Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs Part 1

Gig.

Americans Talk About Their Jobs.

John Bowe.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

This book would not have been possible without Tomas Clark, Philip Dray, Mich.e.l.le Golden, Robbie Goolrick, Jason Huang, K. Thor Jensen, Jerry Klingman, Suzy Landa, Bob Levine, Mia LoLordo, Jason Mohr, Anne Newman, Betsy Pearce, Doug Pepper, Nancy Rathbun, Conrad Rippy, Frank Roldan, Steve Ross, Yoshi Sodeoka, George Streeter, Gordon Streeter, Sabin and Beverley Streeter, Lisa Webster, Krista Whetstone, Stephen Daedalus Whetstone, Brian Zeigler, and the many, many people across the country who helped with ideas and a.s.sisted us by introducing us to friends, relatives, and acquaintances.

The editors would also like to thank the friends and family members who gave us moral support during our grueling labor of love.

INTRODUCTION.

Gig got its start on our webzine, Word, as a weekly column called "Work" that was modeled after the interviews in Studs Terkel's landmark 1972 book, Working. Obviously, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, John, Sabin, and I admire Working tremendously. Terkel's ability to get people talking frankly about their jobs made for such profoundly illuminating reading that we wanted to try doing the same thing in the changed world of our own generation. So we began sitting down with people, asking them what they did and how they felt about it, and tape-recording the conversations. After two years of "Work," we had the beginnings of a book. We combined the best of the column with dozens of new interviews to make Gig.

Nearly forty interviewers contributed to Gig. Some were friends, or friends of friends. Others were people who e-mailed Sabin, the editor of the "Work" column, saying, "My aunt is a city planner in Pittsburgh." "My buddy's a heavy metal roadie." "I met a video game designer in a bar." "I know a guy who raises buffalo." We wanted to at least attempt to represent the incredibly wide variety of people working in the United States, so my brother John put his. .h.i.tchhiker past to good use, traveling across the country to corral interview subjects-the carnival worker, chatting beneath the Ferris wheel on a hot Appalachian evening; the trucker couple, drinking coffee at a truck stop in Laramie, Wyoming; the supermodel, resting between Concorde flights; the drug dealer, pausing between pager beeps; the escort, found in the Wichita, Kansas, Yellow Pages.

Gig presents the mesmerizing, many-textured, profound, hilarious, and above all, unscripted voice of the individual. Unmediated by TV or magazine editing, it's something that nearly goes unheard beneath the deluge of movies, TV, celebrity coverage, advertising, and general hype that pours down upon us every day. When it is heard, it's almost always distilled and distorted by high-level media pundits whose last experience of ordinary American life was around 10,000 expense account c.o.c.ktails ago. We feel that the world hears too much from "experts" of all political stripes, and not enough from the people for and about whom they presume to speak.

Work is an elemental part of nearly everyone's life. You're born, and before too long you have to start spending most of your time working to sustain yourself. Along with love and your physical being, work is key to your existential circ.u.mstances: Who am I? What do I want? What is my place in the world and my status within it? Am I useful? Am I fulfilled? Can I change my circ.u.mstances? Work defines, to a large degree, your external ident.i.ty as part of the social matrix. But it also looms very large in your inner sense of how you're traveling through life.

We don't presume to say anything in particular about "work in contemporary American society." We believe that "contemporary American society" speaks pretty well for itself. We also believe that "the personal is the political," and so we explicitly did not set out to make a diagnostic or prescriptive book, but rather a doc.u.mentary one. We edited the interviews with an eye toward highlighting the motifs that we felt characterized each individual. Our goal was to take accurate snapshots, person by person, of work as it is today in this country. We've tried to make Gig as compelling as "reality programming" and as thoughtful as a Quaker meeting.

We were very moved by the wholehearted diligence that people bring to their work. Very few of those we talked to hate their jobs, and even among the ones who do, almost none said "not working" was their ultimate goal. The majority are confronted with constant and complex stresses on the job, and nearly universally, they throw themselves without reservation into coping with them. Instead of resisting work, most seem to adapt to it. What this adaptation does to, with, and for the soul is Gig's true subject.

