What do you do for a living?

I climb and inspect cellular phone towers.

How would you describe what you do?

We climb up a cell tower, say anywhere from 200 to 500 feet and do maintenance mainly on cellular phone towers changing changing out transmission lines or antennas. Sometimes we just change out light bulbs on the tower, that sort of thing.

What does your work entail?

It varies. A lot of times it’s just maintenance maintenance, changing out antennas and feed lines and, you know, fixing lighting systems, changing bulbs.

…we’ve had people come to work here saying how they’re mountain climbers, they’re not scared of heights or anything and they don’t last a day…

Some weeks you actually get into the building of the towers and that kind of stuff.

How did you get started?

I had friends that worked for a company in Cedar Rapids at the time, they asked me if I wanted to try it and I said, “Sure”, you know, see what it was going to be like. If it didn’t work out I still had another job I could go back to, but I did it for two days and loved it, so here I am.

What do you like about what you do?

A lot of it is just that feeling you get when people are just set off and amazed when you tell them what you do for a living. They’re like, “I could never do that. You’d never catch me up that high.”  And it’s always a thrill because every tower’s different.

You’ve got to love your job because if you don’t love your job, then you’re not going to last at it because it takes a certain kind of person to be able to get up every morning and out of bed, go to work and then climb 500 feet in the air.

Every tower is a new, every one is a new experience so you never know what you’re going to find once you get up there.

What do you dislike?

The traveling’s pretty bad. You’re all over three or four states, so it’s kind of tough on the home life.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

It depends on the company. I’ve always been paid by the hour. But there’s some companies that’ll pay their employees by the job.

How much money do you make as a tower climber?

It depends on who you work for.  Some companies don’t pay very well, so it varies.  Last year, I think I made $60,000. But that’s working 60 hours a week on average.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

There’s some education because the more you move up, the more – as far as computer equipment and stuff, you need to learn how to run. But really you just need a good work ethic and I guess you’ve got to be a strong worker because nobody likes to carry anybody else’s weight.  Also we’ve had people come to work here saying how they’re mountain climbers, they’re not scared of heights or anything and they don’t last a day because they can’t do it. I don’t know if it’s the whole just being out in the open because when you climb a mountain you have a big wall in front of you so you can’t see nothing else but when you climb a tower, 90% of the time, you can see right through it.

What is most challenging about what you do?

I’d say the winters. I always say if you can make it through the winter, you can usually make it through about anything because being up in the air like that for –even if you’re up there just for an hour, it’s usually ten times colder in the air than what it is on the ground, you have nothing to block the wind.

What is most rewarding?

I think I’d have to go back to the same thing where you tell people what you do for a living and just the awestruck looks on their face sometimes.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

I guess my advice to anybody is never get comfortable when you’re up in the air because when you get comfortable, you stop thinking about what you’re doing. That’s when bad things could happen.

How much time off do you get/take?

Usually we work year-round so you get your vacation which is a week or two every year. The weather allows you some every now and then, like if it’s thunder storming, then obviously, you’re not going to be climbing when there’s lightning. Sometimes during the winter if it’s too cold and we’ll take a day or two off.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

There’s a lot of people that say, “Oh, man. You guys must do a lot of drugs and stuff to be able to do that.” They think we’re all crazy.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

Well, right now, I’ve moved up from being a tower climber full time. I’m actually working in the office now as a project manager, so I’d like to just keep doing what I’m doing right now, moving up.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

Just that you’ve got to love what you do. You’ve got to love your job because if you don’t love your job, then you’re not going to last at it because it takes a certain kind of person to be able to get up every morning and out of bed, go to work and then climb 500 feet in the air.

I make beer.

How would you describe what you do?

Well, brewing is about 80% cleaning, so some say we’re glorified maids. I don’t like that term, but you have to be exceptionally clean in the brewing industry, so you’re always cleaning something. Whether it be circulating chemicals in a tank to clean it and then circulate chemicals to sterilize it and then, or maintaining your draft lines need to be clean because bacteria can build up in them. So you’re always cleaning something. Even during a brew day anywhere the beer or wort—before it’s beer it’s wort—comes in contact, you have to make sure that chemical passes through those pipes or hoses or valves and fittings.

…it’s still work but it’s work that you love. It’s not like you wake up in the morning like, “Oh, crap! I got to go make beer today!”

Besides that, there’s small amount of paperwork involved. You have to do your paperwork for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Twice a month, they get paperwork sent to them, and they get $7 a barrel that we produce. The state gets a percentage of beer that we sell and so there’s a small amount of paperwork. I’m not a desk-type of person, and a nightmare job for me would be sitting in front of a computer, in an office. So this is neat because you’re always on your feet. It’s very physical work, but you’re doing something different. Creating recipes is a fun part of it. When I was searching for jobs and I ended up here, I liked the pub environment and a smaller system where I can use my creative freedom. I can create new batches of beer, keep the customers on their toes as what’s coming out next; different styles, that kind of thing.  And then taking existing recipes and tweaking the recipes slightly to try and improve them. And the only way to really do that is change one small thing at a time. You can’t, change your water treatment and add different hops or different yeast strain, all three things, and then expect to know what the difference is. You have to do one subtle thing at a time. When I was searching for this current brew job, I had been offered positions in a micro brewery or production plant, where it’s basically a beer factory at that point where you’re, you know, at 2:10, you start this pump and at 2:30, you move this lever and do this. And you’re brewing the same beers day in day out, and you got the bottling line and the tagging line. That’s not a good job for me to have. I really like the small pub environment where I can come out and say hi to the customers, or you see a sample platter go out and you could approach the table after they’re half-way through them, and find out what they like, what they didn’t like, and what could I do to make it better kind of thing.

