b'Why did you decide to go to work for the Department of Social Services? I had a family and when I came back from California in \'61. I was starting all over again back in the city. I couldn\'ttake a chance on the garment industry which was going down at the time. I would go to one house, steady a couple ofmonths, then they would lay me off. Then I would go to another house and they would lay me off. Some friends were busdrivers working for the City. So, I took a test for a conductor; then, I took all kinds of tests. So, the first one that called mewas the way I went. It happened to be that Department of Welfare. I was working about four years when Transit called me.I was going for the interview, and he said: "You know, you have to work about three to four years before you get a weekend off." I told him no, I\'m staying where I am. I probably would have made more money with Transit, but I wanted more weekends.It seems that your bus driver friends influenced your decision to go into city service. Once you started workingfor the city, was there someone on the job who encouraged you in your job? A mentor? There were people I talked to but not really a mentor.You mentioned you took the Civil Service examinations.To advance, I took them three times: Assistant Stockman, then Stockman and then Store Keeper. Sometime it takesyears to move. You might be a provisional, but you wouldn\'t be Civil Service in that title. I was provisional in 75 and I hadto decide between being laid off or going back. Once you work 6 months Civil Service, you are protected.Did you have family members who worked for the City of New York?Yes, I had cousins. One was a sanitation worker and one was a police officer. A couple of them worked for the Boardof Education as teachers. They werent Local 237 members, but they belonged to other City unionsWere you ever a shop steward?Yes, I was. I was a shop steward from \'65 until \'69 when I was in the commodities, distributing surplus food. I became a shop steward because nobody else wanted it. I took the gripes of everybody and brought them to the unionand to the city. A typical complaint would be working conditions. We often worked in the basements in NYCHA buildingswithout desks or bathrooms, heat or air condition, cold in the winter time, hot in the summertime. Did you attend union meetings?Definitely. Even when I wasn\'t a shop steward, I attended meetings, especially negotiations. Money was part of the contract.Tell me about a typical day on the job at medical records. I would go in at eight o\'clock and I would look at the tapes that came in from the doctors, the dentists. I would gothrough then and figure out which doctor did what. We had a Wang computer and reviewed the tapes with the patient\'sname, the number, and what the doctor did. Doctors had forms to fill out. We had to compare the forms to the tapes tomake sure they were the same. We would take the tapes, and store them one place. The paper would be stored in the61 '