Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs Part 10

But once I got past them, I met the most incredible people. One of them would have the pharmacy, one of them had the grocery store, one of the guys owned all the coin operated telephones in town. They're living in this h.e.l.l-hole. And I would stay at the only hotel in town, which was also the wh.o.r.ehouse. So I met with these guys, and we talked, and they decided to trust me with some of their money, and they said, "Okay. Can we just give you some cash?" I mean, because this was a very big Indian area, and that's how they pay. They don't have signatures and bank accounts. Every single quetzal they had was at home, hidden, in cas.h.!.+ A million dollars in cash, they would have, hidden at home. Because they were afraid to take their cash to the capital to put it in a bank because they were afraid the guerrillas would get it while they transported it.

But what they had to do was, in order to get their money to a bank so the bank could give it to me, they taught their kids to be pilots with the armed forces, and the kids would fly home and fly the money back to the capital!

And in all these little towns, in these remote areas, there were all these people like this. And these relations.h.i.+ps that I started with these men eventually yielded twenty million dollars! It was huge!

But Merrill Lynch doesn't pay its brokers that well. How it really is, is your money doesn't come from the a.s.sets you bring in, it comes from how you invest it. You make no commission on money invested in money markets. It's got to be stocks, bonds, okay? So if you leave it in the money market, you die. You make Merrill Lynch rich, but you're dying. That first year, when I brought in two million, I think my commission was maybe one hundred thousand dollars. After taxes and Merrill Lynch taking out their share, I got maybe a third of that.

So then you start to getting greedy. You think, well, I know this client, and I know he's got a lot in Treasuries-Treasury bonds-and he just gave me three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, so I'll tell him, "Hey, why don't we diversify your portfolio? Grow it to a million dollars?" We'll put a little over here in the stock market and a little over here in a mutual fund and some in the money market. And in the stock market, we brokers get two percent of every transaction. So you start to learn how to get wealthy from the money of your clients.

But you have to be careful. You can't pressure your clients to put money where they're not going to make money. Because even if they love you at first, at the end, it's only going to backfire. If the market crashes, for example, I mean, you could get killed. One of the brokers at Merrill Lynch got killed! One of his clients kicked his a.s.s and got a pistol and shot him on the spot. Him and one of his a.s.sociates and his secretary. The other ones lived but the broker died.

So you have to invest well. And I did. Because I believe it all comes down to long-term strategy and a diversified portfolio. I'd tell my clients, "Don't think of the market every day. Think of it on a threeto five-year basis." Because every single chart and stock and mutual fund, when you see it on a threeto five-years-or better yet, a fiveto seven-year plan-even if you pick the wrong stock at the wrong time, you're still going to make money. So that's what I'd tell my clients. That's still what I tell them today-maintain a standard diversified portfolio, long term. And it works. I think the first two million I raised for Merrill Lynch in 1988, ten years later, those two million had become sixty to eighty million. That's how much money I made for my clients.

So I did well. And I moved from Mexico and Guatemala and Panama into Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, always expanding my circle. But in 1990, Merrill Lynch decided the brokers were making too much money. So they started to open offices in the major cities. What this meant was that you were required to tell the clients about the office in the city. And if they decided to go to the office, you lost the client, because they were no longer dealing with you. So Merrill Lynch didn't have to pay you a commission anymore.

Now, many of my people didn't want to go to the office. Because they didn't want the people working in the offices, who were their countrymen, to know how much money they had, you know? You don't want your neighbor to know how much money you have. Especially to Latins. To them it was a big issue.

So when Merrill Lynch saw that the clients weren't responding to the offices they opened, they started to get frustrated. Because they wanted the money we were making. So they gathered all the brokers who were doing business, and they said we had to turn our books, our contact lists, into the local office. And we screamed. The clever guys- and I was one of the last to know the trick-got the clients to turn themselves into corporations. We called our clients and told them that they had ten days to become a corporation. And so then they transferred all their a.s.sets to these corporations so the name of the client didn't mean anything anymore. Then we handed over our lists! [Laughs] Take them. So what?

