March 13, 2024 • 33 mins
Hillary Branyik is bundled up and slinging fish at the Pike Place Fish Market.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Okay. It is sixth a m. And I have three.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Cats in bed.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
One of them was sleeping on my chest and the other
two on my legs. I love waking up like that,
so closy. My husband is still in bed asleep. Usually
we go to work together about today. He goes in
at a different time, so I get ready on my
(00:31):
own and.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
I'm gonna go do my skincare now that.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
I brush my teeth, and then I almostly get ready
in the dark, and then I'll go down to work, which.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Is very close.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
So I don't go to work till six forty five,
and sometimes I don't get out of bed till.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Six fifteen.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
And today I think I'll.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Go down there about sixty five, so I have a
little bit of time.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Let's get going.
Speaker 5 (01:10):
This is finally a show about a fishmonger in Seattle.
For five years, Hillary Brannick was until recently the only
woman on staff at the world famous Pike Place fish Market.
Speaker 6 (01:31):
You want me in the middle of a snack, I'm
eating some donuts. If you'd like some, have have some.
I have to go tip the donut people. Do you
want to come daily? Dozen makes us hot coffee every
morning and taking care of us. They're old friends of
the fish market, old old old friends. And right now
I'm gonna go give them tips because they just gave
(01:52):
us some donuts.
Speaker 7 (01:57):
Welcome to Pikeways. Fish.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
People come here for an experience that they're not gonna
get anywhere else, which is really us connecting with them
in the moments that they're here, like directly, like this.
But we also throw fish, which is a huge crowd driver.
So we get these fish in right here. These are
called tetefish. They're like dummy fish, so we use these
(02:22):
to learn how to throw customers real fish, so we're
only ever throwing real fish. But like this lady in
the purple may want this salmon, and so what I
will do is I pick up the salmon, and then
I go, where are you from, Purple hoodie? I would
say co ho for Indiana, and then I'd launch it
over the counter, and then they would hear that and
we would continue. So everyone knows what's happening all the time.
(02:45):
So when we shout like he's gonna do now. My
(03:13):
name's Hillary Brannick slash Segar because I just got married,
so I.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Have a couple of names.
Speaker 6 (03:17):
Right now, I'm thirty three and I'm from a very
small town called Florence in Colorado State. I am from Florence, Colorado,
a little tiny town just.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
At the foothills of the Rockies.
Speaker 6 (03:32):
My mother, Kathleen, is a Wisconsin native, but she and
my dad moved to Colorado to start a family. So
me and my brother and my sister were all born
in Pueblo, Colorado, which is about forty minutes west of
where we live. Growing up in Florence is really really
(03:52):
small town. I mean, this is the kind of place
where everyone I graduated with were the same people I
went to preschool with, and it was our class was
like one hundred and five people. So growing up, everybody
knows everything about you, all your dirt, all your good stuff,
all your weird stuff, every growth you've had in your
(04:13):
life and development. Everyone in the county knew that about me,
and I knew it about them, which is interesting to
navigate when you're trying to find your own identity in
whatever part of your life. So I was definitely considered
a loser. I was bullied a lot when I was
in middle school. I was a very timid person. I
was really afraid of everyone. I never ever ever in
(04:35):
my life would stand up for myself. You know, a
lot of kids have that experience. I definitely was one
of them. Okay, we have this big silver top counter
that makes sort of a half oval shape, and in
the corner of it there's a little spot that you
could say on it's like a ninety degree angle, and
that's where we catch fish from our bench, which is
a big metal display about I don't know. It was
(04:57):
like ten yards away, ten yards away something like that.
Speaker 8 (05:00):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (05:00):
So, as soon as someone yells t T, which is
test toss or tourist hoss, we all race each other
over to this little corner so you can get there first.
And so he'll go t T and then we respond TT.
And then as soon as he starts to throw the fish,
we go hey. And then as soon as it hits
his hands like that, we go yeah, so hey, And
(05:22):
so we do that anytime we throw anything. Uh and
then we say backjack, backjack b ack j a c K.
It means put it back where it came from. So
I'll go back jack too, both.
Speaker 7 (05:41):
Too.
Speaker 6 (05:42):
Here's the slap of the paper and how we did that. Alrighty,
who's got those rainbow trout where are you come on over?
Speaker 7 (05:49):
Boss?
Speaker 6 (05:52):
After I graduated high school, I moved to Boston for college.
I went to Berkeley College of Music for songwriting in
twenty ten, I think maybe twenty eleven. Somewhere in between there,
I going to school regular and then I worked at
this place called the Poorhouse.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Right on Boylston Street.
Speaker 6 (06:13):
Anybody that's listening that lived in Boston knows the place,
really fun bar and on Marathon Monday. The first time
I worked Marathon Monday, my voice was so shot afterwards
that I just couldn't talk. And I thought I just
had laryngitis and that it would go away, and then
it really wouldn't go away. And then I went to
a doctor and he's like, well, you have nodes or nodules,
(06:36):
which are not something that can be fixed. And so
I just went into a very spiraled, bad depression for
like two and a half years. And the really crazy
thing was I was misdiagnosed, so I just went he
told me what it was, and I was like, well,
I guess this is what I'm working with. And so
I just had to drop out because I couldn't perform.