Marisa Bowe I try to project that there's a happy spot in life.

WAL-MART GREETER.

Jim Churchman.

I'm sixty-six years old and I'm a greeter at the Wal-Mart Super Center in Columbia, Missouri, just off of Highway 63.

A greeter greets people, tries to make them feel welcome. WalMart appreciates folks coming here and spending their money, so we help them out. If an older person comes in, maybe with their cart, we hold the door open. We give directions. The most common thing is directions-people wanting to know where something is in the store. I know the whole layout pretty well.

We're also a form of security. We make sure that people don't accidentally leave the store without paying for something. [Winks] If I think you're stealing, I'll tell a manager or one of our security people. They handle it from there. We don't get much theft, though. I guess kids do it for kicks and other people-they're probably poor, or they just think they shouldn't have to pay for something. It doesn't make a lot of sense, really.

I've been here for five years. I started out working in heavy freight. Unloading the trucks. It was pretty hard work, but we wore belts and worked in pairs so I didn't get too tired. I enjoyed it. I guess they gave me the greeter job because they like the way I deal with people. At Wal-Mart, they observe how you work with everybody, even when you're just stocking or pulling freight. They look to see if you have people skills, to see if you like people. I mean, you wouldn't want someone up here who was unfriendly or sarcastic or something like that.

And I do like people. I'm a retired educator, I worked as a schoolteacher and princ.i.p.al for a long time and I guess I'm good with folks. I taught school in University City, Missouri-that's a suburb of St. Louis County-and lots of other places in Missouri and Illinois. I started off in a self-contained cla.s.sroom and then I went on to become a princ.i.p.al. I got my master's and then my doctorate in education and I taught fifth and sixth grade for a long time. I liked that a lot. I like kids that age. They're still pretty nice and don't know everything yet.

I like this job a lot, too. I'll probably stay here as long as they have a need for me. I have a good relationship with the supervisors. It's real personal out here. Like I used to work forty hours a week, but I cut down my hours because my wife has cancer and it gives me time to be home with her. So now I just work till noon on Thursday and Friday and till one the rest of the week. My supervisors were very nice about changing that.

Every shift is pretty much the same. I start at approximately sixthirty in the morning. When I get in, I go straight to the door. I like it clean and orderly, so I straighten up and get it nice-looking, get it all ready for the customers. I like to have the carts stacked. Customers appreciate the small things, you know?

As the people come in, I just welcome them and try and help them however I can. You don't want them waiting in line for a long time or wandering around the store not knowing where to find something. See, there's all this stuff that's available here, and my job- everybody who works here's job-is to help people make those purchases.

There's a lot of standing around. And, you know, I do fantasize a bit sometimes. I like to think about what I would do if I were in my bosses' position. I think of what it would be like to work my way all the way to Bentonville. That's the Wal-Mart headquarters. It's fun to think about that kind of thing. But I'm not a real daydreamer. If I'm just standing there, usually after a couple of seconds, I snap out of it and clean something or straighten. I try to be working all the time when I'm on the clock.

Some folks, they'd be bored in a job like this. But I'm never bored. My only problem has been-well, when I first thought of being a greeter, I thought, I don't know if I can handle that. I don't know if I can be effervescent all the time. But that didn't turn out to be a real problem. It's just-you need to be disciplined. You can't get overconfident. Things can go from high to low so quickly when you're dealing with people. You have some that come in, and it's like I always say, they're too cheap to go to the psychiatrist. They're mad when they walk in. They might call you a dirty name or something. You just grin and bear it. It's like being in the school world when an irate kid calls you a name or something. You don't let it get to you.

You develop a tolerance and you try to look on the good side. I'd say ninety percent of us are good people. And it's also a matter of selfdiscipline. You've got to stay positive. Fortunately, that's my personality anyway. And not to be egotistical, but I think it does give me a bit of an edge in this.

