If you go to a coffeehouse for breakfast and a Mexican restaurant for lunch, it’s not unusual in Durango to pay the same person behind the cash register.
Brett Johnson, 31, is typical of the ubiquitous server, working multiple jobs in these times of stagnant wages and high housing costs.
In the afternoon, Johnson could sell you a Broncos football jersey at Durango Sports Zone and later that night mix you a margarita at Colorado Pongas where he tends bar. If you need a snow globe, he might sell you one at Trinkets & Treasures.
Often rushing between jobs, sometimes working retail all day Saturday and then tending bar to last call, he keeps toothbrushes and deodorant sticks handy at all his workplaces.
The 50-hour-a-week worker is celebrating this Labor Day holiday by going to a Phish concert in Denver. It’s his first weekend off in three years.
Johnson, 31, needs the break because it’s tough being “on” all the time.
“It takes a lot of patience,” Johnson said. “I have to always be friendly and be on the top of my game. I’m in the customer-service industry. I have to be high contact, communicate and relate to other people well.”
Speaking candidly, “I’m from Jersey. I definitely have to bite my tongue often,” he said.
When he comes home, his girlfriend “wants to go out and I don’t. I’m social all the time. So when I get home, don’t talk to me.”
For a date, “we’ll have a movie night and chill.”
Johnson is uninsured and sharing a house with two roommates, who also work multiple jobs.
While Johnson dreams of his owning a store, working three jobs is his means of survival.
He moved to Durango three years ago, figuring if he had to struggle, he would rather struggle in a place where he could also fly fish, rock climb and hike.
Johnson is typical of the “amenity migration,” people coming here for the recreation, said Ed Morlan, the director of the Region 9 Economic Development District of Southwest Colorado.
“It’s hard. I worked two jobs when I was young.” Morlan said. “I would guess it’s more of a younger phenomenon.”
As a college and tourist town, Durango is likely an outlier for younger people working multiple jobs. Nationally, those between 20 and 24 years of age have the highest percentage working multiple jobs at 5.4 percent, but it is not significant because most age groups fall within the 5 percent range, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Karen Iverson, the executive director Regional Housing Alliance of La Plata County, believes holding down several jobs is indicative of hard times.
“I think there are two drivers in the cost of living. One is the stagnant wages and the other is the rising cost of housing,” Iverson said.
“Coming out of the Great Recession, households’ budgets are stretched even further. Housing is taking a larger portion of people’s incomes than before.”
According to a Livable Wage study by the Region 9 Economic Development District, a single person in Durango renting a one-bedroom apartment at $650 per month would have to work 1½ jobs at minimum wage of $7.78 an hour to make ends meet.
A single parent with one child would have to work 3½ jobs at minimum wage to afford a two-bedroom apartment with monthly rent of $1,100. A family of four renting a three-bedroom apartment would need income from 4.6 minimum-wage jobs to afford monthly rent of $1,400.
Because Durango is not like a big city with lots of career opportunities, some feel they have to invent their own opportunities.
“It’s a very conscious choice we make, a quality-of-life choice. I think people are more willing to work the second or third job to be able to live here,” said Tami Graham, a self-described Jill of all trades.
Graham produces concerts and fundraisers when she is not working as a professional mediator and a consultant for nonprofits. She is so well-connected that the people call her the “underground mayor.”
She prefers to think of herself as a free-range chicken. “I peck a little here and a little there. My theme is ‘Don’t fence me in.’
“It fits my personality to wear different hats,” she said. “I need stimulation in a lot of different ways.”
Graham likes being her own boss, having the freedom to “work in my pajamas at home. I can stay up till midnight to finish a project and sleep in the next morning.”
For creative people, working multiple jobs is all part of getting their groove on.
Jonathan Latta is an assistant professor of music at Fort Lewis College, specializing in jazz and percussion. He also performs with the San Juan Symphony, Music in the Mountain Festival Orchestra as well as concerts and drum circles around town.
Besides teaching full time, “I usually have one outside activity every weekend. I am doing rehearsals and projects one to two nights a week,” he said.
It’s all out of a labor of love rather than a necessary grind, although “the opportunity to perform for Music in the Mountains has allowed my family to take an extra trip home to California,” Latta said.
Latta thinks of performing as giving back to the community. He is grateful so many musicians share his attitude.
“That’s what is great about this community,” he said. “People are willing to wear the multiple hats to make the arts come alive.”
jhaug@durangoherald.com