What does your work entail?

Typically, nine to five. Brew days are always longer. Brew days here tend to be about ten hours. There’s not so many events in this area because there’s not a lot of breweries, but coming from Chicago, it seemed like there was a beer event every weekend, and I would attend as many as possible to spread the word for the pub and get people introduced to Kraft Beer in general. But they’re long, labor-intensive hours.

…that’s one of the beautiful things about brewing. It’s as complicated as you want it to be or it’s as simple as you want it to be. I’ve had great homebrew from extract formulas and I‘ve talked to people who have Doctorates in Fermentation Science that make great beer…

I like to fall into a schedule where I can get weekends off. That’s not going to happen here just because we do tours on Saturday. So typical days off here would be Sunday, Monday—because those are your slower days and because Monday we’re closed here—so that makes sense.

How did you get started as a brewmaster?

I have a pretty unique story. I mean, most people homebrew and develop a love for it and decide to seek it out as a career and go to school for it. Mine is completely different than that. My father was a school teacher, and he started collecting beer cans in the ‘70s when it was real popular…And since he had summers off, we would actually camp at campgrounds as a family vacation, and tour breweries. And in each brewery, we went to get a couple of cans for his collection. And we were doing this since I was like four or five years old. Now this is the early to mid ‘70s when there weren’t brew pubs or micro breweries, they were all very large industrial-size brewing facilities. And growing up in the Chicago area, there were really none in Chicago to speak of, so we would go to Stroh’s in Detroit and we’d go to Hamm’s in St. Paul. And we’d see Pabst and Schlitz and Miller in Milwaukee, and we would go to Lacrosse, Wisconsin where they had Old Style… And we would tour all these plants all around the Midwest pretty much. And it left a huge impression on me as a young boy, walking into these breweries and seeing these tanks that go up seven stories and the smell of beer on the ground and the cold rooms and the smell of the wort boiling with the hops. And I could remember being in a mid-sized brewery in O’Clare, Wisconsin. It was like a 50-barrel brew house, pretty small compared to some of the other large ones. And the brew master was giving the tour—and a big burly German guy with a big beer belly and wearing suspenders and stuff looks at his watch and he’s like, “Oh, it’s time to add the hops.” And he’s like, “Hey, kid. Come here,” and he points to me—and I was about seven years old at this time—and he says, “Climb up this ladder and I’m going to hand you this bushel of hops and dump it in, but don’t fall in the kettle.” And I remember climbing up the ladder and looking at this big tank boiling and squirting…I dumped in the bushel of hops, and I remember being seven years old and thinking like, “This is what I want to do when I grow up.” And so, freshman year, I sit down with your guidance counselor in high school and he’s like, “So what do you want to do with your life?” kind of thing. I said, “I really want to be a brewmaster,” then he looks at me and he like throws his pen across the desk and folds his arms back, and he said “I’ve been doing this for thirty-two years and I’ve never heard anything like that. I’ve heard, “I want to be a bartender or I want to work as a beer distributor kind of thing, but I’ve never heard anybody say that.” And he’s like, “Well, let’s check it out.” So he gets down on his primitive Apple computer at that tim and lo and behold, there’s actually a school in Chicago that teaches how to make beer. And this the Seibel Institute of Technology and they’ve been teaching how to make beer since the 1870s. And for the longest time, you either went to Chicago, Illinois to learn how to make beer or you went to Munich, Germany where you better speak fluent German because they don’t have English translators. So I’m like, “That’s great!”. We looked further into it and the courses were quite expensive. At that time, it was about $10 or $12,000 dollars to go attend an eight-week course where you’re basically there nine to five and you’re just inundated with a plethora of information. So, in high school, I took a lot of math and chemistry and biology, and ended up going to community college where I furthered my chemistry and biology thinking that this is what I’m going to need. I ended up getting a job at UPS to kind of pay bills while in school, and save my money to go to beer school. And right before I turned 21, at my hometown of Burlingame, Illinois, a small brew pub opened up called the Wine Keller. And I’m like, “This is unbelievable! There’s actually a brewery in my hometown.” But I wasn’t 21 yet. So, as soon as I turned 21…the owner had a free tour and tasting to promote his new company, and they’d been around for maybe a year at the most, and I went there with my family and my girlfriend at the time, and did the tour. And the brewmaster was a German guy named Udo, and during the tour, he had mentioned that his son Christopher was the assistant brewer, but he was attending college in August and he needed someone to fill his shoes. And I thought, “No way! This is unbelievable!” So after the tour, I pulled him aside, introduced myself. I said, “I’ve always had a love for beer. I’ve wanted to be a brewmaster since I was a kid. I’m saving my money to go to beer school, and he’s like, “Oh, that sounds great,” he’s like, “Why don’t you start tomorrow?” And I mean, literally, I had been 21 for three or four days and I’m working in a commercial brewery now. So I was part-time assistant apprentice for six years. During those six years, there’s numerous brewmasters that came and went. As it turns out, this German named Udo was quite a stickler to work for, wasn’t very people-friendly. And I was still working at UPS at the time so I never did attend a beer school, but I learned hands on from numerous brewmasters, some who have gone on to open their own very prominent breweries themselves. So then it came down to a career choice in the mid ’90s of “Am I going to drive a brown truck the rest of my life or am I going to make beer?” Well, driving a brown truck, you’re a teamster, you get union, you get great benefits, you make great money, and then I’m thought, “Well, then I’m dealing with, brown packages, wearing the same uniform every day, doing the same route every day, in Chicago weather and Chicago traffic,” and thought, “I want to make beer.” So, I bounced around quite a few breweries in Chicago, the last one ended up canceling the brewing operations on me with four days’ notice. And I had an eight-month old daughter at the time, and my wife who worked for the same company, got let go as the party planner, so we were both without a job kind thinking, “What are we going to do?” So I got my résumé together and the owners of this brewery actually contacted me through a person who had done some brewery work here. And then I did a phone interview, they sent my family down back in July to check the area out, see if you liked it. They made me a nice offer, and I accepted and sold my house, and I’m here now.