So then Merrill Lynch got p.i.s.sed. They started changing our quota goals. They'd say, "Okay, if last year, you brought in such-andsuch, and your quota has been to bring in twenty percent more business each year, this year, you have to bring in forty percent more, or we'll reduce your commission on what you already have. And if we've paid you some in advance and you don't meet your target, never mind if you're making us millions, you're going to owe us money."

They wanted to get rid of us. No problem. We were still making money. But then my brother quit to go do other things, and he gave his accounts to me. Still no problem. Except Merrill Lynch made a problem with the way I filled out some doc.u.ments about acquiring the new accounts. It was bulls.h.i.+t. They completely invented something I had done wrong. And after six months of fighting about this, they terminated me. They did the same thing with a couple other brokers. And you know we started that business with nothing, and in twelve years we turned it into something where they've become a major factor in Latin America, moving a trillion dollars. We made their name known. We taught them how to work in Latin America, and brought them in all the money, all the a.s.sets, then they terminated us.

And my friends and my relatives, who were still working there, they told me, "Ricardo, I'm sorry, but if I see you at lunch, I can't talk to you. I can't invite you to sit with us. Because if someone sees us with you, they're going to think we're giving you tips or accounts."

But you know, by then I was making a million dollars every year, and my manager was making a hundred and fifty thousand. So it was a very understandable situation. I mean, brokers were making almost as much as the president of Merrill Lynch. So they got rid of the brokers.

So I went to work for a company a block away, J.W. Genesis. It's a small company formed in 1973 by a very well-known Floridian. I agreed to start a Latin American division.

And now Merrill Lynch's funds are the worst performers in the markets. And the only thing I'm doing is calling my old clients and asking them how they're doing. I offer to send them some information, and as soon as they see that Merrill Lynch is one hundred and twenty-third on the list of growth funds and I can switch them into a fund in the top five, I don't even have to call them back. They call me and say, "Umm, this is very interesting. Umm, why don't you come visit?"

So Ricardo Blanco is now making a dent in Merrill Lynch! Because I'm going out to see my clients. I don't have to say anything, I just ask them, "How's Merrill Lynch treating you?" And they say, "They're treating me like s.h.i.+t!"

I know what to do then, you know? I make them love me. The business hasn't changed. It still comes down to the same things-longterm strategy and a diversified portfolio. [Laughs] And it's funny because my training at Merrill Lynch was very good that way. They teach you how to be number one. So sometimes now a very rich client comes to my office and wants to go out to lunch or go ride around on his boat. I keep shorts in my office so I can go with them. [Laughs] Little things like that you have to learn. How to dress down, how to dress up. Anyway, when you're out with them on the boat, that's when you say, "You see why it's good we are doing a long-term strategy instead of something short?" [Laughs] And that's when they love you.

I've run into so many rude, rude, rude people.

TRAVELING SALESMAN.

Desmond Grant.

It's just a cleaning product. It comes in gallon jugs. It's a concentrate, so you use it with water. The stuff will take permanent marker out of a T-s.h.i.+rt, it'll take paint off a carpet, get mold out of anything. It'll clean anything. And it's legit. Before we take money out of somebody's hands, we show them that it works; they know they're buying something that works.

I can detail a car with my cleaner. Alone. One product. I don't need Armor-All, gla.s.s cleaner, or wipes or anything else. I can do everything that I need on that car with my cleaner alone. Even pet stains. And they won't go back to the same spot. They don't like the smell of it.

People are dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty. You can walk into any kind of store and see dirt all over the place. I was in a flower shop this morning. There was stains all over their carpets, their tile floors, their windows. Mold on the stainless steel around the windows. I'm a clean person myself. I enjoyed cleaning that place! [Laughs] Made a nice sale.

We have a big van of people and we'll stop in a town and get a couple of motel rooms. We don't work the towns we stay in. It's better to just travel about half an hour away, get to all the towns all around, and just work them. That way, everybody you meet, it's strictly a business relations.h.i.+p, you know? They didn't see you buying no beer at the store last night. [Laughs] They don't know no s.h.i.+t about you. It's all business.

We stay in a town a week and then go to the next town, stay a week, go to the next town. So it's like that [snaps fingers]-sell, sell, sell. We do this year-round.

