My Irish Boss, 1926-1929

July 31, 1999

After my father died, my after-school job in much of the above years was delivery boy and other tasks in a small grocery store of the John T. Connor chain, located on Norwood Street, not far from Everett Square. This grocery chain was merged a few years later with another group of grocery stores and became First National Stores. Years, subsequently when super-markets were organized, “Finast” emerged in that enterprise with a name I have forgotten.

At the time, the John T. Connor firm had a personnel practice of hiring immigrants from Ireland to manage their one-man stores. My boss was Joseph Murphy, with a thick Irish brogue. I don’t know how long he had been in this country. He was about 30-35 years old, unmarried, and boarded, room and meals, with an Irish family near the comer of Summer Street and Broadway. Every noon his landlady sent down a hot lunch which he ate, interrupting his meal to serve customers. On Saturdays, when I was there at noon, he would eat in the back room without interruption. I would wait on customers. I do not remember restaurants in Everett at that time except for one “Waldorf”.

He was paid $30 a week, plus $1.00 for every $100 of sales volume. Thus, if total sales for the week were $900 his wages were $39. The simple cash register just recorded the amount of sales and totals for the day or week. So he had considerable paper work to do. The complex scanners and computer-like terminals at check-out counters were about sixty years in the future. When a customer had several items, the prices were listed with pencil and added on the brown paper bag. Both the Boss and I were rather quick and accurate and took pride in that skill.

I was paid $4.00 a week for five afternoons from 2/30 PM to 6; and all day Saturday 8 AM to 9 PM. Once in a while, but not that often, I would get a tip when I delivered a grocery order, 25 cents was the usual gratuity. I had a two-wheel push cart, the wheels about 3’ in diameter and the box about 5’ by 5’.

There were certain skills developed in that store. Butter did not come packaged but in large round tubs which were mounted on a slant in the icebox. I learned how to cut ¼ pound, ½ pound and 1 pound wedge, using a trowel-like cutter. Once again it was a source of pride when I hit the proper weight right on the nose.

When not delivering, I had other tasks, unpacking and re-stocking shelves; taking cases of “tonic” (Coca-Cola, Moxie, root beer, ginger ale) to the cellar; in the cellar, filling ½ peck and one peck paper bags with potatoes which arrived at the store in large burlap bags. Occasionally there would be a thoroughly rotten potato – one of the most disgusting objects I ever had to handle.

Murphy was a good boss – never harsh with me. He was a natural psychologist, as I realized years later. More than once as I was stocking shelves or handling cases, he would say to a customer, “Look at young Carl, strong as an elephant he is.” (In that wonderful brogue). Well, I was a teen-ager who ate up that praise and worked even harder.

He was a good man, too. One of the weekly deliveries, the greatest distance, was to a poor Irish mother who had four children, all probably under six years old. They occupied the top flat of a run-down “three decker.” When I think about it, I can still sense the pervasive stench of unwashed diapers as I climbed to the top floor. (No Pampers then).

This Friday order was always the same, 2 pecks of potatoes. My instructions were not to collect any money for the order or take any tip. Many times I wondered if that was all they had to eat – potatoes. In those times, no public welfare, no aid to dependent children, no WIC. Murphy told me not to collect, [was it] because he was paying? Or, perhaps, the John T. Connor Co was unknowingly subsidizing the order. I believe there were also a few customers he carried “on the cuff” although he said nothing about it to me.

I never saw the father when I made those deliveries. I asked the Boss once about that and he said, only, with that lilting brogue, “The drink is a terrible creature, it is.”

I have a warm memory of Murphy, my Irish boss and a good man.