What do you like about what you do?

Well, the creative freedom that I had mentioned. I love interacting with the customers. I love the sights and smells of making the beer. If I don’t want to deal with the public I could close the door and turn the tunes up, enjoy music all day as I’m working. Or I can go out and visit with the customers and ask them what they like or don’t like about the beer. And, of course, I have a passion for beer and I love good quality handcrafted beer, so that’s the main part. And then getting free beer and food in the process is a nice perk.

What do you dislike about being a brewmaster?

I dislike the heat, especially here, the brewery here, for some reason, has no fresh air coming into it, and we just had a real hot spell and it was absolutely brutal. I’m down two belt sizes in four weeks because of it. But you basically, from the time you start till the time you finish, you are completely sweating. I’ve worked at other breweries that had, dedicated air conditioning units just for the brew house—and it was never uncomfortable— but you still got sweaty during periods of the brewing because you’re dealing with steam and heat and hot things. But that’s the most difficult part that I dislike is the heat.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

It’s a salary position with benefits. This particular job helps with insurance. You get a twenty dollar a day allowance for food and two free beers a day. Other companies will offer a 401k and profit sharing, part ownership where they will take a part of your salary and then you’ll be a part of the profits of the business.

How much money do you make as a brewmaster?

With all the benefits involved is between $40,000 and $50,000.

What education or skills are needed to be a brewmaster?

The biggest thing that helps is home brewing. You’re starting at home and tinkering around with recipes and switching from extract to all-grain and seeing how that works, and trying out different styles and using different yeast strains. And then a solid education will help. I know the University of California, Davis, has a bunch of different beer programs. I think the University of Wisconsin offers some beer programs, and definitely the Seibel Institute of Technology, that I mentioned, in Chicago is one of the most renowned brewmaster schools. Definitely willing to work physical labor, the ability to handle heat, the ability to work long hours—they can be long hours especially if you’re on your own. You need to have a solid foundation of Chemistry and Biology, which isn’t completely necessary—and that’s one of the beautiful things about brewing. It’s as complicated as you want it to be or it’s as simple as you want it to be. I’ve had great homebrew from extract formulas and I‘ve talked to people who have Doctorates in Fermentation Science that make great beer so, it’s just all those things.

What is most challenging about what you do?

The most challenging aspect is probably keeping up with demand. I’ve worked at brew pubs where you can make a batch of beer and you don’t have to worry about making it for month or two because it’s a lower demand setting. Here it’s really busy, so trying to predict the future of saying, “Okay, this tank is getting low, you better have a back-up for it,” because beer takes two to six weeks to age depending on the style so, planning for the future and keeping up with production is one of the most challenging aspects.

What is most rewarding?

Most rewarding is sitting down after a long hard workday and enjoying a cold beer, absolutely. And just hearing the feedback from the customer saying how much they love your beer or, you know, “What did you do to change it? I love it so much better”. That kind of thing.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

I would say get a home brew kit. Go to a home brew shop either online or in your neighborhood and ask a lot of questions, read a lot of books, subscribe to the beer publications, there’s numerous of them, check out all the beer websites and learn as much as you can before you decide to make it a career. Some people don’t like the smell of wort boiling, some people don’t like the smell of (spun grain), it’s revolting to some. I personally love it and can’t believe that some people find it offensive. I would say, find out if you like it first. I mean, most people think it’s going to be great, you know, “I make beer,” and some people have quit careers to be brewmasters and love it to death, and others have left the brewing profession because the money isn’t there, especially without much experience. I guess the starting salary is usually around $30,000 or less, $35,000 on the high side, and a lot of people will think they’d love it as their passion and their career and decide that there’s no way to make enough money at it.

How much time off do you get/take?

Typically, it’s a two-week paid vacation and two days off a week, but that doesn’t include festivals which, like I said, luckily there’s not a lot of brewery events going on here. When you have those you can plan on busy weekend.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

That we’re fat! No, you know, most people think of a brewmaster in a typical German environment with a big, burly, beer belly guy. My concept of the brewmaster, especially growing up as a kid, was always the guy with the white lab coat walking around with the clip board taking readings and telling people what to do. I guess another misconception would be that we’re drunks. I don’t know too many brewmasters who abuse the privilege. I mean, it would be the easiest thing in the world to come in and start nipping off of the tanks first thing in the morning, but you’re not going to get anything done and you’re going to end up hurting yourself because there’s a lot of dangerous chemicals and pumps and things and things that trip over always. Buy yeah, I would say those are the two biggest misconceptions.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

Ideally, I would like to open my own. Location is the main thing. I mean, this place has a great location; you’re close to campus, there’s an endless supply of traffic, you have new customers every year. It’s an ideal situation. So I would say my ideal goal would be to make enough money. Save some money, and gather enough people and investors together to open my own location, in a small-scale, location to be determined.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

Just that I’m doing something I love. I mean, it’s still work, sure I’d rather sit at home and watch cable or read a book and make money, it’s still work but it’s work that you love. It’s not like you wake up in the morning like, “Oh, crap! I got to go make beer today!” You have to have that passion and there are so many people I talk to that they hate their jobs. I love my job. I love what I do. Moving from Chicago to here was a huge change especially with a family. If I was a single guy, it wouldn’t be as big of a deal, but it’s something that the wife was there to support me in that decision and she knows that I didn’t want to get a job in a machine shop or something. And especially with this much skill and experience, I wanted to continue doing this.

