What was your worst job? That was the question going around the dinner table at the end of the day at the Association of Personal Historians conference. How typical of a bunch of story tellers to tell stories. Who won? It’s not my place to say, but I can say it wasn’t I. I told about my dismal days as a paralegal intern at a large, national intellectual property law firm. All the partners and associates were pleasant to work with except for one. She was a brilliant attorney—and a bully. The environment became so toxic that I would sit in my parked car for many minutes, steeling myself to enter the building each day. I would make a quick turn to avoid meeting her in the hallways. I was filled with dread everytime she approached my desk. I had breezed through paralegal training and thought the job would be a snap for me. Instead, there I was feeling totally inept and a failure. After six months of daily misery, I quit, but only when another job opportunity came to me like a miracle.
Earlier in the day at the APH conference, Charles Hardy, III, PhD, president of the Oral History Association, shared with us some wisdom about interviewing people for their stories. He always gives his narrators opportunities to reflect on the meaning of their experiences, to make some sense of them. For example, he may ask “How would you compare your life then to your life now.” He calls these retreat questions, because they enable people to retreat from the past back into the present.
An example of this reflection in action occurred in the workshop about the Veterans History Project, as we observed a Vietnam War veteran being interviewed. After speaking about his experience, he summed up by reflecting that for all the difficulties he faced, he would not change them because without them he would not have met his wife and had their life together all these years.
How would I make sense now of my worst job? I once assume that I could do anything I put my mind to. That was a lesson from my father. We would sit on the cement front steps on hot summer nights in 1957 and 1958. I in my baby doll pajamas ready for bed, and he in a T-shirt. The glowing end of his cigarette would bob in the dark, as he talked, and he would say, “You can be anything you want to be.” But at the law firm, I met my limits face to face. I learned that I can’t in fact do any thing, but more importantly I learned I can be brought low by my own fears. The bullying attorney didn’t do this to me alone; I let her. That ‘s why it was my worst job.
What was your worst job? How do you feel about it today?
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