There's six of us salesmen in the van. I'm the oldest. I'm twentytwo. Plus there's our supervisor [laughs], the boss man, Mr. Carolton. He drives. Sometimes, I'll drive too. Carolton's, he's-I don't know how old he is. He's old, though. And he's all right. He's fair, I'd say. It's his van. He got it from a church somewhere, I think. [Laughs] He keeps it up decently.

All we work is businesses-stores and offices-it ain't a house-tohouse thing or anything like that. We just work businesses. Any kind of business, you name it, we walk in the door and we try to sell them.

My success rate is up and down. One day I can sell a thousand dollars' worth of product in two hours. Like nothing. People just buy it up when they see it. Then the next day, I might work seven hours and sell a hundred dollars.

A lot of times, it's hard to convince anybody. Oh s.h.i.+t, it's hard. You walk in and they're skeptical before you say anything. You have to get them to let you show them what it does. That's the toughest part. I just walk in and say, "I'm with this company and I collect carpet stains. Can I have that one over there?" Hopefully they let me clean it. And once I take that up, their eyes get big. Then it's hook, line, and sinker. You take it from there. You go from the carpet to the windows to the counters to walls to any kind of stainless steel. Everything.

I don't have a home. I'm a traveling salesman-I live in motels! [Laughs] It sure beats the h.e.l.l out of where I'm from, which is outside Akron, Ohio. Just a s.h.i.+thole welfare town. No employment. I didn't go to college. I was going to be a restaurant manager if I was lucky. That's not for me. Not at all. And even if I'd gone to college, that don't guarantee you nothing. All college is is like taking a loan out of the bank. My buddies went to college. s.h.i.+t, I watched them one by one drop out and go home. And I'm like, "What are you going to do when you go home?" "Work for Dad." Well, I can't work for Dad, Dad's retired. He's done. Ain't no working for Dad for me. I got to make my own money. And I do.

I make fifty percent commission on every sale. It's nice. There ain't a day that goes by, I don't have a hundred dollars in my pocket. I mean, a hundred dollars ain't a whole lot, but still-it's a hundred bucks to me.

The company wants us to go to bigger towns, but I like working out in the country. I convinced Mr. Carolton to give up on the big towns and stay country, because that's where people care about whether their s.h.i.+t's clean or not. I mean, go to Cleveland, that's a dump! It's a dump, man! Out in the country they care about how clean it is, they really do. Out in the country, you show them how good this cleans something and they're, "Oooh, s.h.i.+t. I need some of that." Because they care what stuff looks like.

I've been in towns where I've seen such s.h.i.+t-it's ridiculous how dirty people are. I've walked into stores and the owner has just flatout told me straight to my face, "It looks like a good product, but I don't clean. Look at this place." I'm looking around and I'm like, "Yeah, it is a mess, man. I'm trying to help you out here to get it where you'll make a little bit of money." I mean, c'mon. When I go into a store to spend my money, s.h.i.+t better be clean or I'll just walk back out and go up the road to the next store. If I go into a restaurant and the grill is black, then I won't eat there. I don't want an egg that's cooked on something that looks like that. I'll tell them, "Look at you all, man! Why don't you all clean?" It don't take five minutes to clean a place. Our product cleans a grill. It cleans everything.

A lot of times you get an att.i.tude from people and that sucks. I don't like getting att.i.tudes. I get paid to show you what it does. It don't take five minutes. I've run into so many rude, rude, rude people. I'm just like, "Look, dude, I'm just trying to show you something. You don't have to buy it. It's free to show you. Wouldn't you be interested to actually look and see what it does? If I show you and you don't like it, it ain't no big deal. Sayo-f.u.c.kin'-nara, see you later, I'm going to the next door, it's right down the street. It ain't no big deal. All I'm here to do is show you what it does." [Laughs] People can p.i.s.s me off.

