When I was very young I worked at a hearing aid factory. My boss Frank was 36 years old, which at the time meant that all the music he'd loved as a teenager was from the 50s and 60s. We listened to the "oldies" station all day long, which is why I'm intimately acquainted with the lyrics of songs that had already gone off the radio before I was born.
Anyway, I was remembering in particular a lady from the company's personnel department. Her name was Brownie McCandliss and she was always impeccably dressed and coiffed, with an outdated hairstyle that needed a lot of hairspray. She had a very trim figure, but her clothes were outdated, too: everything she owned was in immaculate condition but looked at least 20 years behind the current styles, and not in a good way. At that time, women Brownie's age were dressing for the proverbial success and girls like me were wearing baggy CP Shades sweatshirts and slouch socks. Edgy vintage wear was in vogue, but Brownie's wardrobe wasn't what you'd call edgy.
Brownie seemed kind of swingin', like she enjoyed a good fondue party. But she was proper and she never put her feet up on her desk. Instead, she had this lunchtime ritual where she'd unwrap the sandwich she brought every day and she'd slide open the bottom drawer of her desk and use it like a little step while she ate. Then she would close the drawer again when she went back to work.
She was very proud of herself for being able to remember by heart how to spell Frank's complicated Polish last name.
Much later I worked for a high-profile organization that people were impressed I was affiliated with, though what that outfit does isn't nearly as useful as manufacturing devices to help people hear. And none of the high-ranking staff in the human resources division there left the kind of impression on me that Brownie McCandliss did. I will remember them only for their ordinariness.
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