Opelousas, Louisiana, circa 1980
While the company photographer headed to his wife’s office, adjacent to the billing office where I worked at Standard Fittings, he stopped by my desk and took this photo of me.
In front of and beside me were stacks of warehouse inventory printouts, which were printed on a dot matrix printer. My purse sat on the shelf above my desk, along with a bottle of lotion and a box of tissues. A corkboard was on the wall above my desk.
On the small table behind me sat what looks like some kind of ledger with the company’s name printed on it. I do not recall what the purpose of the book was.
The billing office was located on the catwalk inside the high-pressure fitting manufacturing company. The door, with a glass top, led directly out to the catwalk but was always kept closed and locked. The glass in the door allowed us to see out into the plant. The alloy shipping department, the inside sales department, and some areas of manufacturing could be seen through the glass in the door, giving us a sense of the magnitude of the plant and the work being done.
Our office was visited daily not only by management, who walked the plant each day, but also by sales, shipping, and accounting personnel who came to check on orders, billing, or discrepancies in inventory.
These visits, or when we visited other offices, gave opportunities for things such as chit-chat, discussing where to go for lunch, who was having a baby, who was getting married or divorced, plans for a party, plans for the weekend, or what would happen on the next episode of the television show Dallas.
It was also a place where people became friends or sometimes foes, and where some met and became husband and wife.
The smell of the plant was strong. Once, when they changed the cutting oils, the smell was so overwhelming that it clung to everything. Clothing, shoes, purses, everything, including our money, stunk. I can remember paying for items at stores, and the cashiers would step back due to the smell and say, “You must work at Standard Fittings.”
The timing of distributing paychecks at 4:55 p.m. on a Friday was to ensure employees would be there throughout the day. And, of course, there was a sense of excitement about the weekend as everyone tried to quickly get their paycheck, clock out, leave the plant, find their car in the parking lot, and get in line with other cars leaving the lot.
Standard Fittings was the largest employer in my hometown. It was a place where people came and went over the years. For many, it was a pass-through, somewhere to work temporarily while making a living before moving on to something better.
Throughout the years, memories of working there and of the people sometimes come to mind, along with a smile.