I’m the operations manager for a tower company, a company that builds broadcasts and communications towers, but I got my start climbing up and down them.

How would you describe what you do?

We do everything that’s involved with building and maintaining a tower.

What does your work entail as a tower climber?

We build the towers, we take them down, we put the lights on them, we change the lights, we paint them, we scrape them, we run the antennas and lines.

When you go up a tower and you’re climbing 400 feet, you’re not coming down to get a cup of coffee, you’re not coming down to warm your hands, you’re not coming down for a lunch break. When you go up the tower you’re going to be there all day, it’s kind of like being like a mountain climber.

One of the more interesting things for most tower climbers is when they do a really high re-lamp, because most of them they’re are at night, and the broadcast towers could be 1,000 or 1,500-foot tall. They take the station off the air at one or two a.m. and you’re climbing in the wee hours of the morning changing the bulbs. That would be one of the more interesting things, the view is really good. Other than that it’s a lot of hanging lines and putting nuts and bolts through holes and running cable. A lot of tower crews are on the road all the time, where they just go from one job to the other, always on a per diem and having to get lodging, never really putting down roots. We’re fortunate in our company here that we do most of our work centrally located, but there’s still a lot of time on the road, a lot of times it’s hotels and work, hotels and work.

How did you get started?

I got started because I had relatives who owned a company. I had been in restaurant management for twenty years and I’d had enough of that. I thought it would be really exciting to get out and do something where you’d be physically challenged all the time and your decisions have more of an impact than whether the salad dressing’s correct. It takes a certain kind of person to really enjoy this though. You have to want to do it. If you’re just looking for a job, this isn’t for you.

What do you like about being a tower climber?

I like almost everything except for the winter time. You maintain a pretty high level of physical fitness, though you don’t end up looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger. You’re not cut and all that, but you’re dragging yourself up and down towers every day, so you do have a certain level of physical fitness. Secondly, you’re outside all the time. So if you like being outside that’s a big plus. Also, it’s usually small crews and you’re kind of out in the boondocks, so you have to be a problem-solver, and every situation is a little bit different, things never fit the way the blue prints show, so sometimes were called to do some reengineering to make things work. When I was climbing with we had a great bunch of guys that traveled together, and it was a team effort. Everybody pulled on the same rope.

One of the more interesting things for most tower climbers is when they do a really high re-lamp, because most of them are at night, and the broadcast towers could be 1,000 or 1,500-foot tall. They take the station off the air at one or two a.m. and you’re climbing in the wee hours of the morning changing the bulbs…the view is really good.

If you weren’t getting after it, someone else was. There was a credo where you wouldn’t leave a guy on the tower. If you did your portion of the work and were done with it, you wouldn’t scamper down and let the other guy finish it. Everybody came off together, everybody went up together. That was a lot of fun then. People related what we did to the last cowboys, because we were always traveling and always out and about. So it can be a lot of fun.

What do you dislike?

I would dread the cold weather. Being up on a tower in the cold and knowing the night before that it was going to be 20 degrees the next day, and there’s still no way you’re out of it, the only way through it was to finish it, and you know you’re going to be up there for eight or nine hours. The cold is the thing that I like the least. I think almost every tower guy will tell you that. If you go up a tower and you’re climbing 400 feet, you’re not coming down to get a cup of coffee, you’re not coming down to warm your hands, you’re not coming down for a lunch break. When you go up the tower you’re going to be there all day, it’s kind of like being like a mountain climber.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

We’re hourly employees and depending on what level of climber you are; whether you’re a beginner or an elite climber, or if you’re taking crews, your pay varies.

How much money do you make?

Depending upon how much you work and what company you’re with the pay can range from $32,000 to $50,000 per year. They don’t make as much as you’d think. When I first started I thought, “I know these guys are making $50 an hour,” but it’s not true.

What education or skills are needed to be a tower climber?

It goes without saying that when you’re going up a tower and you’re at any height at all you’re going to need great balance. You have to be focused to be successful as a tower climber. If you’re scatterbrained or if you don’t plan well, and you’re not paying attention, you could have accidents.

It’s really not a dangerous job if you follow the rules and pay attention. There’s a lot of fatalities in the industry and it’s due to the fact that people don’t follow the rules or they’re not careful. I’d rather be on a tower than climbing a tree or on a roof. It really doesn’t have to be dangerous if you pay attention…

have to be focused because not only are you responsible for yourself, but you’re responsible for everybody that’s on the tower with you. If you drop things from any height, it could be very dangerous. As far as the skills that you need to develop, it could be as basic as sticking a big bolt through a big hole. Or it can be as complicated as learning some kind of test equipment and working with radio frequencies. There’s a wide gamut, so there’s room for everybody. At the beginning stages, if you can climb up a tower and be safe and follow instructions and follow the safety procedures, and put a bolt in a hole when someone tells you to, you can start. Then from there, as you gather more skills, you can take it to a higher level. Other than that, I think just stick-to-itiveness. You are going to get in that situation where it’s 2:00 in the morning and the dispatcher’s calling saying “It’s not working,” and it’s 20 degrees, and you just feel like crying and going home, so we look for guys that can just stick it out. The applicants that we look for must have a background in outside construction only because it takes a certain ruggedness to be outside and to manhandle that stuff. Anyone that really decides to, though, could give it a go.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Just the cold. Usually the physical aspect of climbing if you’re doing it every day isn’t a big deal. At the very beginning though, you’re using a whole different set of muscles, and so the first few weeks are challenging just because you’re tying to keep up with the guys that have been doing it for a while. But that’s probably not the most challenging. The most challenging for me is always the cold.

