Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs Part 15

By tightening a little, and living squished, you can save a little. We have five people in my little house. It is not comfortable, we live one on top of the other, we share one car, but I save my money. And the exchange rate is good if you are paid in dollars. You have to sacrifice, not be comfortable, or you will not make it.

They pay us once a week by check. You can't open a bank account without a Social Security number so it's a little difficult. You can cash the check in the company bank as long as you do it within twenty days. Many people go to some Mexicans, a service they run, but they charge a percentage, sometimes two percent. It's a lot to me. There are also a lot of thefts-people break into our houses and steal our money, because they know we can't keep our money in banks. It's all cash. That has been happening a lot lately. And in the parking lot, sometimes on payday, people steal the checks. Then you need to get a replacement and they make you wait a month to make sure it hasn't been cashed. So then you're without money.

That parking lot is the worst. There is no security or safety there. When we go to our cars, there is a constant risk of being robbed and killed, you know, for maybe one hundred and fifty dollars. We have no security eating, sleeping, or working.

There was a case, about a month ago, where I was working inside and a boy near me went to this door outside to throw the garbage out and there was a man out there, another worker, who asked for a cigarette. The boy had none to give him. The man had a knife, one of the ones they give us to cut the backs of the chickens. He stuck the boy with it. He stuck him so hard that the knife, which is made of steel, got bent. The boy couldn't talk, and he was bleeding, and he was scared. Somehow, though, he got the knife away from the other guy before he cut his throat. They took him to the hospital. The police came and they knew who had done it, but they didn't do anything about it. No one cares.

I'm thirty years old. Too old for this kind of stuff. [Laughs]

I am far from family, alone, thinking a lot. I have nothing. That's what I think about. I have nothing. I thought in the United States one lives a life of luxury, dressing well, partying, and all that stuff. You don't know the reality of it till you come here. It isn't the life one hoped for. It is pretty bad. It is not what I thought. People back home can't imagine that we don't have the comforts they think we do. The people I know here, the illegals, we are without our families from five years sometimes. I haven't seen mine for a whole year. I miss them. We hope to be together, but I can't just say, "I'm off." I can't go back. It costs a lot to come here.

I've never had anything. I have always been poor. So I have this mentality that even if you have nothing, you still have to be proud of yourself. I would like to think, "I am poor but I did this. I achieved this." I want to be proud of myself. This is a more clear satisfaction to me, more than owning a car.

Hear that? [Laughs] That's a chicken truck. That's probably the one going to my factory tonight. That's what I'll be working on tonight.

I don't want to deal with stuffy,

sn.o.bby people.

WAITRESS.

Jessica Seaver.

I live in Hopkins, Minnesota. I've been waitressing here since I was fourteen. At that age, I worked once a week and the tips were like eighty dollars a shift and for a fourteen-year-old that's pretty good money. This was at the Embers Restaurant, which is just a dumb diner, but still, it was better than making five dollars an hour at Dayton's, which is a local department store where some of my friends slaved. I know that no one loves their job all the time, and I've certainly had my bad days and even months, but generally, I've been very satisfied with waitressing. It got me through high school, and I guess since then it's just always been my job of choice.

Now I'm twenty-five and I work five days a week, mostly double shifts, plus I do a little bartending and I go to Minneapolis Community College. I'm going for a business degree and an applied science degree. My goal is by the age of thirty-five to own my own restaurant/bar. I have a six-year-old and I like the nicer things in life. I want to live in a townhouse. I want to drive a new car. [Laughs] I've already got a portable phone. So waitressing makes sense for me.

The only real drawback is the hours-if you want to make the money, you have to work at night. Dinner's just a much better shift. The entrees are much more expensive, people have more appetizers, they drink. But it means that you don't get to go out on the town on those nights. And it's a real physical job. You're lifting a lot of stuff. You have to be strong to deal with it. Once a year I take a three-week vacation and when I come back, I feel like I'm out of shape. You know? You have to be physically up for it. That's another reason why I wouldn't want to do it forever-I don't want to be the physically old, haggard waitress.

My main job is I wait tables full-time at Tejas, an upscale TexMex place. Then I also bartend two nights a week at this cheesy little sports bar down the street. At Tejas, I begin my shift at ten-forty-five in the morning. If I work a double, I'll get home after midnight, so it can be a very long day.

