I left my first part-time job with the small, independent oil company on the 4th floor of the bank building over on 4th Street in 1960 to accept a fulltime job at the Sinclair Oil Company, on 9th & Boston. I worked there until 1969. My salary when I left was around $900 per month, and considered a great salary for a secretary in those days. The company was bought out in 1969 by Atlantic Richfield and most of the workers transferred to Houston. We were married by that time and Chuck had a good job because the oil business was good in Tulsa so I quit the workforce and stayed home to raise our one-year old daughter, Tiffany. Two years later Mark, our son, was born. I didn't return to the workforce until the kids were in middle school.
Working at a big oil company was fun. Each floor had its own receptionist/mail girl. I was hired as the receptionist/mail girl for the 4th floor--the executive wing. The mail boys brought mail from the basement each day to the respective floors, and the mail girls sorted and delivered mail to offices on their assigned floors. We didn't have to answer phones--there was one of those old-fashioned switchboards downstairs in the basement as in "Ernestine" played by Lily Tomlin. I trained on one of those switchboard systems in business school and am very glad I didn't become a switchboard operator. Later on Sinclair moved into the technical era and bought a more advanced telephone system. 
The gigantic "mainframe" came into existence around 1963. The mainframe took up half of the 2nd floor where the accounting offices were located. I applied for an opening in the secretarial pool on the 2nd floor and landed a secretary position for the director of accounting. There was a huge window outside the accountants' area where we could stand and watch (flirt with) computer guys working on the mainframe. At that time, the accountants kept track of oil-well royalties on huge ledger sheets. There were no partitions separating the desks, and the only equipment they used was a pencil and a calculator. I used a manual typewriter at first until a roller skating accident left me with a broken left wrist. I was off work for about a week and when I returned happily discovered that my boss had borrowed an electric typewriter from the executive floor. I remember his words of warning so well--"don't get used to it because it goes back upstairs when your cast comes off". However, my cast came off six weeks later and I never did return that typewriter. I remained friends with the boys in the mail room after I became a secretary. They gave me a birthday card once that read, "Old secretaries never die--they just look that way". What a bunch of jokers they were! I was only 20 at the time, but I get the point guys, if you could only see me now!  |
| A typical office from the 60's. |
All in all, it was a great time in my life. I always wanted to become a secretary in the type of job where you finished your work each day, went home and forgot it. In today's fast-paced computer age, you occasionally wake at three in the morning planning the next project your boss has been assigned that you actually do for him, and that's when I realize..... I'm Not Just a Secretary Anymore!
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| I am 5th from the bottom. The blond 2 girls behind me won I think! |
I enjoyed this story...loved the group picture...it was interesting that you knew exactly what you wanted to do for a career as early as you did and stuck with it for all this time...you have seen many changes in your time!!!!
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