(06:59):
And then I just off doing music all together because
it killed me not to be able to sing, and
I didn't want to write. And I had a lot
of friends who wanted to help me, and they're like, well,
you should learn to you know, play piano and you know,
play guitar and do this, and like, at the time,
I didn't know how to respond to that in a
way that was positive because I was just so frustrated
(07:19):
and my friends and my loved ones were trying to
help me, but what I felt like. And I remember
telling one of my friends I got frustrated, and I
wasn't frustrated with her, but I was expressing to her
I felt and I was like, I feel like when
somebody says that to me, it'd be like me telling
a pianist to learn how to sings, Like what if
I broke your hands and you're a pianist. So I
(07:40):
just had this whole horrible two year experience where I
was just really depressed.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
I quit music.
Speaker 6 (07:45):
I didn't play music, I didn't really do anything. I
stopped listening in music kind of regularly, just kind of
became not ideal. And then a really good friend of
mine named Jeremy, who I also went to school with.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Jeremy Blass.
Speaker 6 (07:58):
He and I were walking down the street and I
was drunk and I was crying, and I was talking
about how I wanted to disappear and do something else
because I was still so crushed. Music was the only
thing I ever cared about.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
All growing up.
Speaker 6 (08:11):
I didn't care about anything else. I didn't want to
be anything else. That was my thing was in some way,
I was going to be a singer. And I didn't
know what that meant. Sometimes I still don't, but I
knew it's what I wanted. We were walking down the
street and he's like, you need to go see another doctor,
and I was like, I don't want to go again.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
He's like, you have to go. Will you please go?
He's like, will you just go for me? He's like,
you have different insurance now you can see a different doctor.
He's like, just as a friend, do me the favor.
Just go one more time.
Speaker 6 (08:36):
And because he and I were such good friends, I
was like, Okay, I'll be reasonable, I'll go again.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Maybe I just needed second set eyes.
Speaker 7 (08:46):
People come from.
Speaker 6 (08:47):
All over the world to see us throwfish. We obviously
don't want to throw customers fish that they're paying for
because we take really good care of those. So she
would order this, and I would ask her, do you
want us to cut this for you? We do that
for free. Do you want us to leave it whole
so you can do it? We kind of get whatever
they want as instructions and then we throw it over.
And the reason that we shout the way we do,
(09:09):
or sing the way that we do, chant whatever people
call it, is so that you tell me one time
what you want. I tell everybody at the same time,
so that whoever gets to you first knows what to
help you with. So then you know how to repeat
yourself to ten people, you know. And it's not like
a grocery store. You take your stuff and you go
check out. We grab every single thing for you. And
that's how we communicate. So that the guy in the
(09:31):
red that's JB red Hair, he will never have to
come down here to get anything. He'll just call for
it and then we'll send it up to him, and
vice versa. So I went and I went to Massachusetts
and Ear Infirmary, which has done surgery.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
I'm like opera singers.
Speaker 6 (09:47):
There's been a lot of really big people that have
been treated there and they're fantastic. And my doctor he
did what they call is a larenscopy. So they take
this camera and it goes up on my as the
left side of my nostril goes all the way up
and then down my throat. And so he put this
camera in my throat and asked me to sing so
(10:10):
that he could see how my vocal colds are functioning.
And I'm singing and then he goes, oh, and I
go what. He goes, you don't have nodes or nodules,
and I go what. He's like, I think I can
fix this. And with this camera in my mouth, I'm
like in shock. I'm crying. He's trying to get me
to calm down, but I'm so excited and trying not
(10:31):
to let myself be excited because I also know how
medicine works and it's not always that way. But I
was like, holy shit, this doctor thinks he can do it.
After he explained what I had, which was essentially I
had a tear in my vocal cord and then it
grew cysts. It just basically grew inside itself. And if
you guys can all put your two pointed fingers together
in a horizontal way, that's what your vocal cords look like,
(10:54):
but they are kind of like rubber bands. And if
you pull a rubber band apart into a long string,
that is what your vocal culture are like. And so
if you imagine two marbles in the middle of it,
when you talk or you sing, they get really tight
and then the sound goes through. But I had basically
little tiny marbles, and so I would lose my range
(11:16):
in certain places because when I would sing or speak,
it would just stop or wouldn't close enough for the
sound to get out properly. I guess sing something before
you made me okay, if it's bad, you have to
delete it, though, Oh come to bed with you, but
(11:42):
don't love me.
Speaker 8 (11:45):
I won't love you, and that just kay fee, I
don't want.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
To feel you.
Speaker 9 (12:01):
That's a new song. Does it sound okay?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Why can't I.