We open at eleven-thirty. You have to do a lot of things to get the restaurant going. I start out getting all the b.u.t.ters ready and putting all the corn sticks on a tray, then I roll the silverware, make ice tea and fill the water pitchers, make coffee, then it's cutting fruit, getting ice from downstairs for the ice bin, and finally, lighting candles, making sure the tables and chairs are clean, lighting the fireplace-everything you need to do so when they open the doors, the front of the house is ready.

Tejas is a nice, family-owned place. I would never want to work in a stuffy place like a seven-course dining thing. Generally when people go to a stuffy restaurant, they don't want to have a conversation with their waitress. They just want you to serve the food and shut up. That's not my personality. My personality is to talk to people and treat them like they're coming into my own home. Tell them about the food, make suggestions, joke around with them a bit, you know?

I don't want to deal with stuffy, sn.o.bby people. There's a difference between being a server and being an order-taker. I prefer to be a server and a server has a personality and they use it and that's part of your dining experience. At a stuffy restaurant, where you're just an order-taker, your personality doesn't get to shine through. Besides the fact that that wouldn't feel right, I believe that I wouldn't make nearly as much money if I didn't use my personality. The thing I like to bring to it is to make people feel good, make 'em feel comfortable. That's the thing I can do best.

It's all about personality. It's almost like being an entertainer. One of the hardest things is when customers come in and their nature is just rudeness and you still have to kiss their b.u.t.t because they're paying your bills. When they're rude, and you know that it's nothing you've done, it's hard to be nice. When you know that no matter what, they wouldn't've been happy anyway-they've had a bad day and they're bringing it with them, when they shouldn't even be going out. When their att.i.tude is just so p.i.s.s-poor or they're just so high on themselves and they think they're better than you because you're just a waitress-that's what I hate. But I deal with it by knowing that it's part of the job and there's a different situation at every table. So if there's a rude jerk here, there may very well be a great person over there. And so you deal with it.

The funny thing with the rudeness is that some waitresses make more than the people sitting at the table. I've had years where I've made forty-five thousand! Which reminds me of another good thing about being a waitress-half of your income isn't claimed. I shouldn't be saying that, but it's true. Half your income's tax-free because you don't tell the IRS about it. In the realm of waiters and waitresses, n.o.body claims all their income. If somebody says they do, they're lying.

I don't like to work for corporate restaurants. You know-Houlihan's, Sizzler, Bennigan's-those kind of places. I have done that in the past, but I wouldn't do it again. I like to work for family-owned restaurants. You get the real feel of real service. In corporate restaurants, it's not real. They're telling you what you have to do, how to fold your socks, what you need to say to your tables. It's too generic. Familyowned restaurants are more of an art. It's a different feel and you have more input. You're not just a paycheck or a Social Security number. Your personality is valued. Plus, at a family restaurant, everybody knows everybody. There's better communication. You come in when someone else calls in sick, you help with the books if they need you to. If you work for a corporate restaurant, you might climb your way up the ladder and become a manager or something like that, but who cares? That's not for me. For one thing, I wouldn't want to be working seventy hours a week just to make thirty grand plus a measly bonus. I can make more here at Tejas, depending on what shifts I get.

But it's a crazy job. It makes me insane sometimes. Once I was working at this cheesy bar-Gatlin Brothers-at the Mall of America. It was a country bar. That was back when country music was really big, in like '92. Tacky as s.h.i.t. High volume, just a lot of drunks coming in. Just obscene drunkenness. We used to get some of the hickiest people. But there was a lot of money to be made. For example, if you did a beer tub, you could make five to seven hundred bucks a night. A beer tub is a big tub filled with ice and tons of beer, and you sell like three thousand dollars' worth of beer at two-seventy-five a bottle. People generally tip you the change or a dollar plus the change. So you're talking big money.

Anyway, one night I was working there, and I was tired, I was ovulating, and I wanted a cigarette. I'd worked for six days in a row, and the place was packed, and there was this guy from like, Alabama, who kept ordering rounds of drinks and rounds of drinks and rounds of drinks. He kept picking up the tabs, like fourteen dollars a round, every round, and he kept stiffing me! After a while, I was getting really ticked. He was right in the middle of my section, so I couldn't avoid him. And he and his friends, they're getting really plowed and they start ordering shots of tequila, and he asks to do a body shot. A body shot is where instead of just giving them a lime wedge and a salt shaker, you get one of the people to lick the other person's neck and then you put the salt on the person's neck where the other person licked it.

