I have been cussed out. I have been threatened. I mean, I've had people I'm pretty sure that they were going to swing at me.

Justin Dwyer has been a health inspector in Peoria, Illinois for 11 years. Outright aggression like that from restaurant owners is pretty rare. And there are even some who welcome him. But there's still a tension that

shapes every interaction Justin has on an inspection, down to the way he asks questions.

We very much have to be detectives. When you walk in and you ask a question, you cannot ask leading questions.

You have to ask open-ended questions.

So the question isn't, are you cooking that chicken to 165 degrees?

Right.

The question is, hey, what temperature do you, when they're taking the thermometer temp,

you're like, hey, what temperature are you trying to reach with that?

It's a small thing, but it matters.

Because Justin isn't just there to catch violations.

He's there to teach.

And he doesn't have much time to do it.

For any given restaurant, he might only visit three times per year, maybe three hours per visit. So in the

course of a year, I'm in an establishment for nine hours total, and that includes my time sitting

somewhere just typing my inspection report. So making sure they understand the importance of what I'm

trying to educate is really the push.

You know, when I'm walking out of an establishment, I'm looking people in the eyes that are coming in to eat.

When I leave, I genuinely want to feel comfortable with what they're doing and that they're not going to make people sick.

Thank you. and that they're not going to make people sick. I'm Dan Heath, and this is what it's like to be.

In every episode, we walk in the shoes of someone from a different profession,

a deli owner, an Olympic bobsledder,

...