Interview with Dave Smith, History 150 Spring 2024, Conducted by Sky Rose, March 31, 2024.

Overview to Social Change Interview:

In the 1980s, the economy differed a lot from how it is now.  I specifically decided to pinpoint the federal minimum wage of teenagers in the early 1980s because there has been a lot of controversy about minimum wage lately. In 1983, when Dave Smith was working at Hess gas station over the summer, the rate of inflation was 2.6% (CPI Inflation Calculator 2024). Currently, the inflation rate is 3.5% (US Inflation Calculator 2024). The United States economy has always been a rollercoaster with periods of a stagnant inflation rate/ federal wage. As inflation goes up, money loses value and the prices of everything increase. Dave Smith was making a little over $3 an hour, while teenagers today are making around $12 to make a living. That almost amounts to a 3-fold increase from 1983 to 2024. At the time Ronald Reagan was the president and executed his vision of perfecting the economy by limiting government spending and reducing taxes- he called this Reaganomics. 

Currently, Joe Biden is the president and he supports higher taxes and higher government spending. In the interview, Dave says that it was uncommon to jump from job to job because of convenience and a bit of stigma. He also mentions how he left the job with more than just money- something nonmaterial. He gained wisdom, customer service skills, life-long friendships, life lessons, and thankfulness. Dave said that working at Hess gas station as his first official job as a teenager set the path of his future career; that it taught him a lot about people, patience, gratefulness, and hard work. 

Biography:

This is an interview of Dave Smith conducted by his daughter Sky Hart. Dave Smith was born and raised in a lower blue collar class family in 1967 in Woodbridge. His first official job as a teenager was a “gas jockey” (a gas assistant) at his local Hess gas station where he handled payments and pumped customer’s gas for them. While in highschool, he held this job out for 4 full years- receiving promotions on the way and earning the title of a manager. Carrying the values he learned while working at Hess, Dave decided to pursue a Masters degree in PA studies. Now, he is a well respected PA who patients hold a lot of admiration for. This interview discusses the components of his “gas jockey job”, relationships within his workplace, differences in wages, personal values, and responsibilities.

Research: 

Summer job employment among teens has decreased over the past few decades from the 1970s to 2024. Explanations for this include: inflation, inability to find jobs, or school obligations like internships, summer school/college, community service hours, or the school schedule in general. According to Pew Research Center 2024 (about: a neutral establishment to inform the public using polling), in the early 1900s less than ⅓ of teens were employed. The reason for that was the economic status of the United States during that time. Dave not only worked at Hess gas station while attending high school, but he also worked almost full time over the summers to pay for college. There weren’t a great variety of job opportunities or convenient places for him, but he had goals.  

In the early 1980s, there was an awful economic recession where the economy was in a rut. It was deemed the title “the worst recession since the Great Depression.” It was caused by the government establishing stricter money policies and exercising something called “Phillips Curve”-the belief that higher inflation would lower unemployment. According to the Federal Reserve History (about: written by individuals who were involved with the federal reserve), unemployment spiked from 7% to 10% in 1981. Because unemployment was so high; job opportunities were low. This is significant in understanding why Dave held out his Hess job for so long and why it wasn’t common to “job hop” at the time. 

Ronald Reagan was the President during the 1980s and prioritized getting the economy back on its feet with his Tax Reform Act of 1986. Reagan’s Tax Reform Act of 1986 decreased the top tax rate and increased the bottom one. According to the Reagan Foundation (about: a nonprofit organization created by President Reagan), the 1980s inflation rate reached a high of 13% followed by more than a 2/3 a decline of 4%, eight years later. Reagan created lots of new jobs, cut the tax prices, and lessened government spending resulting in a higher employment rate and lower inflation rate. These achievements helped pave the way for Dave’s career goals by making college more affordable. 

Bibliography: 

“Current US Inflation Rates: 2000-2024.” US Inflation Calculator | Easily Calculate How the Buying Power of the U.S. Dollar Has Changed from 1913 to 2023. Get Inflation Rates and U.S. Inflation News., 10 Apr. 2024, www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/.

