The other day my SIL and I were talking about people in our area that are hiring. She said that someone around was hiring for flaggers. I told her that I thought we could do that. My DN (her oldest) said we'd never last. My DH started laughing, he said "Yeah, they could do it until rebecca got fired." I asked him why in the world he thought that I would be fired. He said I would be on the road to the sale barn flagging down all the pickups with chickens in the back, letting the other traffic run amuck and charging a toll of one chicken per truck to pass! I could just see me with flags chasing after a truck full of silkies yelling "STOP, STOP YOU OWE ME A CHICKEN!!!"
Oh thos loverly sign holders! Do it, I hear it pays well!!!! Seriously. Around here it is 12-15$ an hour!
If there was ever a thankless job it's flagging. I work in construction and occasionally have to flag traffic and I love/hate it. I don't do it enough or care enough that I'm bothered by getting flipped off every three minutes. Though at times it's been funny. I'm an iron worker and I was bundling up a load of iron to go up to the roof of a ten story building in the middle of a side road. We were short handed so I used road cones to block the street, then once the load was off the ground I'd move the cones and flag traffic through once the coast was clear, it was weekend and the traffic was nearly non-existent since the road dead ended into a small parking lot, which was for use of the people that worked in the building across the street form the one we were building. At one point after loading the crane up with about 5000lbs of steel, I grabbed my sign, moved a cone and the guy waiting missed hitting me by a mere inch or two as he sped past and under the load that was only about 10-15 feet off the ground. Cursing me the whole time through the open window of his little sports car. But he wasn't done yet, he worked in the building across the street and cursed me out in person. I just laughed and said "Well, I do this for a living and I really don't like standing under these loads, it's probably one of the most dangerous things I do. But, it's your life, kill yourself if you want, I don't care." Then he stomped off yelling and cursing some more at me all the way into his building. The day progressed and a few hours passed and I'm still loading up the crane and the "guy" emerges from his building. Again the load isn't even twenty feet off the ground and he walks right up to me to apologize. He seamed to be taken aback when I then yelled at him to again leave my work area in language that's not permitted for me to print here. And he looked like I really hurt his feelings when I finished with "You've got the be dumbest ____ on the planet. I'm not gunna lose any sleep over the fact that you don't like me. Get back into your cube and stay the ____ away from this area." To this day I still think he's one of the dumbest _____ on the planet. Just thought you might like a little taste of the job. Good luck.
Good job but you MUST be watchful and careful. I've heard stories of those who have been injured and even killed when they turned their head away from traffic for just a second. People in cars that have just been slowed down do stupid things like reach for stuff on the floor, hit the gas instead of the brake etc... Flaggers always need to be ready for an escape route. I'm just sayin'.
To be a flagger you would need a high tolerance to the heat and sunburn. I've seen some flaggers that looked like they were about "well done."