What is most rewarding?

It’s going to sound weird but when you’re working with a small crew you develop a good sense of camaraderie. And also, when you’re out there at the beginning of the week and the truck comes with a bunch of steel that gets off-loaded and by the end of the week, there’s a 400-foot tower standing there, there’s a sense of accomplishment. I think that and being outside is most enjoyable. And you feel kind of free because you’re not super supervised. There’s nobody there but your crew, generally. As long as you’re taking care of business and things are going well no one messes with you.

How much time off do you get/take?

In the winter the days get a lot shorter and you can’t be out as much and weather can affect you if you have iced up conditions or thunder storms. Usually, when the weather’s nice, you’re going at it from light to dark, so if you get a chance to get a rain-out day, you take advantage of it. So as far as time off you’re going at it all year as long as the weather’s working with you.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

I think there’s two… one is that we make a ton of money. Because a lot of time you hear truck drivers on the radios as they’re going by saying, “Look, those guys got to either be making $50 an hour or on crack,” and neither one of those are true. And second one is that it’s so dangerous. It’s really not a dangerous job if you follow the rules and pay attention. There’s a lot of fatalities in the industry and it’s due to the fact that people don’t follow the rules or they’re not careful. I’d rather be on a tower than climbing a tree or on a roof. It really doesn’t have to be dangerous if you pay attention, and if your company follows the rules.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

Probably one thing that I’m always amazed by is that when you’re selling a job or you’re talking to a customer and they call you at 3 in the morning for an emergency and they’re kind of shocked that it’s expensive. I’m surprised that people don’t expect that it’s going to be expensive to get a tower crew to come out and do some emergency dispatch on Christmas Eve. People pay $50 just to have the plumber stop by, why wouldn’t they expect it to be expensive to have a crew come out and climb a tower in the middle of the night?

What do you do for a living?

I’m a meat cutter.   I own a meat shop.

How would you describe what you do?

Basically, I bring boxed beef in, put it on the block, break it down, cut and trim it,  then retail it.

What does your work entail?

Setting the counter, unloading trucks, and waiting on customers. I cut beef, pork, chicken. Customers call in and they tell me how many steaks they want and how thick they want them, or what weight of roast they want.  We do wild game processing.  I work about nine hour days, pretty well staying at six days a week. I would say cutting meat is probably about a four hours of the day, and the rest of the time is paperwork, cleaning up, and waiting on customers. 

People are not wanting prefab meat. They’re not wanting stuff that’s been injected with solutions and shot with carbon dioxide to keep it from changing colors. They want something fresh cut.

Most shops stay anywhere from 35 to 42 degrees working temperature. You’ll spend four hours a day in there and if you work in a grocery store you’ll spend eight hours a day.  You don’t notice the temperature.  You become very accustomed to it.  I wear shorts and short sleeves year round. I’ve been in it since I was 16. Most people will be chilled where I work, I’m not chilled. My freezer is set at minus 10, and its cold in there. High speed fans, about 35 miles per hour fans, you step in there it is cold. You can freeze a coke in about 10 minutes.

How did you get started?

I’ve always been a hunter.  I started skinning squirrels when I was six years old. When I was 16 years old I started working in a grocery store.   They started training you back then, they had sides of beef, and we broke sides of beef. You start with a side of beef hanging on a hook, you break it down. You had to learn how to take a side of beef and merchandise it, make a dollar out of it. Sometimes you serve a lot of sirloin, sometimes you sell a lot of round steak, you’ve got to figure how to sell all of your sirloins and still make money. So there is a lot of merchandising in it. Yeah I’ve always pretty well. It just kind of came with naturally to me. I had good eye to hand coordination, and had enough strength to do the job.  A guy needs to be a 200 pound guy to be a good at this.  180 pounds you can make it if you work at it, you’ve got to stay in shape.

What do you like about what you do? 

I like the person to person contact with people. Its a good living. 

What do you dislike?

Keeping a full crew is probably the worst, training somebody. Very few people want to stay with the business.  Everybody thinks when they start they ought to make enough money to, immediate gratification, and it’s just not there. It’s a three-year apprenticeship program. It takes at least three years to learn what you’re doing, and then the money’s there. The first three years you have to learn what you’re doing. It’s kind of like getting paid to go to school as far as I’m concerned. You pay a guy to learn something, and a lot of people don’t want to wait until they get the knowledge of what they’re going to do to make a living.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

It’s strictly just the profit line. There is not any other revenue that comes in here except fresh cut meat.  That’s why it’s important to make sure that your figures are right on the profit, because that’s all the money you are going to make.

How much money do you make?

On average I would say that my business here does a little over a half a million a year and I’ll probably take home around $100,000.

Would you say there are any perks to this job?

