Upon graduating from high school I decided that I needed a job that paid a little more than the local Burger King. One of my favorite high school teachers pulled some strings and got me an interview at the former Lewis Howe Company. You may have never heard of them, but I bet you have used their primary product, Tums, “for the tummy”. The factory was located in downtown St. Louis a couple blocks from Bush Stadium. After a brief meeting with the Personnel Director I was told to report to the sanitation manager. I was about to become real acquanted with the business end of a floor mop!

As it turned out, this was to become one of the most interesting jobs I have ever had and as you might have guessed it had nothing to do with the floor mop. When I reported to the “janitor gang” a quick glance around the room revealed that I was the only “white boy” on the crew. As I was to soon find out, color was the least of the differences between myself and the “gang”. The membersip of the Janitorial crew all hailed from the same city, East St. Louis. Perhaps you have heard of East St. Louis, if not, let me say that I have driven Harlem from end to end and found myself feeling much safer there than on my one mistaken journey through East St. Louis.

Here’s how my first day went. The boss-man as he was called gave me a work order at 7:15 AM and told me to get to it. He sent me off on my own with no mentor or job coach (which as it turned out was a big mistake!).
After 2 hours I finished my assigned task and reported back to the boss-man. He asked me what the %$*&# I was doing back in his “crib” . I explained to him that I had finished the task he had given me and needed another assignment. When he heard this he became furious and told me that he didnt want to see me again for the rest of the day (8 more hours as we worked 10 hour shifts). What I hadnt realized was that the work order he had given me was supposed to last the entire day. By finishing early I had made him and the whole crew look bad. So for the rest of the day I learned how to “make time”.

I finally wandered into the men’s room on the fourth floor of the plant and to my surprise there sat all the guys from our sanitation gang. Well they had never worked with anyone like me before, which was the only thing at that stage that we had in common! After finding out that I was from the “burbs”, one of the guys pulled a 25 caliber automatic pistol out of his pants pocket, looked strait at me and said “I bet this white boy has never been shot”. That got the adrenaline going!! I assured this gentleman that indeed I had never been shot and didn’t want to be shot! At this point all the guys roared with laughter and started “high five-ing” each other. Then something truly amazing happened that I will never forget. Each of the 10 or so men in the restroom pulled up their shirts and every single one of them had the tell-tale pock marked signature scare of a bullet wound. I was the only man in the room who had never been shot! Well needless to say a quite a discussion followed.

I could bore you with quite a few stories from that summer work experience but, to make a long story short, by the end of the summer I had become friends with each one of those guys. I was given a rare glimpse into the life of folks that lived in one of the roughest ghetto’s in America and in turn they met the first whitey that they didnt hate. Each of us got the opportunity to see past color, clothing, slang, and prejudice. At the end of the summer when it was time for me to head off to college, Rosy (short for Roosevelt) who was the informal leader of the gang gave me a big hug and with tears in his eyes said, “we aint never seen a white boy like you”. Choking back my own tears I told Rosy that if he ever saw me in a car stalled in East St. Louis to see to it that I didnt get my first bullet hole wound! Everybody laughed, we shook hands, hugged and went off to live our seperate lives never seeing each other again.

What I learned from this experience, I have remembered the rest of my career which is, when working with others, take some time to really get to know them as people, look beyond your first judgemental opinions, there is always more there than what one intially sees!