Does your town have costumed people with signs by the road?

PRL1JAM

I heard these guys get paid according to how energetic and crazy they get on the corner. Meaning, some can get up to 12-15 bucks an hour depending on how much enthusiasm they show. I also heard a story in which two sign holders got in an all out fist fight (in full costume), due to their over competitiveness promoting their product/company.

QuarterToTen

whenever i see these costumed goofballs, i smile.
they must have a tremendous sense of humor.

there are a lot worse jobs.

SPEEDY MCCREADY

QuarterToTen wrote:

whenever i see these costumed goofballs, i smile.
they must have a tremendous sense of humor.

there are a lot worse jobs.

I like how labor laws, and minimum wage laws, are talked about here...

Can you imagine making THAT phone call?????

"HI, I would like to report a guy down the street from me. He is dressed in a big PICKLE costume, and I am afraid he is an illegal immigrant, who is probably making less than mimimum wage"

QuarterToTen

SPEEDY MCCREADY wrote:

QuarterToTen wrote:

whenever i see these costumed goofballs, i smile.
they must have a tremendous sense of humor.

there are a lot worse jobs.

I like how labor laws, and minimum wage laws, are talked about here...

Can you imagine making THAT phone call?????

"HI, I would like to report a guy down the street from me. He is dressed in a big PICKLE costume, and I am afraid he is an illegal immigrant, who is probably making less than mimimum wage"

from what i can gather, most folks voluntarily stepped inside those costumes.

and whether they are appropriately compensated or not isn't their first concern.
although i'd imagine there are some sorts of laws somewhere addressing injustice to gherkins.

i'd much rather dress as an olive than clean sewers, minimum wage or no minimum wage.

electronblue

i have noticed one..west palm beach, fl.. that hangs halfway over in the street waving and making gestures at passing cars.. close by some wireless phone place.

Claireack

In our town we have two people that dress up who don't actually have to for a job. They make me smile whenever I see them. One lady has incredible matching accessories, she'll be wearing black top and skirt and then put on a pink feather boa, oversized pink glassess, a pink cowboy hat and fairy wings, she'll be wearing a matching pink belt and tights, for example. It must take her ages to get ready in the morning and she is always immaculate. The other lady always has some item relating to America/Statue of Liberty. She was shopping the other day with a grey/green Statue of Liberty dress/robe on, carrying the torch, and wearing the spiky hat. I've also seen her on a number of occasions wearing full outfits made out of the stars and stripes.

I think both people have mental health issues(actually I know this via work), but if it makes them feel happy dressing up that's fine by me. As long as noone takes the piss, which to be honest I've never witnessed.

That actually doesn't relate to advertising anything so I don't know why I'm posting it. I just quite like seeing people dressing up.

libragirl

Yeah I see them from time to time here. I always wonder how the hell they can stand being in those costumes. They look so uncomfortable.

SPEEDY MCCREADY

Adrian Peterson should put on a pickle costume, and wave at cars....

Jearlpam0925

Yeah, it's called tax season.

pandora

Jearlpam0925 wrote:

Yeah, it's called tax season.

yea we got those crazy dancing statue of liberty or uncle sam people by our shop- they can really get down

dunkman

i fucking hope not... do people drive down the road and then when they see a man in a pickle outfit decide "i must eat pickles"?

81

i've seen the costume people by the road.

we also have people that collect money in intersections during rush hour. only a matter of time until one gets run over

we also have the anti obama clowns that stand in the road hating on obama.

justam

I saw another statue of Liberty today but (luckily for her) she did not have one of those huge head-pieces covering her face. She just wore a green tiara.

Horos

The position is called 'Shakerboarder' at my work. My employees don't wear costumes but get paid minimum wage just like all the employees in the store. Research shows that more than half of the customers are attracted by these signs. The costumes that are available can be bought with built in AC. People are willing to do it because there is no other work to be found. One of my Shakerboarders did try and rob a bank on his day off. Most would rather wear a costume because being unidentifiable is less embarrassing. These people have to deal with all kinds of assholes yelling at them and other abuse occasionally.

dcfaithful

Happens all the time here in Utah. Saw some guy in a giant cellphone costume breakdancing once. I was laughing my ass off, but at the same time I was impressed...that was a pretty bulky costume.

haffajappa

When I worked at Sears, one year they needed someone to dress up in this Teddy Bear costume thing that they use around Christmas because the original person backed out... So I ended up volunteering to do it... It was actually really fun (I guess beause I don't do that every day for a job). A lot of my coworkers didn't know it was me inside the suit and some ofthem i freaked out by trying to follow them and hug them

They get SUPER hot though, and that was inside the store! Couldn't imagine doing it in the heat... They do have a fan in the back of the head though.

justam

haffajappa wrote:

When I worked at Sears, one year they needed someone to dress up in this Teddy Bear costume thing that they use around Christmas because the original person backed out... So I ended up volunteering to do it... It was actually really fun (I guess beause I don't do that every day for a job). A lot of my coworkers didn't know it was me inside the suit and some ofthem i freaked out by trying to follow them and hug them

They get SUPER hot though, and that was inside the store! Couldn't imagine doing it in the heat... They do have a fan in the back of the head though.