I walked into this video store one day, and this lady had this stain about this wide, and I cleaned a spot right in the middle-that's one of my best tricks because if I clean it all, what's the purpose of buying the product if the salesman's going to clean it all? So you just spotclean. One spot. Right in the middle. That way they're like, "d.a.m.n. I got dirt on one side and the other side, and a clean spot in the middle. I'm going to have to buy it now, just so I can get that spot clean!" Do you know what I mean? So I clean this lady's spot in the video store and she's like, "I don't believe you." I said, "What do you mean you don't believe me, it's right there!" She's like, "I don't believe you." I was like, "f.u.c.k you, happy dirt. See you later. I ain't got time for this." I mean, with this job, I'm working on commission. I ain't getting paid by the hour. So n.o.body's going to waste my time. People are so freakin' stupid sometimes. You'll just run into some of the most ridiculous people out there.

Of course, you also run into people with smarts. They want to see it, they want to see what it does. And once they see, they end up buying a case of it. And I make a hundred bucks every time I sell three cases. If I can go out and sell that in an hour's time, hey, thank you very much, I'm going home. I've already made three hundred dollars. I don't need to work the rest of my day. I'll go back to the motel, have some fun, flip the channels. Or, if there's anything to do around the town we're in, I'll do it. We just went up to New Philadelphia, which is like twenty minutes from Canton, so I drove out to the Football Hall of Fame. I'd already made my quota for the day. I just said, "f.u.c.k it, I'm going to go up to the Football Hall of Fame, never been there before." I'm a huge sports fan anyway. I love f.u.c.kin' football. It cost me ten bucks for two or three hours of entertainment. I came back home, watched a little TV, drank some beers. Great time. h.e.l.l, it's like a day off for me. Only I made money on it.

In five years, I see myself sitting in an office for this company, calling people, just for reorders. Or, if I stay out on the road, here's how it's going to work: I'll have like ten people that work for me. I'll be the boss man, but it won't be a van like the one we're in, it will be a new van. And I won't sell the s.h.i.+t anymore like Carolton. I'll just be organizing and driving the van out, and everything they sell, I'll make a thirty percent commission. They'll make thirty-five. [Laughs] And the company will make thirty-five.

I'll make money off of what they sell. I won't have to sell anything. I've already paid my dues, so I'll go to a town and say, "All right, you hit this street, you hit this street, you guys go over here, blah, blah, blah, I'll see you in about an hour." I'm about five times as sharp as Carolton; I'll make my money just being organized. My kids'll be working and I'll go down to McDonald's, get a cheeseburger, read the newspaper, go back and pick them up. Even if they only sold a gallon, I'm still makin' money, and I ain't doing nothing but sitting on my a.s.s. I'll be a rich man.

I'm going to retire early and move to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, buy a house, and I'm going to chill for a while. Then I'll start a family. My girlfriend got hired a week after I did. She's eighteen and beautiful. I just hooked up with her as soon as she came on. That was easy, because she was a sweetheart. She looks good. We're gonna have a family one day. [Laughs] We're gonna have a big, beautiful family. We're gonna be happy as s.h.i.+t.

There are a lot of nasty people who

come in here. We've had customers

return a hat after owning it for two

months-that's just sick.

HAT SALESWOMAN.

Alex Cho.

In 1995, I left the fabric design field, which I had been in for thirteen years, because I couldn't stand it. I was tired of designing things that ended up on the rack in Conway's. As the artist, you're at the bottom rung of the totem pole, and I was working myself to death for a lot of really stupid, mean, untalented people who were getting rich off my skills. But I wasn't getting anything out of it-no real money, and no pride in my work. It wasn't so much the money per se, it was the principle. So anyway, I quit.

Right about the same time, the woman who's now my boss was opening this hat store. I knew about it because I am good friends with a good friend of hers. I went in the first day she opened just to check it out, and she was sort of overwhelmed. All these customers, hats everywhere, so much to do-chaos, you know? And about a month later, she was looking for someone to help her. I thought, well, a hat shop-this could be an intermediate thing. I never knew I would still be here more than three years later.

Surprisingly, though, I kind of like it. I like being busy, I like helping people-if they're nice-and I like the excitement of the sale. I'd never had a sales job before, but I think I'm kind of a natural. I've actually gotten letters from satisfied customers, you know? People have taken the time to sit down and write a note to tell me how happy they are with their hat and that they think they made a very good choice based on my help. One woman even wrote the owner a lovely letter about me-she'd come in with a certain hat in mind and I basically convinced her that she needs to be open to other hats, and she was thrilled with her purchase. I think that's really nice.

