Speaker 1: Women make the world go round. You know, they're they're
Speaker 1: sure that their bosses answer all their phone calls and
Speaker 1: you know, answer their mail, and that there's enough coffee
Speaker 1: in the in the office. Once upon a time, That's
Speaker 1: how it was in the American office, as any viewer
Speaker 1: of TV's Madmen could tell you. On this edition of
Speaker 1: On the Job From Hired to Retired, we have a
Speaker 1: profile of Carol Davis and want to tell you right
Speaker 1: off the bat that our reporter, Katie Davis, is Carol's daughter.
Speaker 1: She saw her mom rise from typist and switchboard operator
Speaker 1: to having one of the most important jobs in her profession.
Speaker 1: Her story in a moment. First, a word about Express
Speaker 1: Employment Professionals. Over the past thirty four years, Express Employment
Speaker 1: Professionals has put millions of people to work in meaningful
Speaker 1: and fulfilling jobs and careers. If you're looking for work
Speaker 1: or want to grow your workforce, go to express pros
Speaker 1: dot com. Job hopping is what people do these days.
Speaker 1: Many will have four different jobs in just the first
Speaker 1: decade out of college. So let's consider a woman who
Speaker 1: worked at the same place for thirty nine years. Carol
Speaker 1: Davis is seventy nine now. She started her job in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, a time when the number of women
Speaker 1: in the workforce was increasing, even though their ranks were
Speaker 1: very thin in management and in many professions. Here's Katie Davis.
Speaker 1: Morning rush hasn't started, and Carol Davis pulls into the
Speaker 1: driveway of her old office. It was a private home
Speaker 1: and then converted into the American Psychiatric Association. Carol Davis
Speaker 1: gets out of the car and points up to the
Speaker 1: second floor and that up there, to the right of
Speaker 1: the entrance was my office, the big that They had
Speaker 1: these big windows and each window has a little balcony
Speaker 1: on us. And come around here and I'll show you
Speaker 1: Dr Barton's office. Dr Walter Barton, I grew up here
Speaker 1: in that name. My mother's boss was a teacher. When
Speaker 1: she really needed one, she learned about psychiatry ethics and
Speaker 1: that sometimes you just have to do things yourself, Like
Speaker 1: the day Dr Barton noticed the windows were dirty, and
Speaker 1: right up there is where he stood on the balcony
Speaker 1: had washed the windows. He didn't ask Carol Davis to
Speaker 1: do it. He just got out there, suit and all.
Speaker 1: And you're lucky, she says. If you get one boss
Speaker 1: like him, once in your career just once. Carol says
Speaker 1: she needed guidance when she arrived at the a p
Speaker 1: A in nine She was recently divorced and her husband
Speaker 1: had custody of us kids. Her parents and weird in
Speaker 1: West Virginia wanted her to come back to live in
Speaker 1: this deal town and they would take care of everything,
Speaker 1: including the house. But she knew if she ever wanted
Speaker 1: her kids back, she had to be able to support herself,
Speaker 1: and starting on the ground floor was just fine. I
Speaker 1: wasn't really equipped to do much, to tell you the truth,
Speaker 1: I think I typed twenty words a minute. Not well,
Speaker 1: you know, I worked in some bars, and I worked,
Speaker 1: you know, as a waitress, and but you know that
Speaker 1: doesn't equip you for much. Then I went on an
Speaker 1: interview with the a p A American Psychiatric and Joe
Speaker 1: Turgeon interviewed me, and basically, you know, I just said,
Speaker 1: I don't really do too much, but I'd love to
Speaker 1: have this job, and so he hired me based on
Speaker 1: I guess a whole lot of trust and maybe like me.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but anyway, it was my first job there.
Speaker 1: I don't do too much, but I'd love to have
Speaker 1: this job. Imagine saying that in an interview, I can
Speaker 1: see my mom flashing her wide smile, willing her way
Speaker 1: into the American Psychiatric Association for herself and for us kids.
Speaker 1: Carol tells me all this sitting in her blue chair
Speaker 1: in the house she now owns We came to live
Speaker 1: with her five years after she got that first job.
Speaker 1: Folk art fills the wall, a silk screen of a
Speaker 1: blue dog and painted slate from New Orleans. She sits
Speaker 1: in that chair and reads two newspapers every day, finishes
Speaker 1: two crossword puzzles, and plays bridge. She lives on her
Speaker 1: pension and social Security. And all of it started at
Speaker 1: the American Psychiatric Association. I don't know that I had
Speaker 1: a chop time exactly, but I ordered the toilet paper,
Speaker 1: and I ordered the paper towels, and I ordered the paper,
Speaker 1: and you know, the pencils, all the things that people
Speaker 1: needed to work. What did you need stencils for stencils.
