History of John Smith Griffin
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Washington D.C. - 1937

I enjoyed my new work very much: I had a nice office (better than I have now as Attorney in Charge of the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S.D.A in Los Angeles - 1958), with rugs on the floor, a secretary, two messengers and a clerk working for me. It was all too good to be true because I had been in the job only a few months when I received notice that I had passed a civil service exam I had taken years before as a file clerk and that I was eligible for a job with the Railroad Retirement Board as a file clerk at $1260 per annum. At that time there were only a few jobs (available) outside of Civil Service and to have a Civil Service job really meant something. Moreover you could more easily transfer to other agencies in the government as most of the employees in government were under Civil Service.

After much careful consideration I decided that if I could arrange to transfer my appointment from the Railroad Retirement Board to the Department of Interior I would accept it. The Public Works Administration was closely related to the Department of Interior since Harold Ickes was both Secretary of Interior and also Public Works Administrator. Many of the jobs overlapped, particularly in personnel work. So through Abe Cannon, I was able to arrange an appointment in the Department of Interior in the General Land Office as a file clerk under civil service. I was determined to serve only the six months probationary period which would give me civil service status and then transfer to another better job and carry my civil service status with me.

The six months that I put in as a file clerk in the Land Office were about the most difficult six months I ever spent. To go from $2600 per annum back down to $1260 per annum was in itself a very trying experience. In addition and this was the hardest part, I worked in a section headed by a middle-aged man who didn't know enough and was not intelligent enough to do anything more than filing all his life. He was supervisor merely by reason of seniority. The under-boss or foreman was even worse. Although he was more intelligent than the section head he was totally uneducated and rough and crude in his ways. The rest of the bunch were either young kids on their first job or older people with so little intelligence and ambition that they were not able to get out of their rut. To go from a carpeted office with my own secretary and other help, down to a basement room where I was the lowest of the low, working at a table along with several others putting papers in files all day long, and nothing else, was a bitter pill me a law school graduate and a member of the District of Columbia Bar.

I had been there only a few months when I began to get pains in my stomach, particularly when it was empty. I had a severe acid condition all of the time regardless of what-I ate. I went to the doctor and my trouble was diagnosed as stomach ulcers. I was put on a strict milk diet and given some kind of calcium pills to take several times a day. I remained on this diet for six months with no real change in my condition.

As the end of the six month period approached I contacted my old boss in the Division of Investigators in the Public Works Administration to see if I could get my job back as "Chief Clerk". Instead he offered me a job as a "Special Agent" at $3200 per annum, doing investigations work. I was very pleased at the offer and the day I finished my six months service as a file clerk I transferred back to the Public Works Administration as a Special Agent Later I had the position classified under civil service and got civil service status as a special agent. This opened the door to another transfer later on.

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