Speaker 10 (12:17):
Leave a launch here and a launch of gone get
away from Me?
Speaker 6 (12:32):
You can call out anything from anywhere. It's basically just
to let someone know. Somebody needs help right now, somebody
needs something next, And so we try to do it
in a way that you can get everything succinct and
quick and in a good cadence. So we always say
you get the response that you call. And so if
I'm like two bows, houses like they're not gonna hear that,
(12:55):
they're also not going to respond very well. So then
I'll go two bows, two bows.
Speaker 7 (13:01):
This is that's not real. That was just a test
that she could hear.
Speaker 6 (13:04):
But see how everyone immediately like perked up and knew
what to do.
Speaker 7 (13:08):
That's why we do that.
Speaker 6 (13:09):
So even the person over here selling smoke salmon knows
that two rainbow trout are coming over the counter, and
then that person that wants to trout might want the
smoked salmon as well. So Adrian knows, oh, you're getting
trout too cool, I'm going to add this to your order,
and then he'll go.
Speaker 7 (13:26):
Smoke with the bows.
Speaker 6 (13:27):
And so we just kind of all have to listen
all the time and then just keep That's how we
keep tack of our customers want I was it, okay,
(14:00):
I got Here's so weird. I ended up in Seattle
at the end of twenty sixteen. When I was living
in Nashville is when Trump first ran for office. The
people I was living with openly began to become like
they were openly racist after he came out and ran
for president, and they were openly doing racist shit, and
so I was like, not a chance. So I packed
(14:20):
up all my stuff. I took some of it to
my aunt's house in Wisconsin, my aunt uncle's house, and
then I took shoved the rest of it in a
closet and left for the summer. And then I worked
in Boston, got some money together, just to see what
I was going to do next. And one of my
friends that I met at a festival was like, Hey,
I'm going to move to Seattle. I know you're up
in the air about what you want to do. Do
(14:42):
you want to move with me to Seattle? And I
was like, I've never been there, Let's do it. My
first job was here in the market, and the second
I stepped into this market, people took care of me immediately.
I actually came here. The first day I came to
Seattle was allo of the day I moved here, just
like Boston. But that first week we came down to
(15:04):
Pipe Place Market, which I'd never heard of before, never saw,
never knew anything about. I really just didn't know about
Seattle at all. I will say Seattle is one of
my favorite cities now, but it's also like a hidden city,
like people kind of forget that this is a metropolitan place.
So I came down here and I stood outside pipe
place fish actually, and I was standing by Rachel. This
big golden pig that's right in front of the shop.
(15:26):
It's a statue.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Definitely google it. She's a prize winning pig. It's really weird.
It's like a bronze thing.
Speaker 6 (15:32):
But I was standing there next to Rachel, just staring
at the fish market and they're throwing stuff and they're screaming.
I've never even seen a fish market before. I don't
even know what I'm looking at. And this guy, who
is a legend here's name's Justin Hall shouts. He's like,
you gonna buy something? And I'm like, ah, I'm poor,
Yes I will. I'm like, I don't have any money,
I don't live anywhere, but I'm for sure about to
(15:53):
buy this cocktail, this shrimp cocktail.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
So I get it.
Speaker 6 (15:57):
And I started talking to the guys and they're like, oh,
you know, where are you from? And I told him
I just moved here. I'm looking for work. And I
asked them, you know, I was a very experienced bartender.
You know, I bartended for and waitressed over a decade,
so I was like, do you know any restaurants that
need help? Because I'm the lady, they will hire me.
And one of the guys at the time was dating
(16:18):
a lady that had also been down here about twenty
five years. He's like, yeah, my girlfriend runs Albaracho upstairs,
and you know, I'll put in a word for you.
And I went in there and got hired, and it
was funny because I did all the things you shouldn't do,
and all the servers out there we'll understand this. I
went in on a Friday afternoon with like a shoddy
(16:40):
resume because I didn't have a printer, and it was
like during a rush. I also wasn't really sure what
day was or well, you know, I was in like
this insane place in my life where I didn't live anywhere,
I didn't have any money. I was trying to get
a job desperately. So I walked in on a Friday
afternoon lunch rush and I was like, hey, hire me.
And then I had to convince Kira to hire me,
(17:00):
and she did, and she told me she was a
straightforward lady. I loved working for her. She's really fun
and really cool and really took me under her wing
in the market and she was like, honestly, she's like,
I would never hire someone coming in on a Friday.
But I convinced her. I was like, you need to
hire me. You will be happy that you hired me.
I was like, I know that I have no one
here to vouch for me. I was like, but I
(17:21):
promise you. I was like, I don't even have a
place to sleep tonight, but I will be here every
day on time. And I was there every single day
on time. And I worked there for a year and
a half.
Speaker 7 (17:36):
So they're called TETs, which stands for.
Speaker 6 (17:38):
Test toss or tourist toss, and they are a keeto
or chump salmon, and we actually buy them for throwing
and then we donate.
