11.THE CAREER WOMAN
I got to know Elaine when I was assigned to write a piece on her for the village paper. That was when I was just starting out as a journalist after graduation, which was in the nineties. A community center was holding a celebration and tribute for Elaine upon her retirement from community service as a director of a homecare service for the elderly run out of the center for decades. Elaine had earned a name for herself as a dedicated professional and outspoken advocate, so the paper thought her retirement and the retirement party newsworthy. I did not care particularly, not being from the area and my major having been political science, but it was my job, so I went to investigate.
Bearing a credential, I did not need an invitation, so I was let into the hall at the community center in time for the speeches. They gave me dinner, too. I ate quiche and salad off to the side of the head table in a reserved area. Few other members of the press were there, though; I sat next to a radio journalist while community TV video-recorded the proceedings nearby.
Between mouthfuls, I reviewed my notes of my internet search and phonecalls, including a phonecall interview with the woman of the hour herself. Some 30 years prior, Elaine had started out as a new Canadian working as a homecare worker herself for several years before being invited to join the administration once she had finally obtained a college diploma by tedious part-time online and night school study. She certainly sounded like a deserving and honourable citizen.
I was interrupted by the radio guy asking me, “What’s going to be your angle?”
I said I did not know yet, that I was still thinking of it. “Maybe helper to senior becomes senior,” I suggested, rather glibly.
Actually, the editor had told me what angle to take, as usual. (We in the media compete and might dig but do not reveal what we know and think to the competition, as a rule, except when there is an MOU or at least a quiet collegial agreement to share, given the trend to reduce staff and cut overhead these days.) It was simple: dedicated service worker and outstanding member of the community is recognized. I was allowed 350 words on the subject.
By the next day, I had enough for a feature because of how much I ended up learning about Elaine. I am working on one now.
On a screen behind the head table were images of Elaine taken intermittedly over the years as the MC recited a biographical account. There was Elaine with various clients at different ages, then her at the graduation ceremony, followed by shots of her at a desk and attending various administrative and community events. These shots led to pictures of her family and pets before news photos sprang up and took over. The biography worked its way to her status as a social policy critic and friend to seniors always working hard to improve the lives of seniors and help out their families.
There were toasts, of course. Finally, the honoured woman got to give a scripted speech. I opened my notepad, though I had been promised a copy of the audio file. Writing and observing the reading let me check out the body language and reactions in the room. There were a lot of smiling admirers and supporters among the something like 500 people in attendance, that is for sure.
“Here we are, the day has come,” began Elaine without looking at her script. “We’ve had a few good kicks at the can, haven’t we?” (Cheers.) “Together, maybe we’ve actually been useful.” (Cheers again.) “I guess I could have done more, but I did what I thought I should at the time as much as I thought I could get away with, and, hey, we got to kick some butt!” (More cheers.)
Elaine pauses and checks her script on the podium before her. “Looking after the disabled and elderly in their homes is challenging and hard work. It’s been a long time since I actually did that work, but I try to remember it. Let’s keep supporting our deserving homecare workers in this province! We need them and they need you!” (A lot of yeahs are heard.)
“It’s been fun and rewarding, but I guess I should step down before I need those workers to help me out.” (Laughter.) “Well, we improved the working conditions, not without some struggle, and I got into a more privileged lifestyle once I entered management, beginning with the district coordinator’s position that I got thanks to Monica, the wonderful and special lady who retired and asked me to step up to the plate. Thank you, Monica, wherever you are in the universe now! (Cheers.) You were a generous and wise mentor. I’d also like to thank the kind clients and their family members and friends who not only put in good words for me, but also stuck their neck out in the public arena to support our services, society, its members, and our advocated positions. And I’d like to thank the office teams who first showed me the ropes and without whom I could not have carried out my jobs.” (A “we love you, Elaine,” and some “here, here’s” are sounded.)
“Let me give a note of thanks to the politicians who listened to me and those that didn’t and thereby made me want to push harder—“ (Laughter.) “Really, I am grateful to the elected representatives who did listen, and the critics for their role in helping to popularize our positions, but especially those who picked up the ball and initiated some legal and policy changes we called for over the years. Here’s to you!” She picks up a wine glass and tips it towards the far wall of the room, avoiding eye contact with any particular politician present, and the crowd echoed the line, “Here’s to you!”