I had a lady come in here the other day and I opened the door for her and I called her ma'am. She looked at my name tag and said, "Jim, that's the first time anyone's ever opened the door for me and called me ma'am. I sure appreciate that. Can I take you home with me?"

And she smiled. You know, a smile. A smile is an evaluation. It tells you that you're all right.

As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter if you spend any money when you walk through this door. My job is to let people know that they're all right just for being. I try to project that there's a happy spot in life, that everybody can find some happiness each day. If you come to Wal-Mart, you usually come to buy something, but if you don't, that's fine. I'm spreading goodwill.

And I mean, this organization is here to make money and that's an eye-opener right there. But it's a nice organization. Since we found out that my wife has cancer, everyone's been so supportive. People always stop by and ask me how my wife is doing. We're a big family. We all work and help each other and socialize with each other. Some of my co-workers come over to my house and we play our guitars. They're real nice.

I wouldn't say that everyone here likes working, but the job is a pretty good one so they keep it. And there's always room to move up. [Laughs] The sky's the limit at Wal-Mart!

You know, I had a forty-year career in education. And those were good years for me-I was happy most always. But when I retired, I played a lot of golf over at the Stephens golf course and I got tired of that pretty quick. I didn't feel like I had much self-worth. Now I do. I-you know-I just didn't really like being retired. It makes sense, doesn't it? I didn't know what to do with myself all day. I got bored. I felt lazy. And then I'd come have my lunch sometimes at the McDonald's we've got here. I saw people pulling freight and I thought, "That's what I need." So I asked for a job. That was one of the smarter decisions I've made. Like I said, it's given me a sense of self-worth.

There's a couple of other greeters who work with me, most of them are like me. One of them was a college professor. I think they're all retired. They like to get out of the house, have something to do. There's lots of people my age that still want to work. Retirement used to be different. You know, even a generation ago-back then there wasn't all the technology we have today. It wasn't the same. Nowadays people want to get out and do more. And people are healthier and live longer, too. I don't think there should be a set age for retirement. I've got years to go before I want to quit working here. I like it and it keeps me busy.

My favorite thing about the job is just the fact that I have a job. It's a lot better than sitting around home, you know? That just gets me a little nutty. I guess I've worked so long that I feel like I need to go to work every day.

Zippy Printers are the worst f.u.c.king

account in the world. They're s.h.i.t.

They gave me a bottle of Asti

Spumante for Christmas.

UPS DRIVER.

William Rosario.

I am a "Full-Time Package Car Driver" for UPS in northern New Jersey. I've been doing it for ten years. I started because I was a student and I needed a part-time job. I went for an interview for what I thought was "Part-Time Loaders." When I got there they said it was for drivers. So I filled out the application, and they called me back three days later.

It was the first real job ever in my life and, at the beginning, it was pretty overwhelming. UPS is heavily fortified. You've got to show a pa.s.s to get in the gate. So every day you go in, you change into your uniform in the locker room, and then you go downstairs for the morning meeting. Every day there's a meeting in the morning to tell you what you did wrong the day before. Every day. They get you all together in a group, all the drivers and everybody, and then they yank you in the office and yell at you personally for about five minutes. It's like roll call, like, you know, a police station show. Except they just yell at you. At UPS, you're never told what you did well.

They're like a military organization. They check you over for appearance, everything. They make sure your shoes shine, your Tshirts can only be white or brown-they can't be black, your socks have to be brown or black. Your shoes have to be polished.

After the meeting, you go to your truck, which is already loaded and full of gas. All you do is drive and deliver. You have a route set up for you every day, with a specific number of delivery and pickup accounts you do. And you have to deliver every single package. If you bring one package back without attempting to deliver it, they can fire you right there.

But the most important thing is: "Don't spill your coffee." Forget the UPS rules, just don't spill coffee. That is the unwritten number one law.

