Finding the Exit: It’s Not Where You Start, It’s Where You Finish by Lea A. Ellermeier

Author:Lea A. Ellermeier [Ellermeier, Lea A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mill Camp Press
Published: 2018-06-05T20:00:00+00:00

When Everything Stops Working, Go

El Paso, Texas – 1984

I didn’t go to Texas alone. Matt followed me south. Through a friend, he’d got a job on a large ranch outside Lubbock. It was a seven-hour drive from El Paso, but it was closer than Nebraska, and we could occasionally see each other on weekends.

Right after registering for classes at UTEP, I went to the university’s employment office. I wanted a waitressing job, or maybe something on campus, but there was only one job posted on the job board that day: errand runner at a downtown law firm.

I had no idea what being a runner would entail, but I called the number anyway and scheduled an interview for the following day.

My wardrobe didn’t include any law-firm-appropriate clothes. After I mentioned it over dinner in the cafeteria, two guys from my dorm floor volunteered to drive me to the nearest mall with a Dillard’s department store. There, I confessed my situation to a saleswoman in the clothing department. I had eighty dollars to spend and no idea what to buy. She took it as a personal challenge, and helped me find a skirt, blouse and shoes on sale.

The day of my interview, I exited the elevator on the eleventh floor of the Texas Commerce Bank building, unsteady on my new high heels. I immediately felt intimidated. The furniture, oriental carpets and paintings in gilded frames in the lobby looked like something from the set of Dynasty.

A UTEP student named Nancy, the firm’s head runner, collected me from the lobby and walked me back to meet the legal administrator. She noticed my awestruck expression as I took in the well-appointed offices, the bullpen of secretaries and men in expensive suits. “Don’t let them scare you,” she said. “They put their panties on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us.”

Even though my prior experience as a fry cook and ranch hand hardly qualified me for the job, Nancy and the administrator liked my Midwestern work ethic and hired me on the spot. I’d make $4.50 an hour and would be paid $.20 a mile for anything I delivered in my car.

Working for thirty-five articulate, educated, ambitious bosses with little tolerance for mistakes took all the courage I could muster. Deadlines were etched in stone and the lawyers never finished projects early. I frequently had to speed across town to get a client’s signature and then make a mad dash to the courthouse to file it. Every other document in the runner’s basket bore the bright red RUSH stamp.

In addition to client work, all of the runners did personal errands like make bank deposits, pick up kids from school, take cars to the repair shop and buy gifts for their spouses. I got to know many of the lawyers personally, and quickly discovered that Nancy had been right, they were just people with families, problems and quirks.

Even the senior partners made a point to ask about classes, my exams and how I was adjusting to life in El Paso.

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