Speaker 1: That's how you duplicated things. This is pre xerox days.
Speaker 1: If you wanted to like produce a ten page report,
Speaker 1: you had the type ten pages of stencils, and then
Speaker 1: you had to correct him if you made a mistake,
Speaker 1: which was in and of itself, unbelievable. Correcting a stencil
Speaker 1: you got purple all over yourself. It was awful. So
Speaker 1: that's what I did in I also learned how to
Speaker 1: relieve on the switchboard. I had never even seen a switchboard,
Speaker 1: let alone run one, for God's sake, and let me
Speaker 1: tell you, it was difficult. I am not the most
Speaker 1: mechanical person in the world, and learning to push the
Speaker 1: plug in the right hole to connect somebody sometimes often
Speaker 1: eluded me. And I cut people off and they would
Speaker 1: get mad and they would call down or calm down
Speaker 1: and say, you cut me off. I say, well, i'm learning,
Speaker 1: I'm learning, please, I'm learning. Anyway, I learned, but it
Speaker 1: was a real chore, you know. That's why I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that I used to enjoy when
Speaker 1: little tall and did Ernestine was because that's how I felt.
Speaker 1: Oh anyway, So that was my job. So that was
Speaker 1: my job. It was work that women often did in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen sixties. It was an association of men.
Speaker 1: Let's face it. I mean there were very few women's psychiatrists.
Speaker 1: There were some, but a very small number. But it
Speaker 1: was that they you know, we're just super to me.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you. You know, it was just so
Speaker 1: easy to work here because the men were not showing
Speaker 1: us pigs, and if they were, I didn't record noise
Speaker 1: in those days, you know. I mean, it was a
Speaker 1: good job, and I loved it, and you know, they
Speaker 1: always treated me with a great deal of respect. And
Speaker 1: and let me tell you, I was a puppy who
Speaker 1: knew nothing. It's a good place. We're going to take
Speaker 1: a short pause now, and when we come back, I'll
Speaker 1: talk to Carol Davis about her best years in her
Speaker 1: job and about the time she stood up for herself
Speaker 1: when the American Psychiatric Association tried to push her out.
Speaker 1: You're listening to On the Job from Hired to Retired,
Speaker 1: brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. I'm Steve Mencher.
Speaker 1: If you are searching for a job, Express Employment Professionals
Speaker 1: can help access free video training on what skills are
Speaker 1: in demand in today's job market, resume writing, interview tips,
Speaker 1: and more. Visit Express pros dot com slash job Genius.
Speaker 1: You can become a job genius today Express pros dot
Speaker 1: com slash job Genius. Express is on a mission to
Speaker 1: put a million people to work each year. Let us
Speaker 1: help you get informed with the job market forecast, part
Speaker 1: of the free Job Genius video series from Express Employment Professionals.
Speaker 1: Watch it now at Express pros dot com slash job Genius.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the second half of I'm the Job
Speaker 1: from Hired to Retired. I'm Katie Davis, and we're talking
Speaker 1: with my mom, Carol Davis, about her career with her
Speaker 1: lifetime employer. She took an entry level job in nineteen
Speaker 1: and worked at the same place until she retired. At first,
Speaker 1: she knew very little about administrative work, so she stayed
Speaker 1: after five o'clock for tutorials about the operations manual and
Speaker 1: the constitution of the A p A. She says, in
Speaker 1: a way, her lack of experience made her a blank
Speaker 1: slate for learning how things were done there and forgetting
Speaker 1: a promotion to work with the medical director, Dr Barton. Up.
Speaker 1: I went to you know, the fancy offices that he had,
Speaker 1: uh and UM typed. That'saw all I did is I typed,
Speaker 1: and I've remembered that. I went in and I said,
Speaker 1: Dr Barton, you have time to talk to me. He said, well,
Speaker 1: of course, you know, I said, Dr Barton, I took
Speaker 1: this job, but you told me that I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to have to type all day and that's all I do.
Speaker 1: And he said, oh, dear, well you'll learn other things
Speaker 1: to do. And now at the end of the discussion,
Speaker 1: so I learned other things to do. That was kind
Speaker 1: of a brave thing to do. He hadn't been working
Speaker 1: for him that long. You went right up and talked
Speaker 1: to him. Well, that's who he was. His door was
Speaker 1: always open, it never was closed ever ever, you know.
