Some workers labor at odd jobs – really odd
BOISE – The daily grind. The 9-to-5. Bringing home the bacon. The rat race.
However it’s described, work is a crucial part of American lives.
Some jobs – such as that of a waitress, newspaper delivery boy, door-to-door magazine salesman or even lemonade stand entrepreneur – are so universal that just about everyone knows someone who’s done them.
But other careers are a little rarer.
From the mystery shoppers to the bounty hunters, Idaho is full of odd jobs.
The literary type
For eight hours a day, five days a week, Pete Rodriguez Jr. reads other people’s mail.
As one of five Department of Corrections officers hired to read and censor inmate correspondence at the prisons near Boise, Rodriguez stays busy. Mail to and from nearly 4,000 people passes through his office.
“We randomly read letters as we go, and some stuff does jump out at you,” said Rodriguez. “They can’t have any money, no currency or coin, no homemade necklaces or jewelry. No magazines with articles where individuals are throwing gang signs. No self-defense materials, no martial arts magazines. No weapons.”
Inmates have come a long way from the stereotypical file-baked-in-a-cake trick, said mailroom Sgt. James Fletcher, and officers have to be wily to imagine all the ways some items can be used as weapons. A promotional computer disc can go from harmless to horrible with some careful sanding on concrete, he said.
“See this? This could be thrown like a Frisbee, right? And if the edges are sharpened on concrete, it’s a weapon,” Fletcher said.
Pens? Out – they can be used to stab someone. Polaroid photos? Nope. The air pocket at the bottom can be injected with drugs. Stickers? You kidding? The adhesive can be coated with LSD. Stamps? Please. Besides the LSD danger, they are legal tender and can be used as currency. Same goes for baseball cards and anything else with trading value.
But the most important screening often happens while the officers are reading the letters themselves, not examining the items sent with them, Rodriguez said.
“Some of the letters we receive give up information about crimes. Some people actually detail what they’re going to do,” he said. “One guy wrote in Spanish that he was going to commit armed robbery, knock off a place next to his apartment. Well, I read Spanish, and we contacted police in his area with the information.”
The repo man
Devin Wolfe’s job produces a different kind of protection – loan default protection. As the owner of Northwest Recovery Services in Boise and Denver, Colo., Wolfe is hired to repossess cars, snowmobiles, personal watercraft and other high-dollar items when the would-be owners fail to pay their loans.
“Any time we go out on a repossession we’re always on our toes. We have the occasional gun pulled on us, and the other day one of my agents had someone come after him with nunchakus. They dented up our truck,” Wolfe said.
The industry has strict requirements for insurance and licenses, said Wolfe, and training is crucial.
“We’re not the nicest people. We leave people at the shopping centers a lot, in mall parking lots, walking in front of gas stations,” he said.
He is most often asked to recover Dodge Neons, said Wolfe. With a retail price of roughly $12,500, the car may fall into a just-out-of-reach price range for many people, he said.
“One of our hardest times that we have is taking vehicles from single parents. I think it’s the toughest job in the industry, but they’ve got to understand that we have a job to do and it’s nothing we like ourselves,” he said. “If we didn’t go out and pick up those cars that aren’t paid for, then it’s all of us as consumers who’d pay.”
The collector
Kathy Cladis collects things, too. As a bail bondswoman, Cladis sometimes collects people.
“I do the investigation work in our office. A lot of the time, when you receive a forfeiture it’s just a matter of the person being irresponsible, or they overslept or broke a leg. I’ve had every possible excuse,” she said.
Cladis’ father started the family business in 1962. Though it’s seldom that the people who miss court appointments are actually skipping out on bond, she said, the business is a big risk. Under Idaho law, the company has 90 days to produce someone who has skipped out on bond before they lose jurisdiction and any money involved.
“I can’t tell you the stress level. If we don’t apprehend a defendant in 90 days and it’s a $50,000 bond, that comes out of our pocket,” Cladis said.
Though she used to search out many of those missing herself, she said in recent years she’s left the bounty hunting work to her employees and a few reliable freelancers. Still, Cladis has her adventure stories. “I’ve chased many people down the road. I had a girl I was chasing down jump in the river, and so I had to jump in the river after her. It can be dangerous, but you try to find out what the situation is in the house where they’re living and use common sense,” she said.
Most of the time, she said, missing bonds are easily resolved. “The most common excuse is that the person read their court date wrong, or that people were too nervous to go to their sentencing. I had a lady once that I found in the emergency room, having a baby. I just told her, ‘Well, for this I understand missing court,’ ” Cladis said.
The mystery woman
Lisa Jones, meanwhile, tracks down good customer service. As a mystery shopper for Utah-based Rocky Mountain Merchandising and Research, the Idaho Falls resident shops for about 20 different companies, reporting the quality of service she receives to management.
“It might be anything from going into a jewelry store to a big department-style store,” Jones said. “I might get sent to time how long it takes for my meal to arrive when using the drive-through at a fast food place.”
Jones started the work three years ago because she wanted a fun way to spend time with her elderly mother. She found information about mystery shopping online, and decided her mom would enjoy coming along on the drives to different businesses.
Though her mother has since died, Jones continues to accept mystery shopping jobs. She generally makes between $10 and $31 per shop, simply for paying attention to the service and completing a written or phone report. “Now, it’s my way of getting us better customer service. Because you can go someplace and whine, ‘I’m never shopping here again,’ but this actually leads to changes.”