A lot of different jobs send you all over the world or whatever, and you don’t have that kind of perks here.  Not at all.  I guess one of the biggest benefits or perks about this is when it’s freezing rain outside and snowing, I’m standing in here and it’s the same temperature year round.  When its 100 degrees outside I’m still working inside, I’m in the cool year round. It’s comfortable, once you get used to the temperature it’s a comfortable temperature to work in year round.  So it’s a good job, every day is sunny.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

A lot of math skills as far as education goes, high school education is plenty, but you need to have a little algebra and math basis more than anything.  The bottom line on meat is a small enough that if a man makes to many mistakes he’s not going to make any profit. 

Most shops stay anywhere from 35 to 42 degrees working temperature.  Most people will be chilled where I work, I’m not chilled.  You grow accustomed to it. I wear shorts and short sleeves year round.  My freezer is set at minus 10, its cold in there.

You also need good hand eye coordination and upper body strength.  You do a lot of lifting and you use your arms constantly. If you don’t have a lot of strength in your hands then you’re going to wear out, you’ll end up with lots of cramps.  It’s kind of like like football training.  If they don’t condition themselves, they’ll go out there and cramp up. This is the same way.  During deer season we process 250 to 300 deer in deer season, and during that period of time you’re constantly pulling and using your arms, so all of your muscles get fatigued, really fatigued. You start at six o’clock in the morning and you go home at 10 o’clock at night.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Handling the rude customers. No matter what business you’re in you are usually going to have some people come in that are rude, and no matter what you do you’re not ever going to please them.

What is most rewarding?

My customers coming back in, like the man that just left that said that “You still got the best ground beef in town” .  When people tell you you’ve got the best of this or the best of that, the satisfaction of people. I was going to sell out probably two years ago, except for the word kind of got out that I was going to sell, and I had so many people come in and ask me not to. And that was one of the main factors that made me stay.  People are not wanting prefab meat. They’re not wanting stuff that’s been injected with solutions and shot with carbon dioxide to keep it from changing colors. They want something fresh cut. They sure like to have it cut, they like to see it cut, they like to come in and watch what you’re doing, and that’s why I keep the deli like it is the way it’s open. People can watch me cut what I’m doing for them back there.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

I think it’s a good career, I think it’s a great career. It’s been real good for me. All the friends that I know that’s been in it have done very well. People that stayed in the union…a union employee right now are making anywhere from 17 to probably $25 an hour, with all the benefits and everything else in all. I feel like there’s going to be more and more small businesses like this. This is the next trend right here. At one time it was really going down, and now it’s coming back. Because everyone wants fresh stuff, and there is too much bad publicity on the solution added. The solution is a saline solution used with lots of sodium in it, and everyone’s trying to get away from the sodium, and then you take the carbon dioxide shot in it which keeps it red so you don’t know really whether it’s bad or not till after you’ve eaten it. A lot of the tests they’ve been running have been showing as high as 70% of the product that’s in the counters have more pathogens in it than what they’re supposed to. This is the way…this is the way to go. It’s trending towards the smaller shops, it’s really coming back.  In North Little Rock there’s a boy that’s done very well.  He’s become a millionaire in just a few years with one down there.

How much time off do you get/take?

I take about ten days on average.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

Profit, more than anything. They think it’s…the price of meat always been higher than what a can of beans are. So they think there’s a lot of money in it, where really there’s more money in that can of beans then there is in meat. Grocery stores have always used meat for a draw. All your ads when you see the front page of any ad, it’s always the meat, and that’s what they use to draw people into their store to make their money off a can of beans.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

I’d like to work five more years, I’ll be 62. At 62 years old I’d like to go ahead and quit. Everything is in line goal wise as far as where I’m standing financially. My shop’s done well, done very well. I’ve done better than what I expected.  I would like to leave the shop to somebody that would continue what I do. The markets here for it, money’s here for it, and the demands here, and I’d hate to leave my customers without it.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

No, not really, I think it’s a very rewarding career. There’s a lot more rewarding financially than this, but as far as health and satisfaction I think you can’t beat it.

I’m a Farrier.

How would you describe what you do?

A Farrier is someone that put shoes on horses and corrects faults in the foot.

What does your work entail?

Well, my job entails me showing up at someone’s house, or them coming to my shop to get shoes put on their horse, or trim their horse’s foot, whichever the case may be. You can set your own hours because you work for yourself. It’s probably about 50 or 60 hours a week because when you get home you’re not done, you’ve got to answer calls that come in from clients later on.

How did you get started?

Well, how I got started in this is I was cleaning tile floor down in Little Rock and I couldn’t find anyone down there that’d come and shoe my old ex-wives horse.

From the leg down a Farrier probably knows more about a horse’s anatomy than a Veterinarian.

I was tired of working at night so I went to shoeing school. And I’ve been shoeing off and on for the last 17 years.

What do you like about what you do?

I like working with the animals. I’d rather work with the animals than people. Because I get along with animals, I understand the animals. That horse won’t lie to me, someone else will. I enjoy the freedom that it gives me, because if I decide that I want a day off, I schedule myself the day off. I can do that pretty easy. You know, my back hurts pretty bad on Saturday when I get done, and I say, “Man thank God I’m done for the week.” But when Tuesday rolls around I’m ready to get right back under it because I enjoy doing this.

What do you dislike?

People not showing up(for appointments). People not doing what they say they’re supposed to do. You know they hold me to the standard, but they don’t hold themselves to one. If they want me at their house at nine o’clock, I better be there at nine o’clock or within 15 minutes or I get talked bad about.

