Hamptons History, A Sag Harbor Local Rants: A Factory Story, Part 1

Apparently TV Land has stopped broadcasting Leave it to Beaver, so my son asked me to pick him up a DVD of the series, the other night. Not having much else to do, I sat through an episode where Beaver sneaks into the office of Mrs. Rayburn, the principal of Beaver's school. He's looking for a spanking machine in Mrs. Rayburn's closet, and is accidentally locked inside that night by the janitor. Mrs. Rayburn reminded me of a woman I worked for one time many years ago; Miss Elizabeth Hall. Miss Hall was the production manager of the Bulova Watch Case factory, where I worked one winter, right out of school, while deciding on a career goal. A charming, well educated woman, but certainly not one you would want to mess with. She could hold her own to any man, and the men respected her for it. In fact, she was Sag Harbor's first appointed female mayor, filling in for the last month of Hap Barry's term, who died in office February 1957. Miss Hall was a trustee at the time. For some reason, she chose not to run for reelection as mayor. Although it was never brought up in conversation, I suspect she found it difficult in the so called old boys network, as local politics were at the time.
So it was one October day, I found myself in Bulova's employment office looking for a job. The four story brick build sits on the corner of Hampton and Washington streets. Actually only the second story was used for producing watchcases. After entering the Washington Street entrance and walking up a flight of stairs, I found the employment office. There were about 260 employees working there in the early 70's. Women workers outnumbered men about 60/40. The pay was only $2.50 an hour. The hours were good, 8-5, Monday to Friday with an hour off for lunch. The factory closed the week between Christmas and New Years, and another 3 weeks in July. Of course there were no benefits what-so-ever. After a brief interview I was told I could start that afternoon at 1pm. To be continued: