Night Shift Mommas
Rapidly
keying for eight hours alongside rough-looking city mommas, who also worked the mole shift, I didn’t envy our
supervisor. She presided over rows of tired women who processed data to earn medical
benefits and enough money to pay taxes to the IRS, for whom we typed. The no-nonsense supervisor kept a serious face; our
emotional connection to authority might lessen productivity. But the photos on her desk, next to a radio trailing earphones, made me suspected she was a momma like the rest of us. We worked at night to be available
to our children during the day.
Amongst
the monotonous hours, an occasional chuckle peaked into the air of the vast room. Or, a co-worker’s random hum fell flat on a note from her headset that only she heard. Even though our supervisor didn’t walk the
dark city streets alone from a bus stop to get home each night, she proved her
grit by maintained our large, potentially noisy department.
After years at IRS, I moved to New Jersey’s suburbs. That meant no longer riding public transportation; buses to Jersey stopped running before the late shift ended. My first driving experience came with a dramatic Chevy Nova that refused to run when the mood struck
it. Up and down the lines of IRS keyboards tipped my complains about the testy car.
Empathy showed on the faces of those enduring women as I clunked out of the
gated IRS parking lot alongside their group crossing the boulevard to wait for the bus I once rode with them. The probability of the
Tycony/Palmyra Bridge opening
before I had a chance to cross it was high at that time of the night. My
co-workers threw me a backwards nod as I sputtered onto the dangerous six lane Roosevelt Boulevard.
But the next incident happened traveling from home the following
afternoon.
My Nova stalled before reaching the middle of the
bridge in rush hour traffic. The delicate vehicle didn't do well in the early
September heat. My car's theatrics made me yell: "If I'm late, I’ll get a late slip." The thing was now a
Jersey snob and refused to enter the Philadelphia side of the bridge.
Affronted when a police cruiser
pushed it from behind over the bridge, the fussy car still agreed to take me the rest
of the way to IRS, knowing I'd return to Jersey after my shift.
Late, I moved fast past the rows of whispering mommas. And approached our supervisor's separate, lone desk. Before I could explain, she grinned and said, "We knew you'd be late. We
heard on the news that there was a disabled vehicle on the northbound side of
the bridge."
Rushing from the parking lot caused
me to swallow a breath before replying, "Oh, yeah, that was me."
My supervisor slapped the side of
her metal desk and I jumped. Her raucous laughter caused the
rows of woman to swivel their heads in
our direction, still clicking their keys. Our superior cut off in mid-laugh and resumed
typing, leaving me standing there. So I slunk to my monitor, realizing she
hadn’t asked me to sign a late slip.
Yep,
she was a
momma.