To do this well, you need a sense of style and you have to know how to size people up. You have to be patient-never pressure people. When someone walks into the store, I can tell immediately whether to give them a spiel or not. I just kind of know.

And I listen to people. I take their needs into account. I mean, if somebody is not a regular hat-wearer, I'm not going to let them buy a crazy hat that they won't ever wear. And I'm not a car salesman-I always tell the truth. I've talked people out of hats. I've told them I didn't think it suited them. I'm the type of person that if I'm in a store and a salesperson is trying to sell somebody something and they look really awful in it and the salesperson is telling them that they look really great in it, I go up to that person and say, "That salesperson is just trying to make a sale."

I don't make commissions, so I don't really care if somebody buys something or not-although I do like writing up the receipt and feeling like I've done something. But regardless, I think it is ultimately in the best interest of the business for the customer to be happy with what they bought.

People are funny about hats. I myself am not even really a hat person. I mean, I never wore one until I started working at this shop. I would freeze every winter because I refused to put on a hat because of hat hair and because I didn't think I looked good in them. And those are all the reasons people who come into the shop give me for why they have never worn a hat. But I try to sway them. I wear hats now in the winter to keep warm. It's very hard for me to wear a hat in the summer, though, I just can't do it. But in the winter it makes such a difference-a warm coat and a hat-you can't beat it. Sometimes people come into the store and they are embarra.s.sed about the particular hat they have on. I always tell them that I'd rather they be wearing a hat than no hat, because at least it means they wear hats. Does that make sense?

Anyway, I work four days a week, noon to seven. I would probably kill myself if I was here every day. I mean, it's not brain surgery or anything important like that-in the long run, it's not important at all-but the job is stressful. The days that I work I hardly ever do anything at night-I basically go home and veg. Part of it is that at the end of the day I don't want to talk to people, because I've been talking to them all day. Part is that I'm just plain tired. I try to keep working all the time when I'm in the shop because I feel really uncomfortable not working. Not because anyone would catch me or even care, but because it is boring to just sit around.

Every day, I get in, open the gate, turn on the music, turn on the lights, and start waiting for customers to show up. You never know who or what is going to come in. I say "what" because you get such a range of people-from sophisticated New Yorkers to celebrities to the Iowans who are visiting and just want to play. Some people are tire-kickers, some are interested in buying, and some want to make a mess. Especially around Christmas-the holidays bring in all these people who think it's a stop on the Disneyland tour-you know, they all put on hats and want to take pictures. I have to put my foot down sometimes. I have actually announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a funhouse!"

There are a lot of nasty people who come in here. We've had customers return a hat after owning it for two months-that's just sick. There are a lot of just straight-out shoplifters, too. But the ones I hate the most are the women who come in with a guy, put on a hat, don't look in the mirror, and then just acquiesce to what the guy thinks. I just want to punch them in the stomach. There are even certain women who let the guy pick out the hats for them to try on, make no decision at all. I've said to some of them, "Why don't you pick out your own hat?" They don't tend to take that kind of advice very well, but I don't care. People should make up their own minds.

Aside from the customers, the main person I deal with is the owner. She's a nut. A lovable nut, but still a nut. Our relations.h.i.+p is complicated because we're also friends. She's constantly saying that she's the owner, but I'm the boss. There's some truth to that. Like I'm a stickler for detail, and I listen, and I pay attention. She is a little more flighty, and we've had some confrontations about this. For instance, we sometimes give a little spiel when people come into the store about how a lot of the hats can be ordered in different colors and sizes. Sometimes I will have just finished saying that to a customer and then she will say it. And I'm like, "Excuse me, I just said that." And it's because she wasn't paying attention. Also, she's responsible for paying all the bills, but she's not good at it. She pays at the last possible moment. So I have to field phone calls from suppliers all the time. Very flighty.

She's a good boss, though. And very fair. It's a pleasure working here. I lose my temper more than she does. I've been fired many times, I've quit many times, and I've fired her a couple of times. We get along, though. Sometimes the boundaries get kind of blurred between friends.h.i.+p and work, but I think that is part and parcel of working in a small business. Also, we've realized that we can't spend that much time in the shop together because it's not healthy. So she spends less and less time in the shop, and consequently we spend less and less time together, and that works.