Speaker 7 (17:47):
Them to the zoo and also a Wolfhaven.
Speaker 8 (17:54):
Pay did.
Speaker 7 (18:01):
Thanks boss? Oh, thank you?
Speaker 6 (18:04):
Don We have different whole fish all the time, but
also some of the stuff kind of lives here, so
we always have king salmon we filter through coho and
sake depending on season, halib it from Alaska. We've got
Alaskan black cod, we have trout from Idaho springs, and
bronzino come fresh from Turkey, so we get those fresh,
(18:27):
which is really cool eleven hour flight or something. Yeah,
it's awesome. All sustainable. We're sustainable seafood market. Our octopus
come from Spain because we can get them sustainably.
Speaker 7 (18:38):
There.
Speaker 6 (18:39):
Actually one of the people that works here show she
makes authentic Spanish ink prints. She used the Spanish octopus
to make ink prints. They're beautiful.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
And then I got fired.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
I think that me getting fired from this place was
actually it didn't go the way any of us wanted
it too. I'm still very good friends with the owners
and it's all okay now, so I definitely have no
bad blood there. But it was hard. It was a
hard let go. I don't think it's when anyone wanted.
It just happened that way for whatever complex reasons. And
then I stopped serving and I'd wanted out for a
(19:15):
really long time because I'm also sober six years and
alcohol was an issue for me, and I had stopped
drinking a few months before I got fired because my
grandmother got sick and I wanted to take care of her,
and so I just I always told myself, like, I
could have a drink again if when she got better,
and she never did. She passed, and so I stayed sober,
and one of the things that helped me with that
(19:37):
was not going back to restaurants. And I knew that
if I wanted to stay sober, that was probably for
me one of the healthiest ways to do it. And
I didn't know how I was going to do that,
and then I ended up getting fired, which I knew
was coming. I knew it, and then I just, you know,
chose because I was able to just not go and
work in another restaurant. I was very fortunate that I
(20:00):
I didn't have to do that, so I was supported
and I wasn't ever in danger of not having a
place to live or not having food because people here
take care of you like a family.
Speaker 8 (20:09):
You know.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
I came in here homeless and people were bringing me
groceries that didn't have to be refrigerated and making sure
I had somewhere to stay. And nobody was like giving
me money or anything, but they checked in and they
treated me like family. The second you start in the
market and you become a market worker, you become part
of this really insane, loving circus family and there's nothing
anybody down here wouldn't do for you. So I was
(20:30):
able to not have to dive back into getting tips
every day, and I ended up one of my regulars,
who was also just a very good friend, hired me
at the ice cream shop Shy Giant here in the market,
and then as I worked there, I worked there for
about a year and a half as well. Where I
worked in Pipe Place Market, there's many stalls. If you
(20:52):
haven't ever looked it up, google it. There's tons of businesses.
There's eight floors. Some of it's an indoor market, some
of it's an outdoor market. I worked in an outdoor
ice cream stand that was year round and it was lovely.
It's called Shy Giant Frozen Yogurt. And I worked for
my friends ce Last for about a year and a
half and I kind of ran the ice cream shop
on my own. Oh yeah, I live really close. My
(21:16):
commute is very short, so I look like I'm in
my pajamas all the time. I live about twenty yards
from my job. I live in Pipeclasce Market. I won't
say where, but I do live here in the market
very close. And I walk down my stairs and I
take about ten steps outside in my door and I'm
(21:38):
at work. I was living in the market and the
way I got my apartment was very interesting. Mostly I
was really annoying. You have to put yourself on a
wait list, and there are years of waiting for apartments here.
They're not widely known. There's not a ton especially for
the building that I live The building that I live
in has tenants that have been there for like thirty
(22:00):
and there's only.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Like twelve of us, like twelve.
Speaker 6 (22:04):
Apartments, so it's like kind of the friends building, but
really it's just the hallway of all of us that
know each other. But I had put myself on the
wait list for the market apartments and I called every week,
every single week. I was like, Hey, do you have anything, Hey,
do you have any apartments? And they're like, no, I
don't have anything. Also you're not at the top of
the wait list, and like they were nice and stuff,
but I was like, I'm getting in those apartments. I
(22:26):
cannot live here anymore. I can't be in the situation
I'm in. I didn't want to commute anymore, you know,
Like I lived on Alcai across the water, which is awesome,
but it was still two buses. Even if it's an hour,
it's still two buses. It's still like weirdly timed buses.
I had to take a bus from the water to
you know, the middle part of West Seattle to get
on another bus to come downtown. And it was just
(22:47):
the situation was not ideal. So I just kept calling.
I kept calling and calling and calling every week. And
then right when we almost gonna get evicted, not because
of me, I'll just say that, they called me and
they're like, hey, we've got an apartment available. Do you
want to come see it. I was like, right now,
(23:10):
I can come right now, And so me and my
husband went and saw it and got the apartment, and
so then we just we've lived there for almost seven years.