It's good to know there's a fan inside!!

justam

Horos wrote:

The position is called 'Shakerboarder' at my work. My employees don't wear costumes but get paid minimum wage just like all the employees in the store. Research shows that more than half of the customers are attracted by these signs. The costumes that are available can be bought with built in AC. People are willing to do it because there is no other work to be found. One of my Shakerboarders did try and rob a bank on his day off. Most would rather wear a costume because being unidentifiable is less embarrassing. These people have to deal with all kinds of assholes yelling at them and other abuse occasionally.

Thanks for the information I put in red. That's why I originally started this thread. I was wondering about what they do about the heat.

Yellow Ledbelly

A good friend of mine runs a tax return preparation office and an insurance office and all last week he had a dude dressed up like the statue of liberty with a big american flag walking up and down the side of the highway....it's Liberty Tax by the way hence the costume. I don't know who the dude is but I'm sure he's been catching hell from his buddies

PureandEasy

see them all the time, now that it's tax time, there is a tax place called Lady Liberty and they have someone dressed up like Lady Liberty outside - and it's cold here

the thing that gets me is the people that stand holding signs about close out sales and stuff. Really, do they need to have an actual person holding the sign when there are a billion little signs stuck in the grass for 4 miles before you get to the place where the close out sale is???

eyedclaar

Somebody who knows how, post that high-larious clip from SNL with Timberlake dancing in an advertising costume. The other day, I saw like a 99 year old grandma in the statue of liberty get-up. I don't know for certain, but I'm willing to bet she died about three hours into her shift.

drtyfrnk29

Kind of odd to see the evolution of shitty jobs. Granted, this has always been around because of the sandwich board wearing but now it's everywhere. The first business I can remember using them was a new housing development while we in California were having our huge real estate boom. You'd see the obvious college graduates just waving the signs side to side at first. Weeks later, dudes are doing spins and flipping those signs in the air like high divers. What really cracks me up are the Little Caesar's kids that absolutely hate doing it. Some 16 year old standing out there in his baggy ass jeans, hair spilling out from under his hat and the iPod earphones in. Just standing there. Awesome.

Oddly enough, I saw a guy standing in a parking lot a while back and his sign read: "Will Promote Your Business For You!!" Was he a freelancer? A rogue sign spinner giving his finger to the sign spinning union?

Franny

we get the kids from dominos pizza standing out there on the corners...or even on traffic islands..waving thier bloody signs, makes me think purely evil thoughts when I see them. Although there is one guy who puts his ipod and gets pretty funky with the moves, so much so that I was so distracted by him one time I missed the lights changing and had to wait another set before I COULD turn.

There used to be guys in Brisbane going around in Koala suits washing windscreens and driving people bonkers in the mall.
But I tend to stay away from the ones in costumes after a rather bizzare incident when I was 13 involving a few friends and a really nasty tenpin dude :twisted: :twisted:

81

we have clowns in the state senate, house of reps and governers office. do they count?

nuffingman

We have dick heads in black uniforms with speed cameras. Does that count?

81

nuffingman wrote:

We have dick heads in black uniforms with speed cameras. Does that count?

only if you speed.

dcfaithful

81 wrote:

we have clowns in the state senate, house of reps and governers office. do they count?

You must live in Utah??

justam

81 wrote:

we have clowns in the state senate, house of reps and governers office. do they count?

Maybe.

justam

drtyfrnk29 wrote:

Kind of odd to see the evolution of shitty jobs. Granted, this has always been around because of the sandwich board wearing but now it's everywhere. The first business I can remember using them was a new housing development while we in California were having our huge real estate boom. You'd see the obvious college graduates just waving the signs side to side at first. Weeks later, dudes are doing spins and flipping those signs in the air like high divers. What really cracks me up are the Little Caesar's kids that absolutely hate doing it. Some 16 year old standing out there in his baggy ass jeans, hair spilling out from under his hat and the iPod earphones in. Just standing there. Awesome.

Oddly enough, I saw a guy standing in a parking lot a while back and his sign read: "Will Promote Your Business For You!!" Was he a freelancer? A rogue sign spinner giving his finger to the sign spinning union?

The thing that I notice most about the sign spinners is that I can't actually READ the sign if it is spinning too fast. Is that really the point? :?

Lizard

PureandEasy wrote:

see them all the time, now that it's tax time, there is a tax place called Lady Liberty and they have someone dressed up like Lady Liberty outside - and it's cold here
?

We have those strange liberty people here too!