DeSilver, Drew. “The Fading of the Teen Summer Job.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 23 June 2015, www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/06/23/the-fading-of-the-teen-summer-job/.              (Peer-reviewed)

“Reaganomics: Economic Policy and the Reagan Revolution.” The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute, www.reaganfoundation.org/ronald-reagan/the-presidency/economic-policy/. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024. 

Sablik, Tim. “Recession of 1981–82.” Federal Reserve History, www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/recession-of-1981-82. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024. 

“1983 CPI and Inflation Rate for the United States.” CPI Inflation Calculator (2023 Updated Monthly), 17 Dec. 2014, cpiinflationcalculator.com/1983-cpi-inflation-united-states/.

Transcript:

Sky 0:03
Hey Dave, how are you doing today?

Dave 0:04
Doing good Sky, how you doing today?

Sky 0:07
I’m good! Thank you for taking time to help me with this. Today, we’re gonna be talking about social change more specifically, your first official job. So for starters, what exactly was your first job?

Dave 0:17
So my first official job outside of cutting grass and newspaper, one in which I actually got a paycheck- I would call an official job as a taxpayer. I worked in a gas station, as we used to call a “gas jockey” (U.S slang for a gas pump attendant) So in this particular gas station, there was self service and full service. Customers would come to the pumps and pay and you would do all cash exchange at the pump, no credit cards, no checks, just strictly cash, coins and bills. And then they could come to full service and they would pull up and then they would, you know, obviously ask or request the type and how much gas they wanted. You’d pump their gas, wash their windows, check their tire pressure, do oil checks for them. So there was no, obviously it was all wide open, no coverage or from the elements, and no one came inside to pay. So everything was done, like for hours on end at the pump.

Sky 1:12
Wow, that’s a lot different from today. So you actually pump people’s gas for them?

Dave 1:16
Yeah. And you probably don’t do that, you probably pump your own gas now, don’t you? (Joking)

Sky 1:20
(Joking) We pump our own gas today, yeah. And did you choose that job based on convenience or interest?

Dave 1:26
Probably both, I really, I thought working at the gas station was really cool, because all of my friends were older. And that’s where they worked at the Hess gas station, there was, that’s what they did. So probably interest, there wasn’t many jobs available. I grew up in kind of a blue collar, low blue collar, you know, social class neighborhood. And the other part was convenience. Because I was 16. I didn’t have a driver’s license, nor did we have a car- of my own. So I had to be able to ride my bike back and forth, or hopefully get someone to give me a ride back and forth to work before 16 years old.

Sky 2:00
Yeah, definitely convenient to have a job close by. And what duties did this job consist of?

Dave 2:05
Yeah there’s a lot of duties. So I mean, aside from the usuals of pumping gas and collecting money, as I said, we had to keep the gas station clean, we had to clean bathrooms, as well. We also had to- we were responsible for calculating how many gallons of each type of gas we sold, and then multiplying that by the dollar per gallon. So we’re responsible, seeing “how many gallons did we sell?”And the reason being is we had to see how much cash we had on hand at the end of our shift to make sure that all the gallons equal the dollar sales value. So you learned a lot about math, and keeping honest numbers the whole time so you didn’t get penalized for it at the end.

Sky 2:46
Wow, so you had a main job and side work?

Dave 2:48
Yeah I mean, it’s kind of like, yeah, you finished up and now you had to hope that you got to your- because there was no calculator. So you had to be good at math in this job. You couldn’t just throw in the number and figure it out, you know? (Laughing)

Sky 2:59
What was the hourly minimum wage? And was there an option to make any commission?

Dave 3:03
Yeah, so the hourly minimum wage was, when I started, it was probably -that was the minimum- was $3.35 an hour and there was no commission, so to speak. If you sold someone a quart of oil, because their car needed oil, you could get like maybe 15 cents or 20 cents a quart, but you’re thinking if I sold two quarts I’d been making like, you know, 40, 50, 60 cents, you know, for that one hour/if I sold two in an hour. So obviously you hustled to do more in customer service to make whatever you could make.