(23:32):
And so I lived there while I was still bartending
at Elbaracho. I lived there when I worked at Shy
Giant Frozen Yogurt, and I still live there now. At
pipe Place Fish Market where the ice cream stand is.
It's in a small little building called the Sanitary Market,
and that's in pipe Place Market, and there's a little
corner where there was a pickle stand called Britz Pickles.
There was the poke stand the I believe it's wild
(23:53):
poke is what it's called.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
And then the famous.
Speaker 6 (23:57):
Unmatched Oriental Mart and is a three generation owned Filipino market.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
They are so.
Speaker 6 (24:04):
Cool and during the slow freezing times, ice cream sales
not super high. So I could see the ice cream
shop from the Oriental Market kitchen, and so I would
sit back there and hang out with them, and I
would watch my shop from across the hall because they're
very close, so it wasn't like if somebody came up
(24:24):
and wanted help.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
I'd be like, oh, hey, I'm coming.
Speaker 6 (24:26):
Over and they'd be like great, Like you're two steps away,
And so I would sit back there and I would
just sit over there and hang out and have fun
and hear old market stories from like people that really
are the ones you want to hear it from. They've
been down here a long time, they've seen everything. They're wonderful.
It's just like it's awesome. It's like sitting in a
live movie. It's crazy. And one day I just kind
(24:49):
of joked with Sam. I was like, I think I
could do what you guys did for a day, I
really do. I think I could do it, and I
just we kind of joked about it for a few months,
and one day he walked by the ice cream shop.
He's like, hey, I put you on the schedule for
this day. He's like, you got to show up at
six thirty, you got to stay the whole twelve hours,
because you know, he knew my schedule because we were
(25:09):
around each other all the time.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
And I was like, okay, I can do that.
Speaker 6 (25:15):
You know, still living right next to the fish market,
so that was helpful. But one morning, I just that morning,
I went down there, got there at six, started shoveling ice.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
I put on a He.
Speaker 6 (25:26):
Dressed me up in the bibs and the boots, and
I wore one of the guy's boots. They were too
big and the bibs were kind of too big and
also too short because I borrowed everyone else's stuff. And
then I worked here for one day and I did
it as a volunteer, but at the end of the
day they paid me, which I wasn't expecting. But I
was like, I just wanted to come have the experience,
and I knew I couldn't do that at my husband's job.
(25:46):
I didn't want to go work with my husband. I
wanted to go do this other thing on my own. Also,
just a different operation. Our neighbors we love, but they
do a different thing than we do. And I just
I went and working here for one day changed my life.
Just being here changed my life. And it's because of
the way that the team moves like as one and
(26:09):
the way we support each other and the way we
lift each other up. You know, I was invited into
this really, really interesting, loving space that I've never been.
I've never been involved in anything like that.
Speaker 7 (26:24):
Some of the guys that have been here a little
bit longer will say, like they're.
Speaker 6 (26:28):
So he called out two bows as is, two rainbow
trout as is. That means they don't want us to
cut them. They're just as they come. That's what they want.
Speaker 7 (26:36):
Now. If it was me, I would have said.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Two bows as is.
Speaker 6 (26:39):
Then I would have waited for the pause and I'd
say going home.
Speaker 7 (26:43):
Going home means no ice.
Speaker 6 (26:45):
I set up means I set up twenty four in
a bag. It's a twenty four hour ice tsa bag.
We have twenty four mini, which is the same thing
in a box, and then we have a four y
eight hour box which is what we used to ship
in and also for people that want to.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Take a little x A on the plane.
Speaker 6 (27:00):
So we actually have little things that we say so
that we don't even have to ask each other what
they need. Yes, chef, thank you chev. It is very
much like that. Yes, there is definitely a call in response.
It's an interesting team dynamic we have here, and it
sounds a lot more hectic than it is. It's intimidating
when you start, but then you sort of get into
this like weird flow of like we say, some weird
stuff we have, like our own little slang and lingo.
(27:24):
It's like our own dialects.
Speaker 7 (27:25):
I guess.
Speaker 6 (27:27):
Getting paid a pipe place fish is interesting because as
an adult, I now factor in the paid time off
and sick pay and insurance as part.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Of my wage.
Speaker 6 (27:39):
So in the places where some people might say, hey,
this isn't enough of an hourly, I always check myself
really quick and go, oh, I'm also having all of this,
Like I can all this other stuff that we would
normally pay a lot of money for, I don't have
to pay for And so for me it works out wonderfully. However,
I bartended and waitress for a really long time, and that,
(28:00):
as you know, for the people that do it, is
really different money and it's everyday money, and so that
was definitely adjustment, and it was definitely a hit but
I also knew that happiness for me couldn't be attached
to how much I made anymore. It wasn't sustainable because
I wasn't I could make a lot of money and
not do music, or I could make a little bit
(28:21):
less money.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Be happier and do music.