So this chick licks her yahoo boyfriend's neck, and I start pouring the salt on his neck, and I just suddenly lose it. Right out of nowhere, I doused his head with salt and said, "You know, if you don't start f.u.c.king tipping me pretty soon here you can just walk your a.s.s up to the bar, 'cause I've sold you at least a hundred and fifty bucks' worth of product and you've been stiffing me!" So his girlfriend hands me a twenty and yells at her boyfriend-she's really embarra.s.sed-and tells him he better start tipping me. But I didn't care about the money anymore, I just wanted to work somewhere more mellow. That kind of job is great for like a twenty-one-year-old. Maybe it has to do with me growing up and being more mature, but I can't handle that anymore. The bar I work at now is a very quiet affair. That place burnt me out. It burnt me out huge.

Of course, there are also very nice experiences. Last year, I had a small little stockbroking company come for their Christmas party- you know, like ten employees-and they pushed all these tables together, and the boss was paying for everything. They were there for a few hours, and they were really fun. You know, "Bring us a shot! You pick!" And we were telling jokes and shooting the s.h.i.t. I was like part of the party. I was entertaining them and they were hilarious. And at the end of the night their tab was like three hundred and something bucks. And the dude gives me a three-hundred-dollar tip. He said, "You know what? You were so much fun. Half these people never loosen up. You really made it fun." And that was great.

But it's not just the big tips-it's when people love you. It's hard to explain, but when you give people a good time and they tell you that, it makes you feel good. You know, when they listen to your suggestions about the food or the wine and they like 'em-and usually the wait staff does know all the best stuff, 'cause they've probably eaten everything on the menu like fifty times. Or when people soak in all the information and they pick up on your sales technique hook, line, and sinker like a fish-it's fun. You're having this great time with 'em. Even if they give you just a normal tip, if they really like it, it's great. I shake some of my customers' hands when they leave. It just makes me feel good. I'm glad they enjoyed their dinner.

It's a grease house.

SMOKEHOUSE PIT COOKS.

Timmie Brown and Woodrow Lincoln.

TB: You're talkin' to Timmie Brown. I been here at Arthur Bryant's Barbecue for seventeen years cookin' ribs and makin' sandwiches and all that other good stuff.

WL: My name's Woodrow Lincoln. And I guess I've been working here about fifty some years. I'm about ready to retire.

TB: They say Bryant's is well-known around the world. People be coming to Kansas City from Sweden and France and North Carolina and Mississippi and all that just to come to Arthur Bryant's.

[Laughter]

TB: That's one thing I don't understand. I mean, it's kinda funny, people comin' all this way somewhere that's like, an exclusive place-and then here somebody just gonna put your sandwich on a piece of paper, you know, put your piece of bread and meat and pickles and sauce and all that, and fries, and then wrap it up and throw it on a piece of paper like it's trash! And everybody attracted to that place? I mean, it's sorta kinda funny! It don't seem like it should be done like that. You know what I'm sayin'? But that's the tradition. That's the spirit it got goin'. It's a grease house. [Laughs] I've only been here sixteen, seventeen years. Woodrow-this man taught me everything I know. He done seen them come and go. I came along and watched this fella. You know what I'm saying?

WL: He was the first one came along that knew what he was doing. After Bryant died-when was that? Back in '84, '85?-they didn't know nothin' about barbecue. I told 'em, see, this ain't the Golden Arches. They didn't even know how to wrap a package. My day off, I was at home, they called every five minutes, wantin' to know, like, "How you know when the meat is done? How you cook it?" [Laughs] 'Cept for Timmie, they still ain't know nothin' here. I came in the other day, I looked in the pit, they got three, four briskets burnt to a crisp. Left from the night before. I say, "You didn't see that brisket laid up in there?" "Oh, it was in the corner!" Three, four briskets, twenty-five-pound briskets, burnt to a crisp. [Laughs]

TB: Woodrow was the one taught me how to hold my head up and pay attention. He showed me, you know, you cook so much on the fat, and then you turn it over on the meat. You know what I mean? Rotate it so that it's even-Steven and gets cooked right. You see, smoked meat got that pink flavor to it. Regular barbecue that you cook at home, it don't have that. But when you cook it on wood, the smoke turn it pinkish and then it gets tender. Depends on how you cook it, see?