You need to be healthy to do this, there’s an old saying in the Farrier trade ‘you’ve got to have a stronger back than mine’…

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

I charge per horse. I charge $65 on the road to shoe, and $35 on the road to trim, and if it’s over 15 or 20 miles I charge them a trip charge. I try to keep that down to, but with gas being what it is, it can eat my profit up in a hurry. The way I price stuff is I have a philosophy about a living. I want to make a living, I don’t want to kill people, but I want to make a comfortable living. And I try to do that, I try to setup where I can pay all of my bills, and have a little bit extra. I don’t always get that accomplished, but I try.

How much money do you make?

About $30,000. But the sky’s the limit on what you can make.

I’d rather work with the animals than people. Because I get along with animals, I understand the animals. That horse won’t lie to me, someone else will.

You can go into corrective and charged $250 an hour like a surgeon, but you got to be where the horses are.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

There’s a lot of trade schools out there that teach this. You don’t have to go to school, you can climb into a truck with someone that is good and learn, but it would behoove you to go get your basics because they’re going to teach you more about anatomy at the school than you’re going to learn from someone. You need to be healthy to do this, there’s an old saying in the Farrier trade “you’ve got to have a stronger back than mine,” it’s physically demanding.

What is most challenging about what you do?

The corrective part of it and dealing with clients misconceptions. People have a misconception about how horses should be. They all think they know what the horse needs. And what a horse needs varies from show people, to ropers, to cutters, to just standard trail riders.

What is most rewarding?

When you have one limp in and he walks off when you get done. That’s pretty nice.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

Run, run hard. No, just kidding. If a person wants to learn bad enough they’re going to be right there to soak it up. You know it’s just one of those things it just depends on the people. How bad they want something. I don’t want to work for somebody else bad enough I’m not going to do this. This job is not for somebody that needs someone to help start them every morning, because it is so physically demanding that on Saturday it’s hard for me to get going.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

That it’s easy to do. It’s not easy to do. And that a Farrier just changes the shoes. From the leg down a Farrier probably knows more about a horses anatomy than a Veterinarian.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

Well right now there’s an association called the American Farrier’s Association. And I’m in pursuit of my Journeyman(the highest certification in the country).

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

I don’t know, you know there’s a lot of learning to this job and I haven’t learned it all in my almost 17 years I’ve been shoeing. There’s a lot of clinics that I look forward to going to every year because I can better my knowledge, and the better knowledge I have the better these horses and people benefit from it.

I fly 53-echoes in the Marines, they’re a helicopter.

How would you describe what you do?

You go to work, fly for a while, do a lot of paperwork bullshit and then you go home.

What does your work entail?

The last three years I’ve been in training and I’m just now complete with that, so up till now it’s been studying a whole lot. You have to study and get ready for briefs and while I’ve been in flight school that’s what you do basically; get ready, study systems, emergency procedures, aerodynamics, and stuff like that and then you go brief with an instructor. Kind of a one-on-one with someone that’s typically about 5 years older than you that’s been to Iraq a couple of times. Then you go fly for a few hours, land, de-brief and go home and that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing. While I was in flight school down at Pensacola I was probably working maybe 15 hours a week of actual real work and it wasn’t even real work. We didn’t have any kind of job except for flying, that was it. I was with the Navy and I trained with the Air Force too. Now I’m back with the Marines. In the Marines you have a ground job too and my job is operations, I write the schedule. The first month I was there it was about 14 hours a day, 5 days a week so it sucked.

it gets boring flying(jets) when you never see the ground, you’re not going to get shot at, you’re not going to drop that many bombs anymore so…I wanted to fly helicopters, and that’s why I got into helicopters

And it was all paperwork and there was 270 people in the squadron, like half a billion dollars worth of aircraft, writing the schedule for that kind of gets stressful.  When I get out(of training) and get to what we call the “fleet” the “fleet range force” I’ll check in and I’ll get some job. I don’t know what kind of job it will be but probably a few hours a day on a ground job, a few hours a day flying, and a few hours working out or something. It’s not a typical 9 to 5 job. What I’m hoping to do is get on that boat ’cause everybody is either going to Iraq or going on a MEU which is Marine Expeditionary Unit; but if you go on the boat like some…and you’re deploying from the West cost which is where I am moving, you go out for 7 months and you hit Hawaii, Okinawa, Thailand, Australia and all those places, and then if there’s something going on like a natural disaster, like in Indonesia when they had the Tsunami, a lot of the guys I’ve flown with here were all there rescuing people and carrying shit in and stuff like that. Or if China invades Taiwan then you’re the first to go there too, that kind of thing, but the good part is that usually that kind of stuff doesn’t happen and you can go to Australia, Thailand and all those

We get free medical and health insurance. And life insurance is really cheap which is good ’cause we fucking need it.

places and have fun. So that’s what I am hoping to do, that or go to Iraq for 7 months and, yeah…that’s a blast from what I hear.

How did you get started?

Well, I always wanted to fly since I was little and I always wanted to fly jets and I kind of pursued that. I took the Marine route instead of the Air Force like normal people that want to fly because the Marines have air and ground together. So I started flight school, which is kind of a pain to get into, but I got there and I was flying this little jet with the Air Force and it was pretty fun; it wasn’t like a fighter but it was pretty cool. But it gets boring flying when you never see the ground, you’re not going to get shot at, you’re not going to drop that many bombs anymore so…I wanted to fly helicopters and that’s why I got into helicopters.

What do you like about what you do?

Well, I get paid to fly and that’s pretty sweet. I get to live in pretty cool places, get plenty of travel and I work with really good dudes.

What do you dislike?