I should probably express some gratitude to our local and regional media for their part in reporting our thoughts, creating some room for debate, and reporting on the conditions to which we addressed our recommendations, and still do!” This time, Elaine gazes towards us in the designated media space and says, “Here’s to you!” A few voices in the hall chime in with “here, here”.
“Well, I suppose I’ll have more free time than I’m used to, so be sure that I won’t shut up.” (Yeas.) Have no fear—or maybe certain others out there should be fearful. (Laughter.) After all, I’m a senior myself, and actually have been for about 10 years already. That’s authenticity in action.” (“Yes, it is!” Hoorays.) I have taken some time off now and then, though not much. I travelled to Mexico and Italy and Thailand. I don’t know if I feel like traveling. We’ll see. I’ll take time out and size things up and then see what I want to do. Maybe I’ll find some project and make myself useful in some new way. Don’t forget me, for I won’t forget you. Thank you, everybody. Do keep in touch. See you around.” (Huge extended applause with whistles and yelps.)
This woman definitely was a popular “personality” some distance beyond her professional arena and local community. It was an impressive event and she made an impressive speech. I was getting more motivated to interview her.
An aide took my card and note requesting an interview that evening “behind the scenes.” Someone beckoned me through a door within a few minutes. Elaine was standing before me, enclosed in a huddle.
“You’re the person from the Village Bugle, I take it?” I nodded. “Listen, I do want to have a conversation with you. Let’s make it later, or tomorrow. Gosh, so many people want to speak with me tonight. I’ll do what I can as soon as I can. I promise.” I shrugged. It was a pretty good reply.
I went home a little after midnight after I had interviewed colleagues and community leaders to get more background. Maybe I would get the okay for more than one article. I was not exactly disappointed that the star of the show had not met with me for the one-on-one that evening. I just hoped and prayed that I would within the next couple of days so that the piece would make the next available issue as the editor wanted. I rehearsed an explanation for the editor to give him in the morning then soon drifted off to sleep. Was I ever surprised when the phone woke me up and it was Elain calling herself. “How about that interview?” I thought she was a little tipsy.
“Now?”
“Yeah. I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to sleep tonight. It’s been too exciting. Here’s your chance to catch me in the moment. Why don’t you come over?”
“Now? It’s five o’clock.”
“That’s right. Perfect time, in the peaceful twilight of breaking dawn. We can sit out on the patio. I’ll put the coffee on, if you need it.” She gave the adderess. Bleary-eyed, I struggled to scribble it down.
I just splashed my face, ran a comb through my hair and threw on some jeans. Then I grabbed my notepad and the recorder along with my bag and was out the door in a jiffy. She lived in a condo about three kilometers from my place.
I pulled up to her building and saw that all the lights were on in her ground floor apartment, including the patio lanterns off the side of the building. There she was in a lavish peacock blue silk kimono with embossings of yellow flowers, pink geisha girls and green pine trees. As I approached the front door, Elaine called out as she swayed grandly, “I’ll press the button to let you in.”
Condo number one made a strong impression on the visitor; there were plush salmon colored wall-to-wall carpets, prints and sketches hanging on the walls, and thinly stemmed polished cherry wood accent furnishings accompanying a hefty plum colored velveteen covered sectional sofa that started on the other side of the sliding patio doors and turned along the far wall, concluding where a healthy fig tree grew in a multicolored porcelain Chinese pot. The cooking area and dining table with a granite topped chef’s island in between opened up to the sitting area. Elaine evidently had style.
Eying my cell phone in my hand, Elaine gave me permission to take photos. “Go ahead,” she called out with a nod from half way through the patio door. Everything was just thoroughly cleaned in case the party came here. It didn’t, though a couple of friends were here until about three, I think it was. Welcome—What was your name? Come out here, if you want. Join me in a glass of champagne. It’s free, compliments of the organization. It’s pretty tasty. I’ve already had a couple of glasses of it.”
“Thanks. It’s Robin, Robin Sanderson. Well, I’ll have a taste if you’re having some. Still celebrating, I see. Looks like you’re really enjoying myself.”
“Oh, yes, I am. I’m free,” declared Elaine waving an arm theatrically. “Right. I am I little under the influence, but I didn’t start until after one this morning. I did not wish to drink during the formal thing, but it’s a different matter in my home, and on such a day.”
“Congratulations, by the way,” I said as I sat down on a plastic ribbon woven patio chair seat. Elaine nodded and proceeded to pour me a glass. “Nice place.”
