Tirza ~ May 18

 

A tangent

Maybe the way I hired people had to do with my own search for jobs.  Either I wasn’t qualified or didn't have the experience, when I knew I would love the job.  Or I was “overqualified” when I had the skills, but the potential employer thought I’d lose interest and leave.  

There were plenty of times in my life I just didn’t know how I could earn my keep, between what I wanted and what was wanted.

An old friend had reached out to me knowing me well, to give me a position at Spanish TV in NYC.  It was wonderful to be able to leave Texas to come back to NYC and for an important position. But a couple of years later, when there was a power shift at the network, we were let go.  I was asked to introduce the producer they had hired in Rome to meet our co-production partners.  

I was going to be perfunctory and professional, but in the short ride to the studio, it was a fast fall into friendship.

After our meetings, I invited her to have a late lunch and give her more information regarding the projects under my wing.  Only if I can invite my daughter, she said.  I’m only here for the weekend, and my daughter is studying here. 

Leticia showed up with ink-stained hands, interrupting her printmaking to meet us.  We spent the afternoon together on a terrace in Battery Park City.

Sometime later, I was asked to run an illustration agency for a year.  I had a newborn; their business was in their loft with a child’s room filled with a crib and toys. How could I say no? After a year, they gave me a choice: take it over or leave.

That’s when I remembered Leticia.  I invited her out to lunch.  She was born in Argentina, taken to Italy as a toddler by her mother, and her father  became a famous artist and designer after he moved to Paris.  She spoke Spanish, Italian and French fluently. English not so much. But she always wanted to be an illustrator, and came to NY for that reason.

At lunch, I tried to weave questions into our conversation, so she wouldn’t think this was a job interview.  She remembers it as an interrogation that went like this:  

Do you type? No. 

How’s your English? Not good.  

Enough to speak to clients on the phone?  Oh, definitely not. 

To which I concluded, Will you come to work with me?

Turns out it was the best business decision I could have made.  We taught each other everything to make a go of the business.  It was my first time on my own, at a time when everything in my life had changed. I was a new mother, a new business owner, the caretaker of a mother going senile.

My bedroom became our office during the day, the only door we could close, roomy enough to hold two desks.    She learned to type, she gave me hope when I struggled, her warmth and gracious way on the phone made clients feel like old friends.