Hey, it's Chrissy. This is the uncertain hour.

If you've been listening to our whole season, which if you're not, you should, you'll

know that the last few episodes have been about Jerry Baskas, a former janitor who was

not employed by the company whose name was on his uniform, or by the company's whose

office is he cleaned. At one point, most corporations, schools, churches had their own in-house

janitors who were their employees, not so much anymore. And on today's episode, we're

looking at how did that come to be, not just for janitors, but for so many people, which

is why uncertain hour producer Peter Bellanon-Rosen and I sat down with a guy named Brian

Pena.

And Brian told us how decades ago he worked beneath the bright fluorescent lights at

a 7-11 in San Diego.

You know, you want to learn about people? You know, that's a great job to learn about

people. Why do you say that?

Well, because you see people of all shape sizes and colors in different states.

It was the early 90s and Brian was paying his way through college, working the graveyard

shift at 7-11. He was majoring in economics, minoring and acting. So Brian was fascinated

with human behavior. And at 7-11, he got to see that up close.

We'd have the guy who had no teeth who would buy 17 cans of easy cheese every Tuesday.

Okay.

We had the guy who lived in back who would get donuts.

Plus that early morning dance were stoned kids in need of chilly dogs and slurpees, side-stump

nurses grabbing coffee on their way in.

...