Sky 3:35
Wow, you said you started at $ 3.15?

Dave 3:37
Yeah, it was $3.15. And then when I first started working, it went up to like $3.35 that week that I was there. So $3.35 an hour is what I got paid. Yeah.

Sky 3:46
And now we’re making about $11 an hour. That’s about three times what you made.

Dave 3:51
Right $11 to $12- yeah you’d be right just about. Your minimum wage is probably three times what I got paid per hour yeah (laughing)

Sky 3:57
And how many hours did you work per week roughly?

Dave 4:01
Alright so I had this job when I was in school. So obviously, I was going to high school at the time. So I think I worked like- I could probably tell the number of days. So I worked on Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. So I probably worked three eight hour shifts, and then a six hour shift on Sunday. So probably 20 Something hours a week- that’s when I was in school. Again, you know, coming from an environment where there’s not much money and you’re trying to get ahead in life in the summer. I took as many hours as I could I would work 40 to 50 hours a week, every week during the summer.

Sky 4:40
Wow. And how often were you paid and what was the method of payment that you guys got?

Dave 4:44
So we got paychecks, and we got paid every Saturday morning. I could not wait to get paid on Saturday morning. It was interesting the way the gas station works since it was all cash. We would go there and pick up our paycheck on Saturday morning. And then we could give our paycheck right back to them at the gas station ,because they had cash, and they would actually cash our check right there at the gas station. So I would get my cash like my, you know, $45 or $60. Like you couldn’t get there fast enough if you weren’t working on a Saturday morning to get your paycheck. But typically, we could take it to the bank, it was a check, or the gas station would sometimes cash it for us.

Sky 5:20
Definitely a reason to look forward to the weekend (Both laughing). At my job, we got paid every Tuesday night at 8pm. Describe your relationships with your co workers and managers.

Dave 5:34
Yeah, my relationships with my coworkers was outstanding, you know, I’d work with my brother or with my neighbor who was my best friend- and these guys are still friends in my life today, you know that many years later was that? 40 years later, still friends in my life, and that’s probably why I stayed there so long. You know, those relationships it was just like your best buddies. You know, it was a great environment. So the relationships were good. We had a manager each shift. So there’s two of us working at one time and it was great. And then there was an owner. So the owner was the owner operator, there was two managers and everybody else were just, you know, full time/part time workers.

Sky 6:12
So you’d say it was a tight knit community?

Dave 6:14
Oh, my God. Yeah, it was wonderful.

Sky 6:17
How long did you work there? And did you receive any promotions at your time there?

Dave 6:21
So it’s interesting… I don’t mean to make this generational statement, but I will. When you took on a job, where I grew up in the community that I grew up in, you would hold that job out as long as you possibly could. We didn’t bounce from one job to another in three months, four months, five months. One) Because we didn’t do that. And Secondly) those opportunities weren’t there. You didn’t have opportunities for jobs, you know, all over. Everybody in high school, my friends, were all working. So promotion wise, yeah, the promotion would be you would get a raise, you know. I remember getting like $3.85 and then like $4 an hour. But what I did is I had really good people around me and the guy I worked for was outstanding. He was a great leader, taught us about business. And I was 15 and probably eight months, when I started working there. By the time I was 18, I was running a gas station. I was managing that gas station at $8 an hour; ordering fuel, hiring people, firing people, doing paychecks, everything else. So I learned a whole lot through the job and was just trained by great people.

Sky 7:28
Wow, hard work definitely pays off. And how much did the pay vary per position for that job?

Dave 7:35
Yeah so there really wasn’t much. So here’s what I would say- there was probably two levels of pay. So first of all, you got minimum wage $3.35, after six months or whatever, they may give you a performance raise at $3.60. But if you were a full-timer- that means you came in every morning and opened the station at five and worked till one or you work from one to 10. The second shift that tear of pay those guys were $5 an hour versus the part timers, which were $3.35 an hour.

Sky 8:04
So you made more money based on how much harder you worked?