Speaker 1: And once when I was I sat outside at his
Speaker 1: office and and I decided that I hadn't had a raise,
Speaker 1: and I needed a little bit more money, and so
Speaker 1: I thought, well, I'll look for a job. So on
Speaker 1: my lunch ower, I wasn't sitting up my desk reading
Speaker 1: the one as and Dr Barton's and circling them, and
Speaker 1: Dr Barton said, are you looking for another job? And
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know, I was thinking that maybe
Speaker 1: I could make more money. And he said, oh, so
Speaker 1: I got a race. And that was the only time
Speaker 1: I ever did anything like that. I then I got
Speaker 1: regular raises from then on and and I moved up
Speaker 1: in the job. So I eventually, you know, became his
Speaker 1: special assistant. And you know and did more, you know,
Speaker 1: but mostly I typed the whole day even then because
Speaker 1: he dictated. When someone would hear this, they might think,
Speaker 1: how could you love this place that much? You're just
Speaker 1: kind of uh doing a lot of typing because what
Speaker 1: you were doing was interesting, you know. It wasn't dull business.
Speaker 1: It was about psychiatric issues. It was about issues that
Speaker 1: were important to the day, you know, like the a
Speaker 1: p A, you know, revising its manual when I was there,
Speaker 1: and so I was there when they decided that homosexuality
Speaker 1: was not a disease. It was a very exciting place
Speaker 1: to be. I learned an enormous amount. I learned an
Speaker 1: enormous amount about psychiatry. I read everything. I also got
Speaker 1: to work with Dr Barton on ethics, which was a
Speaker 1: real wonderful thing, even though it was you know, hard
Speaker 1: when people are unethical, but it was exciting to learn.
Speaker 1: I helped to write the first edition of the Principles
Speaker 1: of Medical Ethics. It was exciting. And not only that,
Speaker 1: but we got to play bridge at lunch. When Dr
Speaker 1: Barton left the a p A, he invited Carol to
Speaker 1: go with him and work at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: Free tuition for us kids. She really wanted to go,
Speaker 1: but said no because she didn't want to uproot the
Speaker 1: family she had just remade. She continued to direct the
Speaker 1: ethics complaint process for patients and psychiatrists, making sure any
Speaker 1: breach of ethics was fully investigated. Later, though, Carol faced
Speaker 1: a different boss who reduced her responsibilities and took away
Speaker 1: her office. I thought my life was over. That's all
Speaker 1: I could think of that there was not going to
Speaker 1: be anything I could do. My life was over. I
Speaker 1: was not an important person anymore. H But I was
Speaker 1: glad to leave because it was an uncomfortable last couple
Speaker 1: of years. I had to see the A p A
Speaker 1: because my boss, the third medical director, really wanted to
Speaker 1: get rid of me and did everything but fire me
Speaker 1: what she felt he couldn't do. So what I got
Speaker 1: out of suit was I got to create my own job,
Speaker 1: which was nothing but doing the ethics, and that I
Speaker 1: would stay until I was sixty five and then I
Speaker 1: would retire and I wouldn't have a party. Everybody got
Speaker 1: a going away party, big going way parties, and I
Speaker 1: planned most of them. Yes, I did as I said. Oh,
Speaker 1: I said, you've got to be kidding again, I'm not
Speaker 1: having a going away party for what And you know
Speaker 1: it was fine. So I packed up my little box
Speaker 1: and fortunately, because nobody knew anything about the ethics job
Speaker 1: but me and I had tried really hard to train somebody.
Speaker 1: It's very complicated issue, you know, with lawyers and everything involved.
Speaker 1: Um so oh, I got to do some consulting for them.
Speaker 1: I was still plugged into the ethics, which I loved.
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you, life goes on. It was wonderful.
Speaker 1: I could get up and drink my coffee and read
Speaker 1: the newspaper before I even brush my teeth, you know,
Speaker 1: and I had time just to do things. So us, okay,
Speaker 1: what's okay? You've been listening to journalist Katie Davis interviewing
Speaker 1: her mom, Carol Davis. And that's all for this edition
Speaker 1: of On the Job from Hired to Retire from Express
Speaker 1: Employment Professionals. Find out more at Express pros dot com.
Speaker 1: This podcast is produced by Steve Mencher for Men's Media
Speaker 1: and Red Seat Ventures. Find us on I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and iTunes, where we hope you will leave a nice
Speaker 1: review that helps other folks find us too, And of
Speaker 1: course you can listen and subscribe. Wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: See you next time on the job.