The Lockout affects me too

I was recently hired on by the company that provides food services for Jobing.com arena during the events to work the concession stands. This was such a hard thing to do as I have been a season ticket holder for 9 seasons now, but I own a small business and the economy is still in the shitter so I made the hard choice to seek employment.


This is certainly not the only job I applied for, but it is the only one I was offered. I have sent my resume to countless companies that are hiring in my field to only gain one phone interview, but not a position. So when I was offered a job selling hotdogs and beer to fellow Coyotes fans, I jumped at the chance to still be somewhat involved with the game.

I have worked a couple of concerts so far, but if there is no hockey in October, I will work a total of one day. One day working a concert where I will be lucky to work 4 hours at $8 an hour. Last night was the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert and I was chatting with a very kind retired lady who was working in the same stand as me. She was not too familiar with the hockey situation, but she was very concerned about what was going to happen to her job. You see, she needed this job to make ends meet and she was unable to find work during the summer. She was almost in tears when I told her that hockey might be gone for awhile.

There are 250 people that work at the arena for the food service company during each hockey game. That is 250 people that will not be getting paid during the lockout. 250 is a pretty small number compared to all the others affected. What about the people that work as ushers, security, ticket scanners, and ticket sales? What about all the people that work right outside at the arena at all the restaurants. Try getting a table at Westgate an hour before the game and you will find you are going to wait 45 minutes to get in.

There is much more at stake than just player salaries and hockey related revenue. There are people like this wonderful older lady that has no idea how she is going to make ends meet. There are servers at Saddle Ranch who will have to take their beautiful faces elsewhere to find work, and there is me. I am just a regular guy who wants to work, wants to have gainful employment and earn in one night, what some players earn in 5 seconds of ice time. I'm a just a guy who needs new shoes because one of mine has a hole in the bottom. SHOES!! While owners give out $90 million dollar contracts and players drive cars that cost more than I have made in years, I just want a crappy job that pays $8 an hour so I can buy one pair of shoes would suit me well.

UPDATE:: I did get a pair of used shoes at goodwill for $8.