Dave 8:08
Yeah. Yeah, how much more you worked as far as a full timer, I guess you’d say it was more of a benefits paid or working 40 hours per week. Those folks weren’t in high school, obviously, you know, they were probably in the summer, or they were maybe they’re going to college at the time.

Sky 8:23
Now the pay differs between like, $8 to $10 per job. Even more.

Dave 8:28
Yeah it could. Yeah, that’s interesting because you’re right. You look at jobs now and someone could get $11 an hour and someone else could get $14 an hour, $15 an hour. But there wasn’t that much diversity in pay. I mean, if someone’s at $3.35 you know, if you got a raise, you might be at $3.60 or $3.70 -we’re talking 25 cents, 30 cents an hour, at the most not $3 to $4 an hour? No.

Sky 8:49
And did this job influence any of your future jobs or your career or influence your future in any way? And why?

Dave 8:56
Man, so that’s a great question. I would have never thought of it that way. And I think about how I grew up socially, you know, we think about classes of people: lower class, middle class, upper class, etc. I never knew that because everybody in my neighborhood. Ethnicity didn’t matter, it was all about being in the same class that, you know, we all financially we’re all there. It didn’t matter, you know? And, yeah, definitely a change. I think when you take on a job from the beginning, I mean, it was. You look at a gas station, a gas jockey, people laugh at me today, I mean now I practice medicine. And I revert back to where, as my friends would say, you never forgot where you came from. And I learned about hard work and ethic and dedication and commitment and, you know, get what you can from people as they teach you how to do it. I knew that not that I had to be different but I knew that there was great opportunities and if I excel for those opportunities in life, you know, whether it’s going to college or learning a trade, that I knew I had the potential to make something for myself and also to make sure that I can provide best for my family.

Sky 10:05
Wow! A lot of amazing skills you learned! I definitely learned a lot today; thank you so much for your time.

Dave 10:11
Yes Sky, this is a great project, I love this! You should interview more people!

Sky 10:16
(Laughs)

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Follow-up Commentary:

The interviewee, Dave Smith, approved of the transcript on April 24th, 2024 and has requested no changes.

Transcription process:

I used OtterAi to transcribe my interview and it picked most things up correctly. I looked back thoroughly and fixed any errors it made and confirmed that the right dialogue was aligned with the right person. I made sure to put unknown phrases and reactions in brackets.  

Overview of Interview process:

This interview was conducted in person in my hometown, Spotsylvania. I borrowed an audio recorder from my local library and voice-recorded Dave and I’s interview. Then, I uploaded the audio and converted it to MP3 audio. Lastly, I used Velocity to trim any unwanted audio/ background noise. 

Reflection of interview/ Follow up: This interview was a really beneficial project. Not only was it fun to place myself in the shoes of an interviewer, but my interviewee, Dave, got to tell a personalized story about a certain time period in his life, a milestone- his first job! Often big, national events are focused on which I think is important, but it is also important to highlight and magnify smaller events that take place in one’s life. The general focus of the interview was how wages have changed over time, but Dave also got to reflect back on a special time in his life and express his relationships, values, and feelings within his first job. It’s nice to hear someone tell their own story, but even better to hear them find joy in expressing it.

What I would have done differently in this interview is had Dave talk to his brother or one of his current best friends who also worked at Hess gas station to see if that sparked anything else Dave may have wanted to say about the topic. I would have also asked some questions about his individual experience there like, “What was your best/ worst interaction with a customer?” or “How did customers react when you would pump their gas for them?” or even “What was Hess known for? Why do you think customers specifically chose to get gas at Hess?” to develop a deeper understanding of Hess’s environment and Dave’s relationship with the customers.

Advice for next year’s students: Pay attention to the deadlines and do not wait until last minute. Start earlier and give yourself more time than you think you’ll need to troubleshoot any issues. Don’t look at this assignment as a project, instead, view it as your interviewee getting an opportunity to speak freely and reflect without interruption. People like being asked about themselves because it makes them feel important. Have fun with it and don’t overthink it- you got this! This is a big project with many parts, but it is a fun one. I’d also recommend borrowing a recorder from the library to conduct your interview if it’s in person. It was so simple to use and has great sound quality.