Speaker 6 (28:23):
And so I really was consciously choosing a better lifestyle.
And also, you know, I felt better and I was
living in it. I was working in a space where
the bosses and the other employees care about you, and
in restaurants it's really not often that way. You're a
body there and you really connect with some people. And
(28:45):
some restaurants aren't like that, but the majority of them
are like, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
I don't care if you're sick, come to work.
Speaker 6 (28:51):
You don't get insurance, you can't really call in, you
don't get those privileges. You just have to get people
to cover for you, which is doable but obviously not ideal.
So working here I didn't have to experience that, and
I actually got to That was a big weight lifted
from me. I was making a little less, but I
had been given all of these other things. So no,
it wasn't in dollars, but it was in quality. Of life,
(29:14):
and I would choose that any day. My work ethic
is a strange creature because it's also tied into my
anxiety of failure. But I also tried to overtime, treat
that more like a superpower instead of something that hinders me.
And I do not like making mistakes. That being said,
(29:34):
I make them. I just try to make sure it's
not often in that it's as less as possible. I
don't like making mistakes. I don't like learning in front
of people. It makes me really anxious. And so my
work ethic is always learn it fast, do it right
the first time, and keep doing it right. Don't cut corners.
(29:56):
I don't recommend this work for everyone.
Speaker 8 (29:58):
No, I do not.
Speaker 6 (30:00):
I do recommend everyone trying anything they want to try.
I do not think this job is for everyone. It
gets very cold here, and immediately some of our listeners
are gonna say, well, it's really cold in Minnesota and
it's like negative twelve degrees.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Yes, I agree with you, it is much colder.
Speaker 6 (30:17):
However, standing outside for ten hours anything below twenty degrees
is miserable. And also our hands are constantly in ice.
I will start to lose feeling in my fingertips, and
then that'll slowly travel all the way to the back
of my knuckles and then I just can't feel my fingers,
and then I just keep working. But really what happens
(30:38):
is our we lose feeling in our hands. Then we
go wash our hands in warm water, and then we
start that process over again. It's just always going to
be painful for our hands and our feet.
Speaker 7 (30:51):
So we just got done with the day.
Speaker 6 (30:53):
It was pretty cold, so we're going to go through
what a fishmonger wears to stay cold or to stay
not cold for.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Ten hours outside in Seattle.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
I think today I woke up and it was told
it was going to be twenty six degrees. So we'll
start from the outer layer. I've got a down jacket
and I have a scarf from the Seattle Winter Classic
when the Kraken played the Vegas Night, so that's pretty cool.
I have on a Grundan's Leee pullover. Grundans takes really
(31:26):
good care of us. Grundans is a company Slash brand
that makes deck fishing gear like so like the Deadliest Catch,
and guys that are really and women that are out
there in the the Favor Sea.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Are mostly wearing grundans.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
Oh that's my knife that's connected to my bibs.
Speaker 6 (31:44):
So also now after the pullover, I've got a t
shirt and then under armour and that's just for the
torso on my bottoms.
Speaker 7 (31:53):
We wear these things called.
Speaker 6 (31:54):
Hercules bibs, the hirks, that's what they call them, and
they are orange.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Overalls essentially that are made out of like a.
Speaker 6 (32:01):
What is this, like a plastic of some sort. It's
like a something like that. It's a definitely patented design.
But they are bright orange and they keep you really
really dry, and I wear them every.
Speaker 7 (32:13):
Day, and then I have sweat.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
Pants on, and I have leggings on, and I have
two pairs of socks, and then I have insulated boots
from Extra Tuf which are like the best deck boots
available on the market. Like across the board you'll see
most fishermen and women in Grundans and Extra Toughs.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
It is eleven PM and we are now fully going
to sleep. I paid hers still cold. I never really
warmed her all the way today and they've got our
kiddies a prain and it's very quiet and it's a
(33:02):
good time.
Speaker 5 (33:03):
Okay next time on finally a show.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
I don't understand why, what what the big fat ones
are and those were really big and fat is are those?
I mean what you don't put those inside of you?
Do you?
Speaker 2 (33:34):
I mean you do like a penis
Okay. It is sixth a m. And I have three.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Cats in bed.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
One of them was sleeping on my chest and the other
two on my legs. I love waking up like that,
so closy. My husband is still in bed asleep. Usually
we go to work together about today. He goes in
at a different time, so I get ready on my
(00:31):
own and.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
I'm gonna go do my skincare now that.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
I brush my teeth, and then I almostly get ready
in the dark, and then I'll go down to work, which.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Is very close.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
So I don't go to work till six forty five,
and sometimes I don't get out of bed till.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Six fifteen.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
And today I think I'll.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Go down there about sixty five, so I have a
little bit of time.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Let's get going.
Speaker 5 (01:10):
This is finally a show about a fishmonger in Seattle.
For five years, Hillary Brannick was until recently the only
woman on staff at the world famous Pike Place fish Market.