I like pretending it's my store sometimes. When people compliment it, I feel proud. It's doing really well and I take pride in that- even if I'm not directly profiting from it. I've even been toying with the idea of opening a shop of my own-not a hat shop but kind of a homefurnis.h.i.+ngs shop. But I'm beginning to feel that I would never have a moment's rest in retail. You're going all the time. And I get bored really easily, so I'm a little afraid of pursuing something so specific.

Also, retail is in trouble. I think this place is really an anomaly. Every other shop I see is going out of business. The only ones doing well are the big chains. I went to Pottery Barn last week and bought a lamp for twenty-nine dollars. How can I compete with that? I can't. Whether or not people accept it, they like to be clones. Face it, every single one of us is dressed head-to-toe in Gap.

So I don't know what I want to do next. When you work in retail you are very much in the public domain, people from your life come into the shop-people you haven't seen in years-and you're working in a hat shop. How do you explain this? You know? How did you get from point A to point B? It makes you feel kind of weird.

I don't know how to explain how I ended up here. I just don't know. When I was young, I thought I was going to be a dancer. But realistically, I can't be a dancer. I was a fabric designer for a long time, but I hated that industry. I think that, unfortunately, the fact that I have been here as long as I have is not as much a testament to the quality of the job as it is to my complacency. I mean, this job is only meaningful to someone who really needs my a.s.sistance. I don't think that in the larger scheme of things being a salesperson has any meaning at all. And I think I'm a little stuck here because it's not an uncomfortable place to be, but it's not the place I want to be, either.

If I really figure out what I want to do, I can do it. I've learned that from working here. Because the woman who owns the shop for years didn't know what she wanted to do-she just knew she liked hats. And she's made something really successful out of it. So why can't I?

You're a girl and you can't do it and

it's too hot.

HIGHWAY FLAGGER.

LeAnn Hinkle.

I work at the State Highway Department here in Pineville, Kentucky. Which is Bell County. It's next to Harlan County, right in there by Tennessee and Virginia.

We take care of the state roads-the main roads that lead from county to county. This is my fifth summer doing this. It's kind of the family occupation. [Laughs] My uncle was the chief district engineer for several years, and my cousin's the foreman here. And then my mom's the timekeeper and secretary in the office and my dad is the equipment inspector for our district. So I guess [laughs] it was just kind of bred into me that I was going to work on the highway-at least until I get out of college.

I've cleared rocks off the roads, cleaned out ditches and dug ditches, and picked up litter. Mowed gra.s.s besides the road. But most days I'm one of the flaggers. That's been my main job since my first summer. Flagging is where, you know, there's construction on the roads, blacktopping, or whatever, and you've got a crew working, so you need two people out there with flags controlling the cars. One on either side of the work.

Flagging's miserable. Your feet hurt, your back aches, and constantly all day long you're told what a piece of s.h.i.+t you are for holding people up. A town'll call in and want a pothole fixed, but they don't want to stop and wait while you actually do the work. So it's just really-it's aggravating that you're tryin' to do your job but yet you're gettin' b.i.t.c.hed at for doin' it. It's kind of like they're contradicting theirselves totally.

You get talked to really bad. One lady, she came up today and she said that she just didn't have time to wait, and she was in a hurry, and blah, blah, blah. And of course I told her that no, she was goin' to have to wait like everybody else, traffic was coming, and she just cussed me like I was s.h.i.+t on her shoe, basically. [Laughs]

Waiting just makes people crazy, you know? Waiting for anything. They'll-after you do let traffic go and you're standin' off to the side of the road letting 'em go by, they'll swerve over like they're goin' to hit you. Just to be mean, I guess.

But that's not the worst. The worst is to be the back flagger, the one who works behind all the equipment as they go up the road blacktopping. Because when they lay the blacktop, it's just incredibly hot, so you're standin' on this fresh laid blacktop that's, I think, three hundred degrees-plus the sun's comin' down in, like, a heat index of a hundred and ten. You will never feel such heat in your life. And you have to wear these heavy boots. And you're not allowed to wear shorts. You have to wear jeans. You can't wear sleeveless s.h.i.+rts. No V-necks. And so you have this big vest and then you have to wear your hard hat. It's just miserable.

