For the first few months at the Genesee Transportation Council, I colored maps. I felt like an oversized kindergartener as I used thick markers to shade certain areas of Monroe County. Yellow for Parma, red for East Irondequoit, blue for Pittsford.
People would walk by and peek into my workspace, and compliment me on my coloring abilities.
“Nice job there,” they’d say, “looks like you really know how to stay within the lines.”
They were trying too hard and were corny, but I didn’t mind. It was a small office, and the people were friendly. Steph had worked there for a year and recommended me when they needed a part-time clerk.
After the maps were colored, I was handed a counting device, and Steph and I were installed at intersections where we clicked the counter each time a car passed. Then we counted cars in local parking garages.
The projects kept coming.
Over time, Stephanie demonstrated her technical skills and began to work exclusively on computer projects, while I gravitated toward the people end of the transportation business, talking for hours with elderly people on the phone, helping them arrange rides to visit their grandchildren or get to dialysis.
I knew there would be a job for me after high school if I wanted it. Stephanie had moved away from home earlier in the year, but I was able to see her at work, which made my connection to the place even stronger. We’d huddle in the office she had recently scored, swapping stories and laughing.
Karen did the books at GTC. Only a few years younger than my mother, she seemed ages away. Her dark hair was cut into a sleek bob and she spoke openly about her prior marriages, current men, and mixed-up siblings. Karen worked out at the gym during her lunch hour, took vacations to Europe, and wrote stories in her free time.
“I write, too,” I told her, and when she offered to read some of the stories of runaway children I’d taken to writing that year, I typed them up and handed them over.
Karen was taking classes at the junior college and encouraged me to consider the same after high school. “I never thought I’d go back to school,” she said, “but you owe it to yourself to at least try a class or two.”
No matter how rocky things were at home or school, I always showed up at work. Even if I never figured out the future, I knew I’d always have work. Work did not frighten me. Work, I knew.