The service you give people all depends on how they tip you at Christmas. People who don't tip you at Christmas, you f.u.c.k them. They get dropped off late in the day and picked up early. Or, you drop 'em off and pick 'em up at the same time. The people who have coffee and doughnuts, and the people who have cute women working there, you deliver them first.

Zippy Printers are the worst f.u.c.king account in the world. They're s.h.i.t. They gave me a bottle of Asti Spumante for Christmas. These people should give me a hundred dollars, easy. They're a pain in the a.s.s. They want an early delivery, they want a late pickup. These people, they pretend they're your friend, but then they're on the phone calling in major complaints against you. It's bulls.h.i.t.

But some people give me great stuff for Christmas. This candy company gave me five bottles of great wine. And then there's a nice hardware store on my route. They let you use their phone. I call everybody I know. They have a television, they have coffee. They have doughnuts and bagels every morning. And they have good bathrooms. That's what you really learn at UPS-who has a good bathroom, who has a clean bathroom, and who has a paper, and who has p.o.r.no for the bathroom.

You run into a lot of p.o.r.no in bathrooms, especially in industrial places-factories and things like that. There's this plastics company that just shut down, but they had some of the most bizarre p.o.r.no I'd ever seen in my life. Stacks and stacks of it. And I've got a tool and die place now that is a prime stop. Always coffee cakes and doughnuts in the morning, hot coffee, and two stalls, which are both very clean, and on each toilet, in each stall, at least a foot-high stack of current, good p.o.r.no. Things like Leg Show, Gent, Club-good p.o.r.n, not Playboy-Double-D Cup. [Laughs] And there's somebody who has a major foot fetish who gets something called Toe-Sucker Magazine.

Normally, you work around ten hours a day. Sometimes more. The most stops I've ever done in one day was at Christmas, once, like two hundred and forty, with a helper. And your helper-[laughs]- that's a truly s.h.i.tty job. When you get a helper, and you're the driver, you're like the captain of the ship. You're Kurtz. [Laughs] You're Captain Kirk, and you slave the s.h.i.t out of your helper, usually. Although I guess it depends a little bit on how they treat you. If they're p.r.i.c.ks, you slave the s.h.i.t out of them. I had a helper who was a nice guy. We used to smoke pot and get coffee every morning. But basically, they're totally dependent upon you for the day, so if you get somebody who's a p.r.i.c.k, you slave 'em. You drop 'em off in, like, a threeblock area with a hand truck and say, "I'll pick you up." Then you go and get coffee.

Sometimes I start the day and I just realize I can't do it. I can't keep working. A couple of times, I called 'em, told 'em they had to come get me. I said I was sick. They loved that. But usually, when I'm out there, I just do everything I can to not actually work. I mean, on my stops I watch television, make telephone calls, flirt with secretaries, call my girlfriend, call my friends, go shopping, read the newspaper, go swimming in the summer at a motel pool.

You can get caught at this stuff. I've already had three trials. One was the "Milk Shake Trial" for getting a milk shake. One was for insubordination. And one was for wearing a T-shirt. I was wearing a Bob Marley T-shirt, a white T-shirt, in the summer. Somebody ratted me out for the T-shirt, and we had a supervisor who didn't like me and this other guy, so he followed us. He was jealous that we went to a pool every day 'cause we had great tans, and he was p.i.s.sed. So he hid in the parking lot. He didn't even say anything to us. He just watched us and went back to UPS and filed a report. And then they filed a complaint with the union.

So I had these trials. They were held on workdays, you know, by appointment. And at the trials there was my division manager, my manager, the supervisor, myself, and two union representatives. Like Nuremburg. And I had to explain myself. But I got off every time. I mean, we're Teamsters, and the only thing they really will fire you for at UPS is stealing packages or being drunk on the job. Now I've done both of those, but I've never been caught.

