Trilogy

I was heading back from Quiznos on Monday after grabbing some lunch. It was a  cloudy, cool, rainy day in Kansas City. 

I drove by the corner of Truman Boulevard and Main, and there was a guy with a cardboard sign asking for help. 

But not the usual help. 

"LOOKING FOR WORK," the sign said. 

Not "NEED MONEY" or "NEED FOOD." 

No, it was a guy looking for eight hours (or more) of work, pure and simple.

Sure, there are Labor-Ready spots in the city, where the jobless hang out to land a day's pay for a day's work. 

But when it comes to guys hanging on the corner with a sign seeking help, this one's a rarity in downtown Kansas City.  At least it has been. Most with signs are looking for straight handouts. 

This guy, we'll call him Ron, was looking for a day's honest labor.  He agreed to be interviewed, though he didn't want his I.D. or photo shared. I'd say he was in his mid 40s. Had a mustache, a wool jacket and a backpack off to the side. 

Ron has had a string of jobs, he said, the most recent being as a Kirby vacuum salesman up in nearby St. Joseph, Mo.  My "string" reference suggests -- maybe unfairly -- that he's a not a good permanent-hire risk. 

But Ron was a straight talker, with interesting stuff to tell.  We shared his umbrella during 15 minutes of conversation, the cars stopping and starting as the lights flicked from red to green.

"I was making sales, but then we'd run credit checks on the customers.  And they'd come back bad," he said.  He would nail the sale, but the customers presumably couldn't manage the payments.  (If you know anything about Kirbys, you know they're fairly expensive machines ... and that, sometimes, the sales staff can be pretty aggressive.  Ron didn't seem the aggressive type, though.) 

 

Needless to say, Ron's Kirby activities dried up.  So he traveled down to the big city to test his fortunes here.  Thus the sign -- the search for work.

 

We've all heard of the credit crisis, writ large.  Here it is, though, down home. If Kirby won't take the lending risk, it must be bad out there.  

What's interesting to me is the quiet but rapid way the crisis has spread, to grip individuals we know.  I can't sense it as I drive to work (thank you!) each day, because the rush hour seems as busy. But it's the stories you hear.  

Two other quick ones:

- Starting about a week ago, I began getting phone calls from folks in the art and design community who sounded worried, indicating that their freelance work was drying up as their customers cut projects.  "Do you have any kind of work ... be happy to do it!"  Always enthusiastic, always eager ... but definitely worried.

You feel for these guys, because clearly they love their craft -- and now that magic combination of doing something they love and getting paid for it is threatened. 

- And then there's the guy who comes to service our furnace.  Every year we've called him -- he works for a heating/cooling company.  But it's obvious this time that he's worried about money. His salary is contingent on how many calls he handles.  But these days, he has time on his hands.  Lots of time. 

The problem:  A big chunk of his day used to be taken up by developers hiring him to put in heating and cooling systems in new housing developments.  That's come to a virtual halt. 

Instead, he relies on calls like ours ... "Come check the furnace to make sure it's not going to blow up this winter,"  we said. While important and necessary, it's not going to pay all of the bills. 

 

What's ahead?  Personally, I'm encouraged by the recent trends. The credit markets are firming up, the stock market seems to have gotten a grip. But everyone knows we're into a recession. And I've seen enough of those to know it takes awhile to come out of them.  Times will be hard, for a lot of people. 

In the meantime, Ron, my artists and the heating guy will do what they've got to do to get by. Sure, it's a can-do spirit we like to celebrate.  But it's true.

As I watched Ron for a bit from across the street, in the shelter of my Beetle, I was amazed at the number of drivers that would stop, roll down their windows, and give Ron encouragement. A much different treatment than that given the sign-carrier seeking a handout.

But encouragement is free ... there were no job offers.  

Ron stoically weathered on.