b"Was the plasterer's shop in a central location or in the project?It's in the housing project, in the building in the basement. Did you move often from project to project?It depended on the job. Some walls took 3 or 4 days, maybe there were several walls in the same housing project.You would stay a while and finish the jobs.What did you like best about your job?[laughs]You can be honest, if you didn't like anything, you can say that, too.Well, I think it is the people you meet. One thing about Housing, it teaches you about people. I know people nowsince I work for Housing. It was nice because you meet different people, people of different walks of life, the plasterers,the carpenters, guys who put in the windows. And then, the tenants too, you meet a lot of different tenants. It was fun.It was just going to work, having fun communicating with your coworkers. It was a nice little job. I never really had anytrouble with co-workers.I made friends. I still got some very nice people.What were problems that you encountered or things you didn't like about your job?I didn't encounter too many problems.Nancy mentioned to me that it was less usual for African Americans to be in a plasterer position when youstarted. Was that problematic?Oh, no, no, no, no. When I came to Housing, there weren't too many Black and Latino plasterers. So, they started theschool. I went to the school, I graduated and I went to the project at Queensbridge. Im out of school maybe about a week,and they assigned me to the biggest job in the project. Took me 14 days to do it. I had no experience. There wasn't toomany Latinos or Black plasterers and a lot of guys I know, they put them in that position.If I'm hearing you correctly, people who had the least training and experience were given the biggest job.Not necessarily. Some of the people adapt to it quickly. Honestly, I didn't like it, but I was going to try so I couldmake a little more money. That first job took me 14 days and they wrote up I was too slow.If I'm hearing this correctly, you think they didn't really want you to succeed?You're correct. I didnt want to fight it. I went back to being a plasterers helper. I'm like this, I don't go where I'm notwanted.Did you encounter racism on other jobs? Just that one time. See when I come up against people like that, I just ignore them. I do the opposite of what theythink I'm going to do. No, I never had another encounter with that.162 "