But this American boss with a thick cigar I knew nothing about. He did not know anything about me either. I had an impression that he wasn’t overly curious about me. After all — why would he be? To him, I was just another immigrant addition to his cleaning crew. And he was ready to show his prestige and power. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Janko,” I said.

He continued: “How do you spell that?”

This question came as a big surprise to me. Back home I took classic Greek, Latin, French, German and nobody ever asked me how to spell. People there say words… nobody spells them. In Croatian you tell your name and everybody automatically understands it… thoughts came quickly to my mind for those few seconds of confusion which he generously allowed me. I had a solution to it (again!) on that piece of paper where my full name was written down. He glanced at it as if contained nothing important.

“What country are you from?” a question came from his, this time, cigar-free mouth. It made me think that the country I came from was more important to him than my individual name. I said Yugoslavia (when I really wanted to say Croatia), feeling some bitter aftertaste in my mouth, saying the word Yugoslavia, as if I swallowed a full spoon of spoiled yogurt.

It made me think that the country I came from was more important to him than my individual name. I said Yugoslavia (when I really wanted to say Croatia)…

His eyes widened up: “Aha, my friend Tito’s country!” He made a sweet friendly gesture with his short, fat hand through the air to stress his statement. I couldn’t tell him that Tito was a hardcore communist who probably wouldn’t shake his capitalist hand… (But, this “my friend Tito” reaction from Americans would happen to me often, making me believe that Tito was a very skillful global-relations politician, fooling even the sharp-minded Americans.)

Finally we got down to the business of cleaning. As my understanding (of English) led me to believe, he told his Puerto Rican assistant to take me upstairs where I was supposed to join a crew of three men working on stripping and re-waxing the hallways. He did remind him, looking at me, that he would check up on me, to see if I fit the job. Working on the hallways, it was revealed to me later, was the highest sophistication of the building cleaning business. Those who were in that category were the “PhDs” of the cleaning industry, as opposed to those “High School graduates” of less important cleaning aspects: toilet cleaning, low dusting, high dusting, Venetian blinds dusting etc. (This deep thought of job classifications was the American brain-child to individualize the work, giving it some importance.)

Once on the floor I was introduced to the three “PhD” floor-waxers. A burly black American with a shaved head, about 6’4’’ was the leader in the group. I remember the other two in the group referred to him as Mr. Slow. It took me a while to figure out correctly why; because, at first, it sounded as “Mr. Toe,” which I thought was more appropriate. He had an old pair of shoes, size 14, coated with a thick layer of wax. But, in retrospect, both names would fit him nicely, considering he was about 280 lbs., which he had to carry around. The second one in the group was a light-skinned Puerto Rican, happy “hombre” Jose. He struck me with his constant singing in Spanish, at the same time dancing (while floor mopping) cha-cha and meringue. He had a fascination with the Spanish word “cho…” which, at the time, I did not know its meaning. Only on the correct observation on my part of Jose’s behavior, when around the nice-looking cleaning girls, did the full meaning of it come to my mind. (One would be surprised how the office cleaners interacted relatively easily in those neon-lit hallways at times when five or six different groups would be working on those deserted floors).