corporation... big money..." P564 "To be free is to have some kind of say-so about your life."
Tom Patrick, Fireman: Tom is the final interview of the book and I think he sums up a lot of different things well. (Page 580) "The thing is you gotta like people. If you like people, you have a good time with 'em. But if you have the attitude that people are the cause of what's wrong with this country, they're gonna fuckin' get you upset and you're gonna start to hate 'em, and when you hate, you get a shitty feeling in your stomach that can destroy you, right?" (Page 583) "You get people a job or decent housing, you won't have no trouble." (Page 586) "When I was in the army I didn’t respect the officers, because the men did all the work. That goes for the police department, too. Cops get killed. You never see a lieutenant get shot. Ten battalion chiefs got killed in fires in the last ten years in the city. The last three guys in the fire department were lieutenants that got killed. ’Cause they’re the first ones in there. I respect that. I want to respect an officer. I want to see somebody higher up that I can follow." (Page 589) "The fuckin' world's so fucked up, the country's fucked up. But the firemen, you actually see them produce... I worked in a bank. You know, it’s just paper. It’s not real."
Misc quotes I found laughable
Edward Zimmer, Hair Stylist: (Page 237) "The most important thing for a hairdresser, male, he has to dominate the woman. You can sense when you’re not dominating the customer. She can tell you, “I want two rollers here.” She becomes the stylist and all you become is the mechanical thing with the fingers."
Eric Hoellen, Janitor: (Page 121) "These cry babies we got, they’re always hollering about something. I had a call one night about eleven o’clock. She said, “My pussy’s caught in the door.” (Laughs.) So I jumped up out of bed and said to my wife, “Someone’s crazy or drunk or somebody’s pulling a trick on me.” I get my clothes all on and I’m ready to go out the door and my phone rings. She says, “Never mind, I got my pussy loose.” She’s talking about her damn cat. The next day I told her, “You know the way that sounded?” She says, “I thought about that afterwards.” She got a big laugh out of it."
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