R.E.T.I.R.E.D

A brief history of work life

I am no longer, though in many ways I will always be, the Fairy Bra Mother. Hung up my bra straps and garters on January 31 2025. That was the last day of BraTenders NYC business, after 25 years. It’s taking time to adjust. I still check my messages at 7:00 a.m to see who’s not coming to work that day. I can’t say I mind not having to commute to midtown, or dealing with dozens of questions from dozens of people all day long. For 50 years, I spent the day asking, How can I help you today? Nobody in my life has ever asked me that question.

I got my first job at 15, babysitting for kids in the building, long before anybody elevated it into “nannying” for six figure salaries. I earned between 3-5 bucks an hour, depending how many kids and how long the gig was, and whether or not they were awake or asleep, daytime or nighttime. I enjoyed the Saturday night jobs, which paid the best, and the kids were usually asleep, or in bed, by the time I got there. If I had a special relationship with the kid, I’d let them sit up with me and watch TV if they asked. They would get sleepy and be easily coaxed back into bed. Most families had many choices of snacks, so I’d munch chips, and watch the late night movie, usually a black and white classic like Nick and Nora, or Casablanca. It was a brief respite from the noise of my household, filled with angsty adolescents who’s needs were not being met satisfactorily, and angry parents who drank and argued, made up, rinse, repeat.

My father dropped dead suddenly on a beautiful May Tuesday, I was 15, he had turned 41 a weeks earlier on April 1. Then I had to find better paying jobs so I could buy necessities my widowed mother couldn’t afford, like underwear. Mom hadn’t been in the workforce since the 1940s-50s, and dreaded the mere idea of having to work.

Without any actual job skills, but being blessed with both brains and beauty, (though I didn’t know I was beautiful at the time) I always managed to land a job in retail, at a local bookstore, in the supermarket, doing inventory for big department stores at Kings Plaza, or downtown Brooklyn a few times a year. I tried my hand at the make up counter for Clinique at Macy’s Kings Plaza, but I couldn’t stand wearing a full face of makeup every day. My eyelashes were thick and long and nicely framed my blue eyes sans mascara. I kinda liked the freckles on my nose and cheeks in the summer, and baking in the sun for hours, and didn’t enjoy how makeup felt on my face. I wasn’t the dewy complected, graceful girl on the cover of Glamour. I was messy and clumsy, tomboyish.

Men tried to take advantage of me, and on several occasions they approached me while I was shopping or going about the day. They’d follow me around, eventually approach, then offer to pay me a hundred bucks to “model” for them, in a motel room, in my underwear. I was naive, but having grown large breasts at an early age, my education about the ways of horny men, and yes, they were all horny, all the time, regardless of who they were or how I knew them, was extensive. My parents had schooled me young about where to kick boys who did things, or tried to do things, they shouldn’t do, and I wasn’t hesitant to defend myself if approached or touched inappropriately by anyone. My father threw a good friend of his out of our house when he heard Monty ask 9 year old me, with a sly smirk, “do you want to sit on my lap?”

My first 9-5 so to speak was in a shoe factory, where my work entailed taking phone orders from road salesmen for the leather goods company Etienne Aigner. Many of the southern reps had thick southern drawls that were difficult for me to understand, it wasn’t a dialect heard in the shtetl of Brighton Beach. But over time, as we got to know each other, and with knowledge and repetition of the lingo of the shoe biz, the job became easier. I got speedier, and mastered using a calculator to tally orders so the sales force could keep track of their commissions, and the company could see where business was booming, and where the line wasn’t doing so well. The merchandise was classic conservative, upper crusty life style, and Lord and Taylor was their biggest account across the country.

Sometimes, on slow days, I’d visit the shipping floor, and hang out with the guys who worked there, many of whom barely spoke English. I picked up a few Spanish words here and there, and felt more comfortable with workers than the execs who didn’t shut up for a minute all day. We’d play poker, and they chain smoked until a work order came in. I was the daughter of laborers and union people, and saw first hand how my father’s life changed when he became “management”. How his belly got bigger and his nightmares became more violent. He laughed less, fretted more. He came home less often, and stayed away between visits longer. He didn’t know which of his “friends” to trust anymore.

I quit in a fit of rage when I was passed over for a promotion because my slimy boss Ken dragged me to a Shoe Show in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and lied about getting me my own room at the hotel where the show was taking place. He stunk of stale cigarettes and Brut, and tried to fuck me the first night in the only room at the inn. Of course there were no empty, available rooms, he’d have known that, the site was hosting a huge regional trade show! He had the nerve to be pissed off when I jumped out of bed in a huff, revolted by his smell and sounds, and he barely paid any attention to me on the drive home. thank god.

I found out about my non promotion when I got to work the following Monday and a woman I was friendly with, a newcomer to the company, but a leather goods industry insider with a wealth of experience, was in the office with Ken, their arms locked, both laughing and tossing their heads around like bobble head dolls. Apparently not only was I not promoted, I was demoted to picking and packing orders, banished from the office, taking and writing orders.

There was no HR to speak of, this was 1976ish, the Women’s Liberation movement had only just begun. And I couldn’t wait to get out of there, away from Ken Hamilton.

I worked for my mother’s live in boyfriend Yale, who drove a truck and delivered newspapers by night, and was a commercial photographer specializing in black and white catalogue work by day. I did various clerical work, and learned a lot about photography, how to develop and touch up film, and sometimes modeled hand products, or face soap. Yale, who sometimes slept at the studio after driving, tried to rape me in that studio, and totally upended my life. That is a whole story unto itself. It was a defining moment and turning point.

The job search took me to E 53rd St and the Have a Nice Day Boutique, where I eventually met another retail store employee up the block, at Ritzy Rags boutique. Meeting Sami took me on an unexpected journey that eventually led me to being the BraTender and Fairy Bra Mother.

But first I met and became employed by Cathy, Ed and Stanley, a business consultancy specializing in the radio broadcast industry, despite my lack of any secretarial skills whatsoever. Being pretty, and now considered sexy, read Big Boobs, was the basis of my hire. I’d be useful in oh so many ways. And with Sami to school me in the wily, womanly ways, what could go wrong?

Ed owned several regional stations upstate New York. I aspired to a career in journalism, but that was derailed by dad’s demise. Ed dangled a carrot, possibly transferring to one of the radio stations to learn the business if things went well enough. That thrilled me. I had been considering joining the navy, of all things, because living under my mother’s roof was killing me by a thousand little cuts.

The vibe in the office in the brownstone above the boutique was unlike any business I’d ever been in. Jazz wafted theough an excellent sound system, fresh coffee was brewed in the morning, martini glasses were chilled at 3 for cocktails. Both men blabbed on the phones in their respective offices, Ed chain smoked, Cathy, office ninja to both, and my customer downstairs, flitted between taking notes and dispensing beverages with ease and grace.

The path from Brooklyn to Broadway wasn’t one I could have predicted. I entered a world my sheltered, nice jewish girl from brooklyn ass knew nothing about, NYC nightlife. I moved to Hells Kitchen to be within walking distance to Studio 54, and became a denizen of that realm by the end of the 70s while earning my fairy bra wings at S&S, where it all began.

to be continued