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Steve Sibulsky: What’s with the flaggers at every stoplight on US 95, just standing around all day? The work’s done at night! What a boring job…probably pays well, tho!
Question: We’re always saying that flaggers have a cush job — high pay for relatively little work. But seriously would you want to be paid just to stand around all day, especially at job sites with little traffic?
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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JeanieSpokane on May 08 at 11:36 a.m.
I have husband and wife friends who have been flaggers for over ten years. They LOVE it. They make very good money and spend winters in Mexico. She was a former checker at Tidyman’s and he was a salesman at a utility outfit.
Whippersnapper on May 08 at 11:55 a.m.
I heard on the radio that those people are there to guide pedestrians around missing curbs in construction areas.
Frum Helen Back on May 08 at 12:06 p.m.
Thanks for the info Whippersnapper. I was wondering why there was a flagger just standing on 95 & Prairie. Tonight I will tell my husband the reason he’s there when we go through the same intersection.
tarynahecker on May 08 at 12:12 p.m.
I think there are a lot of people who would be happy to get paid period. Standing or sitting. I’d hop in place all day long if someone cut me a check at the end of the day.
brentandrews on May 08 at 12:15 p.m.
No, because it’s dangerous and scary, and there are people out there looking down on you thinking you’re somehow cheating the system by being where you’re supposed to be. Flaggers don’t get a lot of respect, sadly.
scootermom on May 08 at 12:23 p.m.
Standing on hot asphalt, in a dusty, smoky construction area?
No thanks. I prefer my cushy desk job.
Escapee on May 08 at 12:23 p.m.
I imagine being a Flagger can’t be too much fun when the temperature’s in the 80s or 90s—or more—I remember how miserable I felt when I fought fires in the Forest Service, on barren hillsides during the Dog Days…
otisgexperience on May 08 at 1:16 p.m.
I think flagging looks easy to most people, but I wouldn’t want to stand in traffic getting yelled at all day. Then again, I sit at a desk and get yelled at all day… :)
I take the Pines/I-90 interchange to get to work, and right now there’s a lot of construction activity going on (including flaggers all over the place). Funny how the usual off-ramp beggars are suddenly nowhere to be found. I guess you don’t wan’t to hold up a “will work for food” sign, when there’s the possibility someone will hand you a shovel! :)
Shannon on May 08 at 3:25 p.m.
Heck no! I directed traffic for several years for the local races and people can be downright nasty to you when they can’t go where they want to go right away. I had one old man cuss me out because he couldn’t take his usual route to church despite having the race route and suggested alternate roads published in the paper several days before the race. I’ve had people miss me by a matter of inches with their cars too. Plus, it’s not a pleasant job when it gets in the 90s+ next to the hot asphalt and many of these people wear long sleeve shirts too.