My helicopter doesn’t have an air conditioner so it’s really fucking hot. And it’s like any big company, you get the whole Office Space effect where you get like 8 different bosses, so there is a little bit of that sometimes.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

It’s a salary so you get your base salary then you get like a basic allowance for housing. Like if I move to North Carolina, I make a certain

I guess that’s the misconception, people make it(the military) sound more brutal than what it really is. And sometimes it is but I haven’t been yelled at in weeks.

amount and then now I’m moving to San Diego and the amount will double. So it’s wherever you live they set a certain amount for that area.

How much money do you make?

This year about $70,000. Next year it’ll probably be more and I’ll be out in California.

Would you say there are any perks to this career?

Well, you get trained in a pretty valuable skill, they spend about $2 million on every pilot. With helicopter pilots you’ve got a ton of training, so when you get out you have a marketable skill. We get free medical and health insurance, and life insurance is really cheap which is good ’cause we fucking need it.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

You have to have a Bachelors degree. Skills, you have to be really healthy and you’ve got to have, not perfect vision, it doesn’t need to be perfect but pretty close to perfect and it can be corrected by a PRK(laser surgery). To get through flight school you’ve got to be coordinated, and to get through just the Marine shit you have got to be at least semi athletic. If you are good at videogames, that helps. I think that all my Halo playing in college really paid off.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Well, I guess the flying part, like when a bunch of shit’s going wrong in here you’ve got to think pretty fast and work pretty quickly too… like with my helicopter if we lose hydraulics,

To get through flight school you’ve got to be coordinated…If you are good at videogames, that helps. I think that all my Halo playing in college really paid off.

you’re fucked, so you got to do a whole checklist to try an keep them alive. I guess the most challenging thing would be just flying, the stress of flying. I haven’t gone to combat yet so I imagine once I do that, that will turn into the biggest challenge.

What is most rewarding?

I don’t know, you are doing something good, I think for the most part. On the overall strategic level people have different opinions of what we should or shouldn’t be doing. But on a smaller level, at least in my helicopter, I can help. Like a guy at the bar last night was telling me how a Marine had flown in a 53(Helicopter) and saved his buddy while they were getting shot up and they got the fuck out of there. That would be rewarding, I haven’t done that yet. So really for me right now it’s just a lot of fun, I meet good people and travel a lot.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

Stick with it. It’s kind of hard sometimes to get into the program. I don’t know, really just stick with it and work your ass off.

How much time off do you get/take?

About two months this year, but I don’t think that will be typical. It’s 30 days paid leave per year is what we get.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

I’d say pretty much just being in the military people have huge misconceptions. They think it’s all Full Metal Jacket or something. No one really knows the difference between being enlisted or being an officer. My work’s chill, no one gives a shit what time I get there as long as I get everything I am supposed to do done, no one is yelling at me. I don’t know, I guess that’s the misconception, people make it sound more brutal than what it really is. Sometimes it is but I haven’t been yelled at in weeks.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

I want to work it to where I can get out of the Marines when my commitment’s up. It’s like a six year commitment after you get out of flight school so I’ll be in a total of 8 and a half years. I want to get out and do Heli-skiing and I might go do some work for Blackwater just ’cause they pay a hell of a lot.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

No, I don’t have any words of wisdom.

How would you describe what you do?

As a firefighter I do everything from fight grass fires, house fires, rubbish fires, car fires, anything that can catch on fire we’d be called for it. We go to medical calls, any time ambulances are called out we go to it. We do everything from heart attacks to small injuries to car wrecks. Anything an ambulance would be called for we help out with. 

Quick Facts!
How much does a firefighter make a year? Starting out you’ll make around $32,000 depending on your location. To see what this firefighter said he makes Click Here..

How to become a firefighter? You’ll need a high school education or GED, a clean record, and a lot of heart. Becoming a firefighter is highly competitive. To see what this firefighter had to say about getting started and the requirements to become a firefighter Click Here and Here.

  Everybody here is an emergency medical technician so we go with ambulances on those calls. We also do swift water rescues, we’ve got all kinds of swift water equipment for like cars that are swept off low-water bridges and stuff like that. Pretty much if anything happens where someone needs to get rescued we’re the ones who get called.

What does being a firefighter entail?

We work 24 hours on, 48 off so that’s ten 24 hour shifts a month. I got here this morning, this is a Sunday, at eight o’clock and I work until eight o’clock on Monday morning. Then I’ll be off all day Monday, all day Tuesday, then I’ll come back to work on Wednesday and I’ll work 24 hours on Wednesday and get off Thursday and Friday come back to work on Saturday. So that’s how our hourly schedule goes.
We get here in the mornings at eight o’clock, check our trucks, all of our equipment, our gear, our breathing apparatus and anything that we wear.  Once our shift starts we can do everything from public education, teaching fire safety in the schools, to doing pre-fire plans with the businesses in the City of Fayetteville. We make sure we know where the entrances and exits are, how the buildings constructed, where the fire department connections are, like if we assist the sprinkler system. We check hydrants, anything of that nature. Every week we do some kind of training whether it be go out and pull hoses, to auto extrication training, to swift water rescue training or high rope rescue training. If we’re not making calls during the week we’re probably training. We usually cut that down by five o’clock or six o’clock in the afternoon, and then we’ll just kind of have our own time, we’ll get caught up on paperwork around here, watch TV, eat supper you know, go to bed. Then we get up again in the morning and get our trucks washed up and cleaned up and go home at eight o’clock. We make emergency calls all in between that time. Anytime there is a medical call or a fire anything we respond on it.