b'there were those who made life really easy, who taught me. People like my first superintendent, Mr. Harvey, who was sopatient, and later Mr. Smith. One assistant super Ill never forget was Gardner Days. I gave him an extremely difficult timebecause there were things, I thought I could do better than he could. But he was far more experienced, more knowledge-able. He was able to teach me without discouraging me or making me feel like I didnt know anything. I learned how tobe a supervisor from that man.In 1984, some friends and I started an organization in the Housing Authority called Non-Traditional Women of TodayAssociation. It was more of a support organization at that point, because there were so few women coming up in the nontraditional fields. We didnt want to be separate from the men, but we wanted time for ourselves. We looked at thingsdifferently than the men because we were women.One of the women was a good friend, Pat Rutledge, the first female supervisor of caretakers and the second femaleassistant superintendent. Sheila White helped form it, even though at the time she was not in a nontraditional jobshe was a secretary. Later, she went on to be an HPT, assistant superintendent, and superintendent. She retired recently.In those early days we were working with men who were not prepared for us. Our goal was to let them know we werenot there to be a work-wife, but to do the same work they were doing.It was extremely difficult. It was a learning process for the females, and some of them did not make it. In addition todealing with the men, they had to balance their 9-to-5s with children and family. All working women have this balancingto do, but HPTs, for example, had different hours, we did heavy work, dirty work. We needed an organization where wecould talk about our aspirations and frustrations and share those lousy daysand those good days.Our group became very active in the local, thanks to people like Carl Haynes and Maggie Feinstein. Maggie helpedus get our organization started. So did Norris Jackson, the director of the Housing Division then.Later, we met with Carl, then the vice-president, about organizing a dinner dance. He showed that he cared; hemade us feel like first class citizensnot like the authority. The Housing Authority wasnt prepared for the growing numberof nontraditional women. There were no locker rooms for us to change in, for example, and to this day we still wear thesame uniforms as the males.In 1987 I passed the assistant superintendent exam. When I found out that I passed I was so happy that I went out tothe back of my house and burned my HPT pants. Then I found out that passing the test didnt mean I had a new job thenext day. I had to go to the storeroom and ask for a new uniform.When I made assistant superintendent, I was assigned to Douglass Houses in Harlem. I was the third female assistant superintendent. Douglass is one of the Housing Authoritys largest projects, with over 2,000 units. It was my firstsupervisory position. My job was to oversee the supervisor of caretakers, supervisor of grounds keepers, and the mainte-nance and heating plant staffs, to maintain standards for the residents. It wasnt really stressful; it was different. I didntknow what to do as a female supervisor supervising an all-male staff, and they didnt know what to do with me. But it wasfun. Douglass was like a small family. We were able to do a job and then enjoy each other after work. We encouraged thesuperintendents secretary, Shirley Fonseca, to take classes. I thought, if I can become an assistant superintendent, so canshe. She went to HPT classes given by the union, and now shes an assistant superintendent, on her way to becoming asuperintendent.I think the hardest part of my supervisory career was letting my male staff know that I was not there to hurt them, notthere to do anything other than to get the job done to the best of my ability. Once they became comfortable with me, we125 '