WL: That's right. 'Cause we don't use no gas. We cook with wood. Hickory and oak wood. And if you ain't using gas, you have to regulate by how much water you throw in the pit, how much wood you got in.

TB: The way he do it, he'll throw a whole lot of water on there. To make it burn slower. Slow down the flame. You know what I mean?

WL: See, that grease drops off down in there and make it blaze up. The grease off the meat-it just starts dripping and dripping and that drip, constantly, you've got to put the blazes out 'cause that will build the heat up in the pit and everything get too crispy.

TB: This man taught me-you know, you got to get that seal in the meat. So in the pit, you got two layers. You got one layer that you put the raw meat on it and burn and seal the flavor. 'Cause you got to get that seal. So you put the raw meat on the bottom, and when it's sealed, you take it and put it to the top rack.

WL: And that's just the smoke rack. That's where you let it finish cooking.

TB: You shift it around on the top and let 'em cook.

WL: Mmm-hmm. And-if you want to do it right, you can't rush. You got to let it cook slow. You cannot rush that meat. 'Cause a brisket, one of them big ones, it takes about eighteen hours. You can do it in less. But it depends on how much smoke you want in, how tender you want that meat to be.

TB: They always tryin' to do it faster now.

WL: Now, they want you to rush it, you know? The business is changing. When the place was under Bryant, he had the old-fashioned way- TB: And since he died and the new management took over-they've changed it. And Arthur Bryant, like Arthur, right now, he turnin' over in the grave 'cause of the way- WL: Yeah, the way the place is running now.

TB: That's all I got to say. He'd turn over right now in the grave. 'Cause Arthur Bryant, in his day, you know what I mean, there wasn't such thing as a catering service.

WL: He didn't have no catering service. [Laughs]

TB: You know what I'm saying? He didn't have a T-shirt, like they do now, saying Arthur Bryant and all that stuff. And the sauce- WL: Mmm-hmm. The way sauce is made, yes it's changed. I know for myself-yeah. There's something missing. TB: Yeah, there's something they need to put in that sauce that's not in that sauce no more. That hot little tang, it's not there. And so much is in the sauce, you really know the difference. You can't fool people. But-you know what I mean-it seems like the old-fashioned way, like, as the time goes on, everything has to change. Everything change.

WL: Well, the only thing that don't change is, your money don't change. [Laughs]

TB: [Laughs] That's right. See now, since Arthur pa.s.sed, this place here, man, let me tell you, it's a multimillion-dollar corporation. It's a multimillion-dollar corporation. The new man going to open up another one in Johnson County-way up in the other part of Kansas City, where the high society people live, people with money. You know what I mean? It's a multimillion-dollar corporation. I'd say on a good day they make that kind of money every few months. 'Cause the company itself, you know, the business is well known around the world. France and Sweden and all that-they know. People come in here all the time, take pictures.

WL: We be in so many interviews and this and that and the other.

TB: I mean, I ain't trying to knock it. You know what I mean? The place is cool. It's just the management. The ones took over after Bryant. You know what I'm saying? 'Cause as far as money-wise, they tease you. They give it to the wrong investments. The one that is doing the work, it's just a pat on the back.

WL: We don't get the proceeds. The company gets it.

TB: You know what I'm saying? We got our pictures all over the world, and this man has started restaurants and stuff where, you know, the reputation is based on the smoke flavor we put in it.

WL: Yeah, my daughter-I got a daughter lives in California. She said she saw my picture. She saw me on TV in California.

TB: People see us and we don't even know it.

WL: But see, they ain't paid me nothin'. Every time they hire somebody new down here, they want me to show 'em how to cook. And I did all that-told everybody what they know right now. But I ain't get nothing for it. I ain't get no special compensation out of it. And the new man, one day he told me, "We can do it without you now. We don't need you now."

TB: You know what I mean? It's just like playing scratchoff. You know? You buy that ticket, maybe you win, maybe you lose, but when you done, after you scratch off that ticket, if you lose, you go throw it in the fireplace. You know what I mean?