“Yes, it took a while to get it to this point. My salary’s been pretty good in recent years. You can look that up, because it is public info published in the annual report.”
“Okay,” I answered, a bit distracted. I was looking around for more clues to this woman’s life and had spotted a photo of young woman. “Is your husband not celebrating with you?” Of course, such a man was noticeably absent from the ceremony and the hearth.
“We divorced some years ago. Here you go. Drink up. Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
“His name is in the bio provided with the program. He was a lawyer who started his own NGO. That’s a photo of a daugher over there on the end table. She graduated in geography and lives in Trinidad working for a Canadian engineering firm and they’ve been on some project with a strict deadline in Venezuela lately. I talk to her all the time and she’ll try to take a break and visit me next month, she said. She’s a good daughter, but she likes her career as much as I liked mine.”
“She sounds very different from you.”
“That’s for sure. Of course, she had a very different start in life. This is a working gig, for you, right? Notepad and recorder ready? Ah, I see you’re already on the job. Atta girl! After the war, my parents immigrated from Europe. They were solid working class and did what they could for me and my brother. However, they struggled. We moved around the country. When we were teens, they split up and my mom took me while my father got my brother. We saw each other, but my father and brother perished in a car accident outside Prince George. Oh, that was so long ago. My mother got work in the Lower Mainland at a cannery, then she had to work in a dry cleaning shop for a while after the cannery closed down. She learned stenography and typing in her few hours of free time and got employed doing assisting a shipping firm in the office, but she said she found signs of corruption as she got more into bookkeeping, so she quit and started working at the head office of a shoe store chain. She was happy there, and soon met a man at a sales meeting. She made sure I did not quit high school like I wanted, but I worked part-time in a grocery store. We could not afford college fees, but I studied to have some employable skills. I wanted to get into hospitality, so I worked as a chambermaid while I studied part-time. That hotel and others did not hire me. My mom said it was because of my background, so I had better set my sights on something more attainable. That was when I began working in homecare services. I actually was doing it part-time, because that’s how you started out, and I was working as an assistant manager in a hardware store four days a week, any way. The hardware store got bought out and the staff let loose, so I asked for more homecare hours. I did the live-in work and surved sofas on weekends for about five years. I had boyfriends, but I couldn’t impress the kind of man I wanted. I just played around and hoped that things would work out better, eventually. I finished a business course on the side, and that’s when Monica mentioned she was planing to retire in a coupel of years and told me I could be a candidate to take over if I started helping out in the head office.”
I was nodding and hm-hmming and scribbling as fast as I could. “So it must have been the eighties when you first started working in homecare service?”
“Correct.”
“And around the end of the eighties, you started in the office? Like, as a coordinator, I imagine?”
“Yep. I set schedules, contacted the workers. I also helped plan the training seminars for the workers—the community center let us book people to talk on diseases, aging and nutrition and such once a month. I assisted with recruitment, too. I had a hand in promotions after the organization took over the territory of a private outfit that went belly up, and the province had a bigger budget to share. I was learning the ropes and knew Monica’s role of manager pretty well by the time she announced her retirement. She had taught me and groomed me well. The organization paid for management courses for me, upon Monica’s recommendation. They had to post the job and have an alternative incase the board members had objections or I changed my mind, but the board members had been won over through the efforts of Monica and her allies, and I did not change my mind. It was the best opportunity I had up until them. There. The rest is all documented so I don’t need to rehash the rest of my story. Let’s drink up some more. How about a little breakfast to cushion the drink?”
“No, I—“
Elaine grabbed my glass from the patio table and poured another drink for me, then scooted into the cooking area and begain rummaging about the cupboards and refridgerator. I scratchd my head and tried to think up some questions. It all sounded smooth and well rehearsed. Well, I guess she had shared her story a million times before, and certainly must have done so frequently of late.
Elaine sacheted across the indoor sitting area with a plate of sliced multigrain bread, jam and fruit samples as I tried to drum up a challenging question. She sat down on the sofa so I went in, slipped off my coat and sat down on a nearby section, tossing the coat on the back of the seat. I decided to look for signs of something juicier. “Tell me more about what it was look to be a homecare worker, in your experience.”
