I graduated from Ohio State University in 1975 while my husband was still in college there, so I looked for a job and quickly found one in the student records department.
It was my first full-time office job with benefits. I was ecstatic to have it and the financial security it represented. My tenure in the office turned out to be short, but the experience was very educational about interoffice politics and personalities.
It wasn’t difficult to learn the job duties. Although a woman named Alice was in charge of the office, my duty was to assist Martha. Martha and I saw to it that students enrolled in the Department of Natural Resources had up-to-date records. That meant cataloging all administrative actions regarding students, including breaks in attendance, such as when a student was put on administrative leave, aka “flunked out.”
I was floored by the number of students who attended school about every other quarter by “flunking out” — leaving for a quarter and then being reinstated, coming back the following quarter. I had paid for my own education and couldn’t fathom how parents could just keep paying for this type of behavior.
My office didn’t routinely have contact with real live students, but once per quarter we were dispatched around the university to assist with class registration. I loved interacting with and helping students. Martha, however, did not like this duty and said to me one day: “We sure could do our jobs easier if it weren’t for the students.” Yes, she said that! Of course, I thought, we’d have no jobs without the students, but OK.
One of our major duties each quarter was to post grades in the official student record. This was fun because it was done away from our office, sitting at a huge machine that was connected to the university’s overall, fledgling computer system.
We’d take a student record (an 81/2-by-11-inch card) off the pile, properly place it in a slot and press it back. The machine would impress grades on the card with a loud ka-CHUNK. I really liked the noise.
I learned about toxic offices. Student Records was a small office of about a dozen women and Alice, the supervisor, could watch everyone at close range from her desk in back. She had a habit of walking up and down the aisles while peering over our shoulders.
Rules were strict. We were relegated to preset break times which were observed religiously each day. Breaks could not be coordinated with others from the office. Bathroom breaks were not permitted between official break times unless there was an emergency. Talking was discouraged, and only to be done in whispery voices.
It was disconcerting as a feminist in the 1970s to learn just how unsupportive a female supervisor could be. Alice used fear and intimidation to keep control of the office. Most of the women seemed outright afraid of her. One, whose desk adjoined mine, kept postponing a request for her annual leave because she was afraid Alice would deny it. I don’t recall that she ever asked or got permission.
I still cannot fathom how a woman could be so negative and unsupportive of other women.
My personal experience with lack of support happened about seven months into my employment. I had been accepted into graduate school and was trying to arrange my schedule. I wanted to take just one course per quarter while keeping my job. The course met just once per week for two hours. I wanted to make up the work time by working through my lunch hours.
University policy encouraged employees to take classes, but Alice would not approve this change in my schedule.
None of the women at Student Records regarded their jobs as anything other than a paycheck. They walked away each evening feeling that they’d done enough to earn their pay. I cannot blame them for their attitudes, but I always wanted to do any job well, not just robotically.
I’d had plenty of part-time jobs before but being in that office 40 hours per week helped me internalize lessons about behavior and about making the most of any job for myself and others. I think this set me up for success in future jobs. I would always give any job my full attention — whether it was filing records or taking an order for burgers and fries.
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