WL: He's the next one to me what know about cooking now. I done taught Timmie everything that he know. But I wouldn't go through that no more. That was one thing my daddy always told me-you don't have to teach everybody everything you know. They got to pay me.

TB: But see, now they got me to deal with. They got me to deal with now.

WL: I'm about retired down here.

TB: Yeah, you retired, but you still gonna come over and visit once in a while.

WL: We'll see about that. [Laughs]

You didn't gain it fast. You're not going to

lose it fast.

DIET CENTER OWNER.

Nancy Bjork.

I own a Jenny Craig Personal Weight Management franchise in Minot, North Dakota. This is actually my second career. I was an emergency room nurse for a long time. And I enjoyed that, you know, but I have four kids, and I was working a three in the afternoon to eleven at night schedule. Which meant I was waving good-bye to my kids as they left for school, and then it's off to work, and I wouldn't see them again till the next morning. It wasn't fun for my family. You know, you have kids to enjoy them and be with them.

I became a franchisee in 1990. I don't really remember how I hit on Jenny Craig. I guess it was just really coming around in the marketing. I was seeing ads for it and I thought it sounded like a good program. There had been other weight loss centers around here, you know, and they'd always done real well. But most of them were group kinds of things-cattle calls. Everybody shows up at one time and gets weighed and sits in a cla.s.s. I don't think that really helps you.

Jenny Craig offers one-on-one consulting. We'll talk about how a client is feeling and stress they may have, what their lifestyle is like- because all that relates to your weight. Everything is very personalized. We even have a computer program that determines an individualized calorie level for each client. It takes into account age, health conditions, current weight, male or female. All kinds of different things. So it's different for everybody. Because what we do is give people a diet to follow-a set number of calories to eat every day-and not everybody's going to be on the same calorie level.

Even the diet itself, you know, we offer a variety of menus. We have weekly ABC menus where everything's preplanned-every meal, every snack you eat. And we have a variant of that where you choose your individual meals from a selection of categories. We also have the new "On the Go" program which is more food supplements-like a shake for breakfast and then you supply your own fruit. So there's a lot of flexibility. But at the same time, it's all structured and easy to follow. And that's what people want.

So looking back, I guess what I liked were these features of the program and the idea of having my own business. And so I took a long, hard look at my finances-because it's fifty thousand dollars for the franchise fee. That gives you the right to use the name and sell the products, and also the right to a territory. And obviously, that's a big chunk of money. I had to work two jobs for quite a while to make this happen-the night job in the ER paid my loans. But I felt it would be worth it. And I have to say I was right-I was busy the day we opened the doors. It was nuts. The phone didn't stop ringing. It's a fantastic business.

To start out, I went and spent six weeks in California at Jenny Craig University. That was very intense. You learn everything-what a dietary consultant does, all the background on the company, all the paperwork stuff. You learn sales, marketing, accounting. It's really thorough and well done. [Laughs] I also got to meet Jenny. Yes, there's a real Jenny, and she's wonderful. You know, if you've seen her on TV-that's how Jenny is. She is genuinely a very warm person.

Then I came home, and it's the real world. I rented a s.p.a.ce and built my center-corporate gives you the whole layout, but you gotta build it. And I planned the advertising, too-I do my own regional advertising-and I planned my budgets and hired and trained staff. [Laughs] Whew! And then I started working.

Most people when they come in, they're sort of nervous. Losing weight is hard, you know. A lot of our clients have tried things in the past-the liquid diets and such. And some lost weight very rapidly, then gained it back just as fast. Which is really part of why it's so hard-people want fast results. Which is not reasonable. I mean, you didn't gain it fast. You're not going to lose it fast. So we try and help with that. We explain things, try and make the process easier. When a new customer comes in, we do a free consultation. We sit down and spend maybe a half an hour to figure out what they've done in the past, what their goals are, what they'd like to eat and weigh. And then we explain how the program actually works, how the menu works.

Clients are usually very excited about the menu. Our food runs the gamut-there's pastas and vegetables and fruits, of course, but there's also grains, lowfat dairy. Even cookies. [Laughs] It's lowfat, you know, we suggest egg subst.i.tutes, for example, instead of eggs, but it's still-it's all food you want to eat. And it's really convenient. You can just buy a Jenny Craig dinner, you know-a prepared dinner that I sell here in my freezers. Or a shake. Or you can cook out of the Jenny Craig cookbook, or use our dining-out guide if you're going to go out to eat. So it's very easy to get your food.

