Messenger - Vol. 1, No. 1, Page 17 Fall 1991 Working his buns off There are very few jobs out there where you can make hundreds of people happy every day. This is one of them. Paul Devery, Delaware '90 For a year, Paul Devery drove a 23-foot frankfurter. A 23-foot- long, 10-foot-high, 8-foot-wide fiberglass frankfurter on a bun that weighs nearly three tons. And he wasn't ashamed. In fact, he relished the opportunity. Devery was one of 13 recent college graduates who each year pilot six wienermobiles, as the peculiar vehicles are called, throughout the United States for the Oscar Meyer Co. Just one week after graduating from the University with a degree in communication, he was selected from over 500 applicants for a one-year marketing internship as a "hotdogger." An outgoing personality and street-smarts are two important criteria in the selection process, according to hotdogger adviser Rob Baumhardt. Devery and partner Crista Wilson spent their days spreading smiles from Maine to West Virginia and west to Ohio in the wienermobile, which is actually a converted 1988 Chevrolet van. Devery says the wienermobile is Oscar Meyer's way of giving something back to the public for buying its products. "I considered myself a goodwill ambassador," he says. "We went around giving out whistles--which isn't anything expensive, but it makes people happy." Along with wienermobile-shaped whistles, hotdoggers give away postcards and stickers at parades, festivals, college sports events or store grand openings. During a visit to a Norfolk, Va., children's hospital, Devery and Wilson entered one room only to find a little girl crying alone. They said hello, smiled and extended a whistle to her. The girl stopped crying and accepted the keepsake. Then she smiled. "That was great," Wilson recalls. The hotdoggers helped ease tensions for adults, too. "We were going westbound on Route 80 in Pennsylvania and a truck had jackknifed," Devery says. "We were in a standstill traffic jam. People got out of their cars and started coming up to the wienermobile. So, of course, we took the opportunity and started giving out whistles to cheer people up and pass the time. It was pretty funny." Devery entertained passers-by and guests with a stereo system that plays 23 versions of the Oscar Meyer wiener jingle and tempted them with the aroma of freshly grilled hotdogs from steam vents. According to Devery, "You could get in the wienermobile in the worst mood in the morning and, after five minutes of driving down the road, with little kids waving to you and people taking pictures and beeping, you were pumped." --Stephen Steenkamer, Delaware '92