Signs: Real Jobs Needed NOW!

Imagine being a human billboard, standing for hours along the edge of a busy street, in weather that echos the US Postal creed of "rain, sleet, snow..." expanding to include heat, dust, and bad health. For your efforts you get sore feet, a sense of shame and, if you're lucky, a minimum wage paycheck, sans benefits. Or you can be a seasonal kettle-watcher with your ears a-ringing when you're done for the day. Anyone complaining about their real job--stop! Unemployment and poverty lead people to strange careers, and government helps.

Here in sunny AZ, where almost everything goes, unless you're undocumented with brown skin, they're building quite a track record. Before taking over Homeland Security, AZ Guv Janet Napolitano signed a new state law mandating all cities and towns to allow businesses to hire people to wear, hold or balance signs. AZ also allows, encourages?, people to carry guns, though when I stopped at an AZ Chipolte the other day I was a bit shocked with a sign saying "No Handguns." OK.

Proving that not all bureaucrats are blind to danger, George Pettit, Gilbert, AZ city manager, in opposing the sign walker law that passed last Dec. 31, said, "They've always been prohibited...Having somebody standing on a corner spinning a sign or thrusting it out into traffic isn't generally considered a safe act...."

The other day I happened to catch this impressive sign show. It was such a fascinating display of "signing" that I turned around and filmed this sample, worth your 30 seconds to watch. CLICK HERE.

Have you noticed the proliferation of these human signs in your area?  IMHO, worse are those forced to wear a stupid costume--the Lady Liberty look at tax time is one example. At the shelter I used to run, physically and mentally impaired guys with unstoppable determination to work and get out of the sardine can we called "emergency" shelter would do anything, even being a human signpost. I cringed, seeing them stand outside all day, knowing of their health issues.

I'm relatively sure people don't grow up wanting to be sign walkers. It seems to be a relatively new "opportunity," perhaps spun out of the recent economic, um, doldrums, that always bring out sleazy entrepreneurs. I'll bet my lunch money that scant regulation makes this "field" ripe for employee abuse, just as other unregulated businesses, like banks, got a little out of control.

Bell-ringing for the ubiquitous Salvation Army holiday kettle drives is a step up for the unemployed former sign walker according to this article. No surprise, the economy has produced a bumper crop of bell-ringer-wanna-bes.

Seems to me that Obama could use the ultimate threat to the recalcitrant bankers: reform your ways or I'll ring your bell and make you a sign walker. Wonder what Lady Bird Johnson would say about these human billboards?

photo and video by the author