The Mail SECRET ARIAL DILEMMAS

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I cannot be Batman to every Robin in the world. Many's the time in an eight hour day that these words have sprung to my lips only to be choked down and replaced by classified rates, the whereabouts of ad copy, a plea to extract the fifteen cents for a paper.

But in fact, I often feel like Batman without the wham zow- Batman in retirement behind the desk, handing out the scissors and scotch tape necessary to keep up the life flow. But retirement at age 22? Clearly unacceptable.

It's baffling, Perhaps that's the best way to describe working at the CRIMSON. At first I felt I should chew gum and wear spike heels. To my relief that was not required or even expected. I could wear blue jeans and be myself although a somewhat foggy version. But oh the pain of the subtler forms of secretarial stereotype. Wouldn't it be easier, I have often thought, had it been clear from the cutest that I was going to be eaten alive, instead of being forced to sift ambiguities of kindly but well aimed jests? Consider the following secretarial dilemmas:

I am having a telephone conversation with an advertiser. He says, "You will call me back when you find my letter, like a good girl?" Pause. "You are a good girl, aren't you?" I gather all my dignity to reply coldly.

"That. Sir. is not the discussion at hand." Then I kick the filing cabinet. File and forget. But I am so humiliated that I cannot help wondering if in fact the issue of my worth is not a debatable one.

Then consider the first time an angry subscriber demanded to speak to someone in authority. I wished then I had had the courage of the bookkeeper to reply. "Madam, you have reached the top." But it would not have been true- the bookkeeper is the top.

In the early days, I would have been eager to see a young Harvard Robin (a fledgling reporter) come in to make the world a better place and revivify my faith in mankind. Come he did and winking at me, explain to a customer that although I was cute, I was inefficient and well . . . he was sorry about the lost copy. So much for my hero.

But what about me? I went to college for four years for this? What am I doing here? Well, my father says it's a learning experience. My mom says come home and I'll fix up your room. My room was fine the way it was. Dad is closer- my experience at the CRIMSON does contain a smattering of the real world. There are people who want to make sure that "negroes" do not answer their classified ad, and people who place ads that would appall even the mildest feminist. But if I wanted the real world would I have come to Cambridge? Maybe. To the CRIMSON? Never. On the other hand, it is true that I have learned something. I have learned that people will sell anything- used tennis balls, half a bicycle, themselves (handsome, charming Rhodes Scholar Yale graduate seeks apartment blah, blah, blah), that there are six picas to an inch, that people look behind a counter and see not me at all, but a secretary.

But I have not answered the question- why am I there? Is it because as last week's Time magazine says, ". . . 80 per cent of all jobs available in the U. S. are within the capabilities of those with high school diplomas?" Is it because after years of education I have no marketable skill and not even the promise of one with four more years of graduate school? Well, I don't know. But if my education is only a bauble. I ask at least to be able to show it. Retire? I can't.

I do not criticize the CRIMSON. What I criticize is a world that makes it acceptable to say to a secretary- Be a sweet girl and give me a pen so I can finish writing my feature about the oppression of people in Vietnam. Farfetched? Think about it. And a world that says to women- Smile and we'll buy you a cup of coffee on our way to the real world.

But this is meant to be a funny piece and nice girls don't get angry. So I'll smile and nod and listen and when I stammer the classified rates for the one hundredth time, I'll agree with you that I'm a babbling idiot.

Just like a woman to get off the subject. The point was only that I can't be Batman to every Robin.