My relationship with my supervisors is generally pretty workable. It's functional. But you can never trust them because they're company people. The managers are worse. UPS treats their own people-the managers and supervisors-worse than they even treat their drivers. It's like the theology is "s.h.i.t rolls downhill." So you can never trust anyone, and every driver has this att.i.tude. You know, it's "us against them." Totally.

Some of the other drivers are decent, though. Some aren't. I've met nice guys at work. I've met decent people. I've had some of them to my house for dinner. And I love to drive. That's my favorite thing. I live to drive. But do I like the work? No. There are too many hazards-accidents, sprained ankles, disk problems in my back, ma.s.sive wear and tear on your body from carrying all these packages, stress, anxiety-I've had dreams about this job. Anxiety dreams. And I've never been robbed, but lots of guys I work with get robbed. The guys who work in Pa.s.saic and stuff like that. And there's auto accidents. And on Halloween, they throw rocks at the truck. In Pa.s.saic, they throw rocks and bottles. In Clifton, they throw eggs.

I've been chased by dogs. When you're chased, you gotta run back to the truck as fast as you can. Always run to the truck. And slam the door. I haven't ever been caught by a dog, but I know somebody else who got attacked and ended up in the hospital. I've learned a lot about dogs at UPS. Nice dogs, bad dogs.

I've had people seize packages on me, take packages away from me, like, without paying for them. A real intimidating guy on a route I used to do did that. He sucked.

And it's hot in the summer. You will literally lose five, six pounds in August. I drop every year. It's physical work. I mean, you could never do this job for thirty years. There are guys who do it, but they end up with major physical disability. I'd like to stay another year or two, then I'm leaving. I want to go back to school and study Buddhism, or psychology, which is really what I like.

Basically, I have a problem with authority figures. I hate wearing a uniform and dealing with people who are real a.s.sholes. I hate having to deal with someone that you can't stand, five days a week, and having to take their s.h.i.t. You cannot say a word at UPS. If somebody treats you like s.h.i.t and calls you any name they want, says this or that to you, you cannot say a thing because, in UPS's eyes, the customer is always right. I hate having to eat crow.

But I've gotten laid because of the job. I deliver to a lot of women's clothing stores. Like I used to do a shopping mall on one route. And there's lots and lots of forty-year-old divorced women, thirty-eight and forty-really still cute and really still hot-really nice, really sweet. I've gone to dinner with them, I've gone to their house. But you know, no divorcee ever greeted me at the door in her undies, or anything like that. I always had to set it up for later. I've heard plenty of stories about guys having s.e.x on the job, but I think most of those guys are liars.

And some of it is nice. It's nice when you deliver stuff to people who're waiting for it. I've delivered Christmas stuff to people. That means a lot-it makes me feel good. I've delivered medicine to people. I've delivered cool tools to old guys who work their whole life in the garden. I've delivered stuff to people who've become my friends. I've delivered skateboards to eleven-year-old kids who chase you up the street screaming "Yeah!" when you pull up to their house. Know what I mean? I've delivered to people who're starting tiny little businesses and five years later, it's really happening and you feel like you're helping them.

I've also delivered d.i.l.d.os and lots of p.o.r.no. You can tell because anything from 1 Apple Court in North Carolina is p.o.r.nography. So you tear it open. The clerk told me that in the beginning. You always open it, you know, to read it, check it out, see what it is, laugh about it. You just open it up on the truck and then you tape it up again after you've looked. I've delivered two-headed d.i.l.d.os with b.a.l.l.s.

I'm a Buddhist. And to a Buddhist, there's meaning in everything you do in your life and I should be able to find meaning in this job. I should get my self-esteem from being a really good driver and completing my work every day. I should. But right now, I'm burnt out. The thing about UPS is, it takes your time. That's the worst thing, it takes so much of your time. You can get a day off when you want, but still, it takes all your time. And you're tired when you're done. Really tired. It's basically a job for stupid people. It's not very interesting. It's just not. I mean, if you have no other opportunities and you need benefits, and you're going nowhere, take this job.

There aren't any rules.

CORPORATE HEADHUNTER.