Speaker 6 (01:31):
You want me in the middle of a snack, I'm
eating some donuts. If you'd like some, have have some.
I have to go tip the donut people. Do you
want to come daily? Dozen makes us hot coffee every
morning and taking care of us. They're old friends of
the fish market, old old old friends. And right now
I'm gonna go give them tips because they just gave
(01:52):
us some donuts.
Speaker 7 (01:57):
Welcome to Pikeways. Fish.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
People come here for an experience that they're not gonna
get anywhere else, which is really us connecting with them
in the moments that they're here, like directly, like this.
But we also throw fish, which is a huge crowd driver.
So we get these fish in right here. These are
called tetefish. They're like dummy fish, so we use these
(02:22):
to learn how to throw customers real fish, so we're
only ever throwing real fish. But like this lady in
the purple may want this salmon, and so what I
will do is I pick up the salmon, and then
I go, where are you from, Purple hoodie? I would
say co ho for Indiana, and then I'd launch it
over the counter, and then they would hear that and
we would continue. So everyone knows what's happening all the time.
(02:45):
So when we shout like he's gonna do now. My
(03:13):
name's Hillary Brannick slash Segar because I just got married,
so I.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Have a couple of names.
Speaker 6 (03:17):
Right now, I'm thirty three and I'm from a very
small town called Florence in Colorado State. I am from Florence, Colorado,
a little tiny town just.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
At the foothills of the Rockies.
Speaker 6 (03:32):
My mother, Kathleen, is a Wisconsin native, but she and
my dad moved to Colorado to start a family. So
me and my brother and my sister were all born
in Pueblo, Colorado, which is about forty minutes west of
where we live. Growing up in Florence is really really
(03:52):
small town. I mean, this is the kind of place
where everyone I graduated with were the same people I
went to preschool with, and it was our class was
like one hundred and five people. So growing up, everybody
knows everything about you, all your dirt, all your good stuff,
all your weird stuff, every growth you've had in your
(04:13):
life and development. Everyone in the county knew that about me,
and I knew it about them, which is interesting to
navigate when you're trying to find your own identity in
whatever part of your life. So I was definitely considered
a loser. I was bullied a lot when I was
in middle school. I was a very timid person. I
was really afraid of everyone. I never ever ever in
(04:35):
my life would stand up for myself. You know, a
lot of kids have that experience. I definitely was one
of them. Okay, we have this big silver top counter
that makes sort of a half oval shape, and in
the corner of it there's a little spot that you
could say on it's like a ninety degree angle, and
that's where we catch fish from our bench, which is
a big metal display about I don't know. It was
(04:57):
like ten yards away, ten yards away something like that.
Speaker 8 (05:00):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (05:00):
So, as soon as someone yells t T, which is
test toss or tourist hoss, we all race each other
over to this little corner so you can get there first.
And so he'll go t T and then we respond TT.
And then as soon as he starts to throw the fish,
we go hey. And then as soon as it hits
his hands like that, we go yeah, so hey, And
(05:22):
so we do that anytime we throw anything. Uh and
then we say backjack, backjack b ack j a c K.
It means put it back where it came from. So
I'll go back jack too, both.
Speaker 7 (05:41):
Too.
Speaker 6 (05:42):
Here's the slap of the paper and how we did that. Alrighty,
who's got those rainbow trout where are you come on over?
Speaker 7 (05:49):
Boss?
Speaker 6 (05:52):
After I graduated high school, I moved to Boston for college.
I went to Berkeley College of Music for songwriting in
twenty ten, I think maybe twenty eleven. Somewhere in between there,
I going to school regular and then I worked at
this place called the Poorhouse.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Right on Boylston Street.
Speaker 6 (06:13):
Anybody that's listening that lived in Boston knows the place,
really fun bar and on Marathon Monday. The first time
I worked Marathon Monday, my voice was so shot afterwards
that I just couldn't talk. And I thought I just
had laryngitis and that it would go away, and then
it really wouldn't go away. And then I went to
a doctor and he's like, well, you have nodes or nodules,
(06:36):
which are not something that can be fixed. And so
I just went into a very spiraled, bad depression for
like two and a half years. And the really crazy
thing was I was misdiagnosed, so I just went he
told me what it was, and I was like, well,
I guess this is what I'm working with. And so
I just had to drop out because I couldn't perform.
(06:59):
And then I just off doing music all together because
it killed me not to be able to sing, and
I didn't want to write. And I had a lot
of friends who wanted to help me, and they're like, well,
you should learn to you know, play piano and you know,
play guitar and do this, and like, at the time,
I didn't know how to respond to that in a
way that was positive because I was just so frustrated
(07:19):
and my friends and my loved ones were trying to
help me, but what I felt like. And I remember
telling one of my friends I got frustrated, and I
wasn't frustrated with her, but I was expressing to her
I felt and I was like, I feel like when
somebody says that to me, it'd be like me telling
a pianist to learn how to sings, Like what if
I broke your hands and you're a pianist. So I
(07:40):
just had this whole horrible two year experience where I
was just really depressed.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
I quit music.
