Q: How did you find this job?
A: I had just been fired from a valet parking job at the local aquarium. As it turned out, causing vehicular damage is a turn-off for a lot of employers. Thankfully, my driving skills weren't a big problem for the Beach Control.
Q: How old were you when you started?
A: I was eighteen, fresh out of high school.
Q: Would you consider yourself buff (did you work out at the time)?
A: I had what my high school gym teacher called "wiry strength." In other words, I looked more or less like a praying mantis.
Q: What did your day consist of?
A: About two days a week, I sat in a two-by-three-foot wooden box in front of the police station. It was for the specific purpose of selling beach badges. But I spent most of my time staring at my reflection in the police station's plate glass window.
Another three to four days a week, I worked as one of the Beach Control's roving badge checkers, or "Rovers." I worked with four high school girls to ensure that every person on a 1.5-mile stretch of sand had a badge. On a single sweep down the beach on a relatively busy day, we'd check thousands of people. Once we got to the end, we'd walk back, doing the same thing. And we'd do this three times a day in 90+ degree weather.
A: Listening to the presentation the Town Council gave the summer after September 11, you would think that I had America's most dangerous job. In addition to making sure that everyone had paid to enter to the beach, I had to check people's coolers for alcohol – and explosives. I never found a bomb. I don't think terrorists would come to the beach… I would imagine they've seen enough sand and human suffering in their lifetimes.
Q: Was the pay decent?
A: What was minimum wage then? Like $5.15 an hour? I think I got a twenty-five cent raise the second year because I had "tenure."
Q: Was there competition between you and the lifeguards?
A: We were pretty low-down in the beach hierarchy. Definitely above the garbage collectors, but below the lifeguards. Everyone wanted to be a lifeguard… I think it's pretty much the only job in America that lists shirtlessness and leering as requisite duties.
The best job, at least pay-wise, was probably as a senior officer of the Beach Patrol. They got to drive souped-up ATVs on the beach. It was like being a super-lifeguard, except that they had to wear shirts because all that flying sand was pretty rough on exposed skin.
Q: Did you carry any weapons or have any real authority?
A: My meager authority to throw people off the beach was undercut at every turn by the walkie-talkie I lugged around. Pretty much the only noises that would come out of it were things like, "Forget it, it's not worth the time" or "We can't do anything about that." All of which the beachgoers could hear.
Q: What were your co-workers like?
A: The older, more empowered members of Beach Control were mostly school teachers on their summer breaks. The other "rovers" and badge-sellers were high school girls.
Q: What is your overall impression of the crowds at the Jersey shore?
A: Beachgoers have an amazing ability to act as if they're the only people in the world even when they're in the midst of miles of baking, overlapping flesh.
That being said, a lot of locals had this hatred for "Bennies"–- beachgoers who weren't locals-– that I didn't share. I actually looked forward to the summer crowds. Winters at the Shore can be very lonely. You come to desire the energy and activity, even if that means having to sit in gridlock for hours on a Saturday just to get a sandwich.
Q: Did you eat a lot of french fries/listen to lots of Bon Jovi?
A: French fries? Not really. But there was this great pizza place a bit down the boardwalk from headquarters. They always gave me a massive town employee discount. It was run by a mother-father-son team –- "Auntie Jo," "Grandpa," and "Vito" (aka "The Italian Stallion"). It's since been demolished to make room for more bumper cars.
Q: Any other memorable moments from the job?
A: Once, we found an Amish family on the beach. They didn't have badges, but I couldn't bring myself to throw them off. There was something kind of majestic about how all twenty five of them stood at the shoreline, gazing out over the waves in their handmade overalls and frocks. I think the closest Amish community was in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which is about 160 miles away. I still have no clue how they got there.
Q: Why did you leave?
A: I got a better offer the next summer researching early Quaker abolitionism in New York City.
Q: Would you do it again?
A: Would Sisyphus keep rolling his boulder up the hill if he didn't have to?
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