Rose Collins.

You start off by cold-calling. You never stop cold-calling. You're always on the phone with people who think- when they first hear your voice-that they don't want to talk to you. Then you prove them wrong.

You learn pretty fast that the straight-up approach doesn't pay. What pays is to be creative, to have some ruses. So you call a company, and instead of saying, "Hi, my name is Rose, I'm a personnel consultant, do you have any staffing needs that I can help you with?" You try something like, "Hi, my name is Rose and I have a great candidate for your company, came directly from your compet.i.tor." Even though it's made up, it's much more enticing, right? And that's the whole thing-to entice-to have the company say, "Yeah, I want to hear about your candidate."

If they decide they want this person you've just invented, you go out and find them. You cold-call the company's compet.i.tors and you find the person. Anything's possible. And if the company says they're not interested in your nonexistent candidate, you ask if they need anybody else. You're always looking for jobs that need filling. So maybe the guy you're talking to, he's an executive at a small company and he knows the whole company and you're getting along with him, he trusts you, so he says, "Well, Rose, actually, we need a verification engineer"-well, you've got one in your database. Or you find one. If he says they don't need anybody, you ask him if maybe he wants a new job himself. You say, "I know a company that's looking for the skills you have." You say this even though you don't have any such client. You just say it. Maybe, at the very least, he'll send you his resume so you can add it to your database, so you're constantly generating and s...o...b..lling your business.

In essence, it's very simple-you find talented people, you find companies that want to hire people with talents-and you match them up.

I know about so many jobs. [Laughs] I've had so many jobs. I got into this because I was a temp. I was just bouncing around from one stupid meaningless job to another-doing word processing, admin a.s.sistant work, sales, anything they offered. I had a bank account of zero and this was the early eighties and everything was just exploding all around me. Everybody was getting rich. So I was like, "Fine, I'm gonna try a career, any career." So I asked the temp agency I was with to get me a full-time position. I'd been with this agency for a while and knew the owner, Sharon, pretty well. We got along. When she found out I wanted full-time work she said, "I'll hire you to be a recruiter for the agency." I didn't know what a recruiter even did, but Sharon thought she could teach me. So she gave me one week of training, which consisted of learning the absolute basics-where to get leads, how to make phone calls, what to say. And then she turned me loose. [Laughs] I think she knew I'd be good at it because I'm outgoing, you know, a little aggressive [laughs] a little impertinent. I'm not afraid of people. Or anything.

You can't be chickens.h.i.t in this business. Everything is on commission. If a company hires my candidate, they pay me twenty-five percent of his or her base salary. So for a hundred-thousand-dollar job, the company pays me twenty-five thousand. So it's a big kill or nothing. And the insecurity is very difficult. You have to be willing to live with the idea that you might not make any money this month- or next month. It's all freelance. You have no cushion, no safety net. But I'm comfortable with that. Whatever Sharon saw in my personality or character or whatever-she was right. This job is perfect for me.

Unfortunately [laughs] I wasn't perfect for Sharon. I ended up leaving her for one of her compet.i.tors. [Laughs] It was actually kind of awful, but I was so young and, you know, whatever. You make mistakes. Here's the story: Sharon was very good friends with a woman, Meg, who owned another agency that did the exact same thing we did. We were direct compet.i.tors, but Sharon and Meg were also "friends." And so I guess Meg finds out how well I'm doing for Sharon and one day she calls me while Sharon is out of town and says, "Hi, it's Meg, blah, blah, blah, why don't we have lunch together?" And she recruited me to work with her. We met really furtively for a while, in hideaway places, and she ended up offering me a much better deal. I was going to be a partner in her business, not just someone in the office making all my money on commissions. I'd be getting a share of the profits and everything. So I said yes.