“There were a lot of characters,” answered Elaine as she shoved the plate along the glass top of the coffee table, “both among the workers and the clients. That’s for sure. One woman resented the help so much that she often struck us with her cane and swore at us. Another would sit sobbing. Some were passive because of their dementia. They’d just sit there and it was hard to get them to talk or go for a walk or listen to music, whatever. Then there were the ones who always complained, like we never worked hard enough for them. We weren’t supposed to do heavy tasks like washing windows or cupboards. Another complained we were loose and irresponsible every time we took time off due to us, I mean during live-in jobs. We weren’t supposed to work in evenings except with special instructions like for assisting the disabled bathe and get to bed, or to be there in emergencies. We were supposed to have personal time and we were allowed to go out after the work was done, during designated hours. Naturally, we were pressed to do chores and stay in all the time. It wasn’t fair.
“Well, there were some nice ones, but most made us feel bad. Situations made us behave badly in response. I remember one gal, she was incredible. What a character! It was this rugby player who used to commute by bike all over the Lower Mainland and up the valley. I remember her telling me how she would be riding out to Chilliwack late at night when she was supposed to be sleeping over at the client’s house because she wanted to do some hard partying, or score or sell. Yeah, she was keen on making money on the side. She liked to daring things and she prodded us or dared us to do likewise. She started this thing of collecting souvenirs from clients’ homes. She was stealing stuff, she said, rationalizing that the client was too old, didn’t care and wouldn’t have any more use for the stuff. She was taking things she thought she could use at first, then it escalated to stealing luxury items she could carry out just for the sake of stealing and getting away with it. She started this practice of collecting trophies of what she called “our career achievements”—meaning souvenirs of the houses and people we looked after as part of oru rightful remuneration. Hah! Now, let me clear, it was just done at the richer homes, the ones in Point Grey, Shaughnessy and West Van.” She was lounging back in the corner of the seat, grinning from ear to ear.
I was on the edge of my seat now. “Did you steal stuff too?” I knew the alcohol was loosening up her tongue, and I only wanted to take advantage. She invited me; it was a real interview, and on the record.
“Oh, yeah. Sure. See that cabinet with all the odd ornaments. I could still name almost every person to whom they used to belong. Then there is some stuff in boxes down in my locker. Like, there was this pompous and haughty woman who bragged about her precious items. They had complete collections of literary works. One was a complete set of the Greek classics all bound and printed exactly alike by the same company. Not only was I curious and interested in The Odyssey, personally, but I didn’t like her and I wanted to break up a set just to spite the bitch. I took The Odyssey and never returned it. It was a good read, by the way.”
My mouth was hanging open. “Go on.”
“We all sold some stuff, sometimes right from the threshhold of the home while we were on shift! Can you imagine?” She was laughing. I wasn’t. “We would meet at a bar or café now and then (not everyone drank) to compare notes and brag about our booty and sales. But more money was to be had selling dope on the side. That rugby playing cyclist started it. She had a source. Not everyone participated in the trade, but a lot of us did. Just pot, and occasionally a little hashish. We did not considerate it harmful. Ha-ha. We even used a little on the job. Right there. Ha-ha-ha.”
“You were in a drug ring? A ring of homecare workers?”
“That’s right. Listen, in the old days, nearly everybody was using and even trading at least a little.
“If you say so.”
“Anyway, it was all foolish. Yes. It was a kind of futile rebellion, I guess. Perhaps the efforts I made later in my career are redeeming enough. I organized for change with education, campaigning and lobbying. I hope everyone sees that. Do what you will. Think the Village Bugle can handle it?”
“You really want me to report what you’ve told me tonight? I don’t know.” It probably was too much for the Bugle.
“Hey, it’s how life was. The law can’t touch me because too much time has passed and you don’t really have evidence, regardless. My reputation speaks for itself. No-one can take away my achievements. The celebration of my career tonight was real. There are good reasons for I and many others to feel good about the positive changes and the good work done, for seniors, the disabled and the workers.”
She was sounding reasonable at this point. “I think I’ll complete the assignement of reporting on your retirement and tribute. The rest, your after hours confessions might be best presented as an independent contribution to a bigger publication. I’ll talk to my editor, if you back me up—about a feature for the national press, I mean.”
“Yes, certainly. Go for it, Robin. You have my sincerest wishes that your reporting brings you greater success as a journalist.” Elaine stood up. “What time is it? God, now I’m feeling it. Time for a nap, I think. Any more questions, and you can reach me later today, okay? Please take yourself off, now. Don’t worry about tidying. I can do it later. I have skills, right?” She winked and moved across the room towards what was likely her bedroom door. “Bye, Robin. Have a great day.”
END