But, you know, I kind of like it. Because it's a challenge. I feel like I've accomplished something just standing out there, just making it through each day. Because I guess when I first started working, I was the first girl that worked here. My mom only works in the office. And that other lady, Bobbie, that was in the office, she works on the other side as a secretary. So I was actually the first girl to ever work on the road crew.

When I started, a lot of the guys were like, "Oh, no, let me get that for you." "Oh, you're a girl and you can't do it and it's too hot." [Laughs] This is when they weren't ragging on me or hitting on me, you know? It was rough. But I was kind of bound and determined. I'd go home at night and I was like, "Oh, G.o.d, my back." You know? Because I'd like lift rocks and stuff that I shouldn't just so I wouldn't look weak in front of them.

I think the main reason I choose to come back here every summer is because I've gotten better self-esteem from being in this kinda male dominant situation. Because I've had to prove myself to them and I think it kinda helped me in a way. I was kinda timid when I- you know, I didn't really cuss a lot or anything when I first started up here and I was kinda shy. And then the guys, they pick on you and rag you until you just have to fight back and just cuss 'em like a d.a.m.n sailor. So now I'm like, fine, you know, bring it on.

A lot of the men don't want to put women out on the road. I think it's fear. They don't want to be took over by women. They just want to keep the women in the office. They want to have their own little world out there.

I mean as far as-I think a lot of the men find it distracting for a woman to be around. It's like they're just not used to b.r.e.a.s.t.s, I guess. [Laughs] And so when there's a set of 'em around they're just like crazy. I mean, at first they're-I don't know, at first I got hit on a lot by the men up here. And I mean a lot. After that, well, now I'm just old news. But I haven't forgotten that stuff. And to hear the way they talk about some of the women when we're out, like their wives would probably die. Because they say stuff that I never thought that men said at all. [Laughs]

And the drivers, oh my, the men drivers. I've been called everything but a girl in one day. Then you got some'll come by and they're like, "Are you married?" And you're like, "No." And they're like, "Well, do you want to be?" [Laughs] I mean, come on.

Here in the southeastern part of the state, everybody considers it Appalachia because of the mountains. So we're all stereotyped, you know, women especially. We're all barefoot, poor, and pregnant which is not true. [Laughs] I get real defensive over that because I go to school up at Moorhead State, a couple hours' north of here, and a lot of people up there think that if you're from the lower part of Kentucky that you're just basically inbred and you are gettin' paid by welfare to go to school or whatever. They think that because you're the lower part down-just because of the mining and everything that was once here and because of everything they have heard about this place they still think that everybody here is poor and inbred-but it's not true. Get that on record. [Laughs]

I mean obviously there are still parts of eastern Kentucky that are still poor economically. But I think it's because a lot of the women don't work, because their husbands still don't believe in it, because- I don't mean to sound really rude-but because of religious purposes. Like some of the guys who work here, one is Pentecostal. He doesn't let his daughters work. They don't work at all. And they have three and four kids apiece. They don't work. They draw welfare. Because he doesn't believe in women workin'. And I think that's a lot of the reason that the economy is low is because they're not even tryin' to work. They just want to stay-the men want to stay in control and they don't want the women to get out and work, so that's what they end up with. Welfare.

I'm not going that route. In college, I'm majoring in psychology with a minor in social work. And I'm goin' to try to get a job in the prisons, being a counselor. Just to kinda talk to 'em, the inmates. Just see how they relate. 'Cause I always-I just find it fascinating, like serial killers and stuff. I just kinda think it's neat how they all kinda have like most of the same histories and backgrounds a lot of times.

So that's what I'm hoping to do. But I could end up doing just about anything. I think the future is bright. I think as more people retire now and the new generation comes in, I think more people'll be used to working with females and males. You know, the guys around here who are just now gettin' ready to retire never worked with women before. I was the first. So they weren't used to it, and they didn't know how to handle it. But I look at some of the younger generation they've hired on the roads in my years here, and now they know that women are going to work more and they've worked with 'em now, so they're accepting it. And things are better. They truly are.