I probably would do that again today, just because it was such a better deal. [Laughs] But I would never do it with Meg. She was- well, Meg was so paranoid. If there was a stranger in the office or we were interviewing someone, all paper had to be turned over, facedown, so there would be no hint of who our clients were. She thought everyone who came through the door could be a spy for another agency. And every Friday afternoon, she would shred papers. She was a maniac for shredding. Once a candidate was placed and a job order was filled, she would shred everything having to do with that candidate and job, so no one could get their hands on the information. And then she would take the shredded pieces of paper home, to this very wealthy neighborhood where she lived and on her driveway, amidst these millionaire homes, she would hose down the shredded paper so that the ink would run and no one could piece them together and read them. Then she would bury them in her backyard. That's how paranoid she was. This business was so lucrative that she didn't want anyone getting her clients.

She had no computer system. Everything was done manually. We wrote down job orders and candidates' names by hand. And then we shredded it all. It was nuts. And, of course, Meg didn't live up to our partnership agreement, she was far too greedy. Too insane. So I quit and went back to freelancing with an executive search agency. That was twelve years ago. Since then, I've just stuck to it. I went from working as a headhunter in the legal arena, placing attorneys, to high-tech Internet stuff, and now, biotech. Lately, I'm just hiring all kinds of scientists.

I think I've had a great career. I've made a lot of money and I love my job. I really do. It's fascinating. I've learned so much. I mean, each industry I've worked with, I've had to learn the whole trade, the whole jargon, everything. So, you know, I'm not an expert, but I can talk the talk with biochemists, software engineers-all these really interesting people. On their level, I can talk to anybody, understand anything. I really like that. And I love being independent, relying on myself. There aren't any rules in this business. You're encouraged, really, to make them up. Just do whatever works. It's exciting. It's empowering.

Things can get pretty extreme, though. Sure. It's a tough business. I had a co-worker, beautiful, red hair, blue eyes. She had condoms in her desk drawer. She used to sleep with all the candidates she interviewed. [Laughs] But, you know, whatever-it worked for her. She was very successful. She'd go to bars and interview there. She was specializing in attorneys. So she'd go to the bar where the D.A.s hung out after work and she'd talk to them, you know, recruit them, sleep with them, all this kind of stuff. She had a sense of humor about it, too. At this Halloween party, she came in with a mattress strapped to her back. She said she was coming as herself.

I've never gone that far. [Laughs] But I've used a lot of very tricky tricks to get what I need. Especially when it comes to getting names and phone numbers, I've done a lot of things. When I started doing high-tech places, it was much easier to get inside a company. Now most receptionists won't put you through to anyone unless you have a specific name or an extension. Before, you could just say, "I need to talk to the manager of manufacturing," and they would pa.s.s you through. So I'd call up mailrooms and say, "I'm sending out invitations to all the electrical engineers for a conference, could I have a staff directory?" Or I'd call the shipping department and say, "You have just won Windows 95, the whole company has just won it, so, if you respond by Friday, with your company directory, you'll have a lot of free software on your hands. Just fax the [laughs] directory to me." Some people would do that. And then, bingo! You've got the name and number of everyone at the company!

Of course in the last five years, with the technology market really booming and everybody stealing everybody else's employees, the companies have cracked down and you can't really pull that stunt anymore. But still, there's lots of ways to get names. I've gone into bars in Silicon Valley after Happy Hour and stolen the bowl where everyone drops their business card for a sandwich drawing every week. I wear a trench coat or something and just walk out with seventy-five leads.

And I use the Internet a lot, I search in chat rooms. All these techies love to chat. So if I'm looking for a specialized person, for example, someone who has worked with CCD cameras or something really, really specialized, I'll find a chat room that specializes in that and then just "lurk"-you know, you go to a chat room and you don't partic.i.p.ate, you just sit there and read what techies are saying as they discuss, you know, the latest thing. And they have their e-mail addresses in there, because they want people-their peers-to know about them, to know that they're experts in that area. So it's just a great resource for me. I lurk all the time in all these different rooms and see what kind of conversation there is, and if there's someone who is especially knowledgeable, then I e-mail them. "Hey, you want a new job?" The worst they can do is say no.