Jackie gets a Summer Job
It's the end of the Spring semester. 1978 at UT in Austin. My girlfriend, Jackie, is looking for a Summer Internship to polish her resume for applying to Nursing school. There's a bunch of opportunities but her girlfriend/roommate Dayna is encouraging to come work at the clinic that Dayna works at. Jackie is pretty excited about it too. It's a semen donor clinic.
She gets an interview with an Internist that had recently joined the clinic, Dr. Evin Cassady. She dresses modestly and professionally, unlike when she goes out on the town dressed in latex head to toe. Jackie also holds a 3.6 grade point and has a fun personality but her smile is such that I think of the Eagle's song describing a girl's smile "How to open doors with just a smile." Kinda smile that takes my breath away.
Dr. Cassady will end up making millions in his career running a huge sperm bank but today in the interview he is just starting in his career at age 26. He's good looking with perfect dark hair but a smug attitude according to Jackie. His first question is, "What do you bring to this job?" I'm sure when she smiled and told him about how she's a team player and feels good about helping couples have children. She than tells him that her friend Dayna works there and he lights up because Dayna is his favorite employee.
Jackie asks, "What will I be doing for the clinic?" Dr. Cassady asks her if she would be okay being a recruiter in charge of finding the best qualified applicants that are upper class students or graduate students at UT. She would survey specific targeted classes and find male students that hold at least a 3.0 average and who fit a certain category. Basically very big on blond/auburn with blue or green eyes and good physical stature. She would be tasked with recruiting 20 male candidates per month to apply and each had to go through personality tests and divulge family medical history along with a rigorous physical exam and submit 2 sperm samples if they reach the final stage. The sperm count was set very high with at least 50 million sperm per milliliter required to join the program. Qualified donors would submit semen samples collected in the clinic once per week for 6 months and be paid $200 per donation.
"Wow, that's really good money for so little work." Jackie says bringing a chuckle from Dr. Cassady.
He tells her the kicker that, "Well a suitable donor who follows the rules and doesn't screw his girlfriend or masturbate for a week should produce a 4 milliliter sample that will actually be turned into 6 to 8 frozen vials that sell for $350 per insemination."
Jackie immediately realizes that one of her favorite things in the world, fresh semen, is actually a gold mine! "How much will you pay me per week and how many hours does it take?"
"Well the hours are flexible but we have selected 4 classes for you to survey: one is a Junior level Biochemistry class that is attended by pre-med students in the Welch Hall auditorium, another is a large Marketing class in the BEB building, another is a Physics class in ESB and finally the most fun one, Human Sexuality class that's in Batts Auditorium."
Jackie, "I've actually already taken the Human Sexuality course and got an A. I love Biochemistry but Marketing and Physics are, umm, boring to me. You are asking me to cover 4 classes in Summer session and that's more than a full load. I've got a bunch of girlfriends who could help. My friend, Valerie, is a business major and a top tier student plus a beautiful blonde and Rotha is an engineering student who is of Indian descent who could cover the Physics class? They both are, how shall I say, not shy about sex and probably would love to explore the opportunity to help."
Dr. Cassady, "Well they would still have to interview to pass muster of course. When could you know if they would like to interview?"
Jackie, "I'll call them when I get home and see if they are interested. They both work as cocktail waitresses at night for now so I'll see if they want to take on extra work. What should I tell them about how much they can earn?"
Dr. Cassady, "Well, if you make your quota and cover 2 classes, I think you could make $500 per week? And your friends, under the same parameters, could make $250 per week?"
Jackie, "That's a pretty good offer Dr. Cassady. I would like to accept your offer." She stands, reaches across the desk and offers her hand which he grabs with supple surgeon hands enveloping hers, "Excellent. Please have your friends call to set up an interview as soon as possible. Summer session starts next week."
Jackie asks, "Before I leave can you show me around the clinic to get an idea how things work?"
Dr. Cassady, "Of course. I would be happy to."
He leads her out of his office into a central lab that has two technicians working and it includes her roommate Dayna who gives her a big hug learning that Jackie has been offered a job! Seeing Dayna dressed in a white labcoat and scrubs makes Jackie realize how professional the organization that she is joining is. Dayna still looks "Hot" with the glasses perched on her nose!
Dr. Cassady, "This is the Heart of the operation. There are 3 suites that are on the other side of 3 of the 4 walls. We require that each donation be provided on premises to ensure donor efficacy and freshness of each donation. The suites have reading material, many of the current men's magazines and VCR tape players and many choices of current X rated videos. We have donors scheduled for one hour increments so that anonymity is our utmost priority. We have 6 donors perday scheduled with a one hour window maintained for each donation over a 10 hour day and each donor maintains that same schedule once per week for the 6 month period of the contract."
At this point a light flicks on and off above a small cabinet. Dayna goes to the cabinet and opens the door, inside the cabinet is a 250 milliliter beaker which she pulls onto a benchtop and covers with parafilm and carefully places the beaker into a water bath and sets a timer.
Dr. Cassady explains, "The sample is kept at 37 degrees Centigrade, or "body temperature", for 15 minutes as the semen undergoes the liquefication process wherein it becomes a uniform solution. A 100 microliter sample is taken to assay for sperm count using phase contrast microscopy. Once the assay verifies the sample count the sample volume is measured using a 5 or 10 ml pipet, an equivalent amount of cryogenic freezing media is added to the sample. The sample is than sterilely aliquoted in 1.1 milliliter amounts in cryogenic freezing vials. The vials are preprinted with code/date/sperm count. The vials are slowly frozen to minus 78 degrees and 24 hours later transferred into liquid nitrogen for longterm storage. Once a candidate's donations are finished and the donor passes final exams for good health and no STDs, the samples are added to the cryobank's dataset for release."
Dayna's timer goes "Bing" and she takes the beaker into a cell culture hood and proceeds to carry out the process as Jackie looks on. She watches as Dayna expertly handles the sample.
