This is one of my favorite jackets.
It's just a fleece, it crackles with static electricity when I take
it off, it's hard to keep clean and fluffy, and it says Parliament of
Canada / Parliament du Canada on it. I got it in 2001 when I was
working in homeless services. I also have a black winter jacket with
a broken zipper that says “DHS Night Patrol” in shiny black
letters across the back, but it isn't very useful because of the
broken zipper. I do get a lot of comment about the “DHS Night
Patrol” bit though – no one has ever heard of the Department of
Homeless Services so they always think it is from Homeland Security.
I was hired by the City in April of
1999 and it was another 4 months before I could actually report. I
used to call my future boss's secretary almost every day asking "Can
I start yet?" When I became a manager I "hired" many
people this way, only to see them turn elsewhere after a couple
months of waiting.
When I finally arrived at my new
workplace at 60 Hudson Street in the Western Union building (see
wikipedia for interesting facts about this building), I was
shoe-horned into a windowless room - a large, temporary cubicle with
composite walls that did not reach the ceiling. Two other people
worked with me, older women who had been with the city for a long
time. Our unit was relatively new so although they had to teach me a
lot, there were still some things they didn't know either. I had
been hired out of Columbia's School of International and Public
Affairs along with 5 or 6 others. I'm not sure if we were supposed
to be the vanguard of a new kind of Staff Analyst (our Civil Service
title) or we were just available during the very small window in
which our agency was allowed to hire. I don't suppose I'll ever
know, even though I ended up staying the longest out of my little
cohort.
Our floor was not necessarily pleasant.
It hadn't been renovated (or cleaned!) in a long time and was
grungy. Cockroaches skittered over the walls and luckily the smelly
bathrooms were another floor away. The staff acted like it felt
neglected as well. One day I walked into the bathroom and heard
snoring coming out of one of the stalls. Only half of the agency was
here - mostly the part that actually dealt with homeless people - the
other half was over near City Hall, which meant that messengers and
staff were constantly hurrying (or meandering) back and forth.
Eventually the whole lot of us was moved into new quarters on Beaver
Street, right near the Stock Exchange. The year before I resigned, I
had to go back to this building a lot to meet with folks from the
Dept. of Corrections. Looking back, this building bookended my
career and it seems right that I resigned then.
One of my jobs with DHS was to help
prepare an annual conference for people doing street outreach in NYC.
We would bring in speakers from places where they were doing new or
interesting things, or trying different models, and have them discuss
their ideas. It was an enormous hassle to organize, especially when
everything had to go through the NYC bureaucracy - several years I
had to put large hotel bills on my credit card and hope to be
reimbursed in a timely fashion (I wasn't.) One time, though, I got
the city to pay for some Dutch folks to stay in the Chelsea Hotel and
that was worth it!
Although it wasn't a lot of fun for me,
I always hoped it was interesting for everyone else. In theory, it
gave people a chance to see their work valued, and it made the people
doing the real work on the streets the most important people in the
agnecy, even if only for one day (it turned out that working with
actual homeless people was a good way to get marginalized within the
agency, but that's another story!)
In 2001 our Commissioner left. Most of
my colleagues loved him and there was apprehension about who the
replacement would be. The Interim Commissioner was not well-liked,
much-liked, or even liked, but he wanted to leave a mark so there
was a lot of pressure on us to have a properly impressive conference
that year and make him look good. Luckily we had reached out to some
Canadians in homeless services. At that time the Ministry of Labour
was in charge of homeless services and the Minister herself decided
to attend the conference and give an address.
For once we did not have to worry about
accommodations as the Labour Ministry was obviously going to foot the
bill for whatever was necessary. That probably added a month to my
life!
It was a large group, and we enjoyed
taking them around the city. The Minister herself was a woman named
Bradshaw who looked like a jolly version of Madame DeFarge. I was,
as I was every year during the conference, a nervous wreck - worrying
about the itinerary, making sure all the programs they visited were
ready and presentable, setting up the hall and a homeless artists
exhibit, finding a caterer who employed formerly homeless people,
getting all the requisitions in and bills paid. I think they had a
good time - they said so anyway.
One evening, the Interim Commissioner
decided that there should be a dinner at his favorite restaurant in
the Village. It was a very awkward affair, I don't think the
Canadians liked the guy either. For me, it was like being at the
court of a tyrant and I tried to stay unnoticed. I ate what my
betters ate and drank less than they drank.
Of course something else had happened
in 2001, in New York City, a month or so earlier, and after the
dinner the Minister expressed a desire to see the remains of the
towers. Since she was an important visitor it was quickly arranged.
We had some city vans and drivers and a
police escort. It was raining and late at night by the time we got
there, and any residual effects from the wine at dinner quickly wore
off. We were driven around to the west side of the hole and escorted
onto the viewing platform that had been set up for families of the
people who died there.
The viewing platform was a crude wooden
affair, hastily assembled from unpainted and untreated lumber and, in
my memory, not big enough for more than 15 people. The families had
written and carved farewells into the wood and once we noticed those,
no one looked at the ruins anymore.
It was very quiet driving back. It was
not until six months later that my own emotions finally overwhelmed
me, and that night I went home on the subway not much more thoughtful
than usual - mostly worried about office politics and my job.
A week later my boss and I got a
package from Canada that contained two fleece jackets and a lovely
note from the Minister's Secretary thanking us for our hospitality.
The customs form declared the jackets had a value greater than what
was allowed, but for some reason it meant a lot to me that I keep
that jacket. So I told my boss that because the valuation was in
Canadian dollars it should be ok. Since I feel foolish flashing the
badge I used to carry, it is one of the few mementos of that time
that I see every day.
And that is the story of my favorite
jacket.
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