After we talk about the diet, we talk about some issues, like exercise. Exercise is extremely important. We have-you know, an exercise program that's set up with these videos. We have a whole line of exercise videos. So we get into that. Then we'll talk about more psychological things. For example, in the Jenny Craig program, if your stomach is growling, that's a physical sign of hunger. We call that "stomach hunger." It's real. But if you just eat because you think you're hungry that's "head hunger." And most of us eat because we think we're hungry. You know, because we're not used to actually being hungry. We're used to being overfed constantly. And that's where part of our weight problems come from. So we teach clients to start looking for real physical signs of hunger. You know, your stomach is growling, it's been x number of hours since you ate. We encourage them to start writing everything down-what they eat and when. Just to become aware of patterns or habits or things that trigger them to eat. Most people find they eat out of stress or they eat out of emotion. They don't necessarily eat just because it's time to eat. And very few of us have a physical job really anymore. So we're not burning a lot of calories during the day. So we really require less intake of calories-which again, this is what Jenny Craig helps you with. It's what makes the program so good.

I think this is really along the same lines as nursing. It's preventative medicine. That's one of the things that makes it such a great job. You know, if you can help somebody to not end up with the stroke or the heart attack or the diabetes-which all come with being overweight-I think that's maybe a greater calling than treating it in the emergency room, where you're doing a patch-up job and getting them back on their feet.

Of course, it's almost never easy to lose the weight. But part of how the program works is just keeping them motivated. Once they're on the diet, they come back to see us once a week. And then we'll do a phone call in between to make sure things are going well or answer any questions, to follow up with them. It makes them more accountable. I think that's the biggest thing. I mean, I'm more accountable when I know somebody's watching me. [Laughs]

People are rebellious sometimes. I tell my staff, when the client reaches about halfway to their goal weight, they'll often go from being this perfect child to being the teenager. They'll start saying, "Oh, my friends are saying I look so good, you know? I don't think I need to lose any more." You know? And that's where we have to step in and say, "But when we talked this is what you really wanted. You said you really wanted to be this weight. Because it had meaning to you. And now you're kind of falling back." It's sort of like helping to bring them back to reality. Like I just had a client say to me, "But all my friends say I look so skinny, I look so good, my face is going to be drawn." And I said, "You know, your friends say that to you. But if you were walking through the mall would a total stranger walk up to you and say, "Oh, my G.o.d, you look so good?' Or would they say, "You know what? You could stand to lose another ten pounds?" And the client went, "Oh." She hadn't thought of it that way.

Whereas your friends are going to be pulling you one way, we're going to be pulling you another way. But we're pulling you this way to help you to get to the end result that you wanted. And we're trying to hold our commitment to you to help you get all the way to the end and not stop five or ten pounds short.

There's two kinds of people in this world. There are people who talk about it, and people who do it. You run into people all the time who sit and talk about their weight, but they don't want to do anything about it. Just like there are people who want to be wealthy but they don't want to have to work do it. You know, they don't want to necessarily do what they have to do to have a good job and a real paycheck. Now, I think that's human nature. I think, you know, we've evolved over time to want things the easy way. It's gotten to where there's just a lot of people out there who want something they aren't willing to work for. Whether that's a thin body, or whatever-it's a national problem.

And weight especially, I mean, look around-everybody's getting heavier, you know? I mean, overall, I think Americans everywhere are just getting bigger and heavier every day. Everybody's much more sedentary. We don't even shovel our walks anymore, we just snow blow them. And we don't walk. We drive everywhere. Kids don't even ride their bikes anymore. It's, "Mom, take me to the mall." So you get fat kids. And then they grow up and-you know? I just read an article where it said the rate of obesity for adults-I think, they're projecting that to be fifty percent soon. That's kind of scary healthwise. And the rate of diabetes is increasing. That increases as a function of diet, too. It's really scary. There's a lot more prevention that needs to be done.

This job can very sad sometimes. I've opened the newspaper and seen obituaries for people who were fairly young that came in here and decided not to do the program. And, you know, this happened recently with a young man who had a heart attack and died very young. And that hurts. Because it's a small town, you know, maybe you could have helped.