Speaker 6 (07:45):
I didn't play music, I didn't really do anything. I
stopped listening in music kind of regularly, just kind of
became not ideal. And then a really good friend of
mine named Jeremy, who I also went to school with.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Jeremy Blass.
Speaker 6 (07:58):
He and I were walking down the street and I
was drunk and I was crying, and I was talking
about how I wanted to disappear and do something else
because I was still so crushed. Music was the only
thing I ever cared about.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
All growing up.
Speaker 6 (08:11):
I didn't care about anything else. I didn't want to
be anything else. That was my thing was in some way,
I was going to be a singer. And I didn't
know what that meant. Sometimes I still don't, but I
knew it's what I wanted. We were walking down the
street and he's like, you need to go see another doctor,
and I was like, I don't want to go again.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
He's like, you have to go. Will you please go?
He's like, will you just go for me? He's like,
you have different insurance now you can see a different doctor.
He's like, just as a friend, do me the favor.
Just go one more time.
Speaker 6 (08:36):
And because he and I were such good friends, I
was like, Okay, I'll be reasonable, I'll go again.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Maybe I just needed second set eyes.
Speaker 7 (08:46):
People come from.
Speaker 6 (08:47):
All over the world to see us throwfish. We obviously
don't want to throw customers fish that they're paying for
because we take really good care of those. So she
would order this, and I would ask her, do you
want us to cut this for you? We do that
for free. Do you want us to leave it whole
so you can do it? We kind of get whatever
they want as instructions and then we throw it over.
And the reason that we shout the way we do,
(09:09):
or sing the way that we do, chant whatever people
call it, is so that you tell me one time
what you want. I tell everybody at the same time,
so that whoever gets to you first knows what to
help you with. So then you know how to repeat
yourself to ten people, you know. And it's not like
a grocery store. You take your stuff and you go
check out. We grab every single thing for you. And
that's how we communicate. So that the guy in the
(09:31):
red that's JB red Hair, he will never have to
come down here to get anything. He'll just call for
it and then we'll send it up to him, and
vice versa. So I went and I went to Massachusetts
and Ear Infirmary, which has done surgery.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
I'm like opera singers.
Speaker 6 (09:47):
There's been a lot of really big people that have
been treated there and they're fantastic. And my doctor he
did what they call is a larenscopy. So they take
this camera and it goes up on my as the
left side of my nostril goes all the way up
and then down my throat. And so he put this
camera in my throat and asked me to sing so
(10:10):
that he could see how my vocal colds are functioning.
And I'm singing and then he goes, oh, and I
go what. He goes, you don't have nodes or nodules,
and I go what. He's like, I think I can
fix this. And with this camera in my mouth, I'm
like in shock. I'm crying. He's trying to get me
to calm down, but I'm so excited and trying not
(10:31):
to let myself be excited because I also know how
medicine works and it's not always that way. But I
was like, holy shit, this doctor thinks he can do it.
After he explained what I had, which was essentially I
had a tear in my vocal cord and then it
grew cysts. It just basically grew inside itself. And if
you guys can all put your two pointed fingers together
in a horizontal way, that's what your vocal cords look like,
(10:54):
but they are kind of like rubber bands. And if
you pull a rubber band apart into a long string,
that is what your vocal culture are like. And so
if you imagine two marbles in the middle of it,
when you talk or you sing, they get really tight
and then the sound goes through. But I had basically
little tiny marbles, and so I would lose my range
(11:16):
in certain places because when I would sing or speak,
it would just stop or wouldn't close enough for the
sound to get out properly. I guess sing something before
you made me okay, if it's bad, you have to
delete it, though, Oh come to bed with you, but
(11:42):
don't love me.
Speaker 8 (11:45):
I won't love you, and that just kay fee, I
don't want.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
To feel you.
Speaker 9 (12:01):
That's a new song. Does it sound okay?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Why can't I.
Speaker 10 (12:17):
Leave a launch here and a launch of gone get
away from Me?
Speaker 6 (12:32):
You can call out anything from anywhere. It's basically just
to let someone know. Somebody needs help right now, somebody
needs something next, And so we try to do it
in a way that you can get everything succinct and
quick and in a good cadence. So we always say
you get the response that you call. And so if
I'm like two bows, houses like they're not gonna hear that,
(12:55):
they're also not going to respond very well. So then
I'll go two bows, two bows.
Speaker 7 (13:01):
This is that's not real. That was just a test
that she could hear.
Speaker 6 (13:04):
But see how everyone immediately like perked up and knew
what to do.
Speaker 7 (13:08):
That's why we do that.
Speaker 6 (13:09):
So even the person over here selling smoke salmon knows
that two rainbow trout are coming over the counter, and
then that person that wants to trout might want the
smoked salmon as well. So Adrian knows, oh, you're getting
trout too cool, I'm going to add this to your order,
and then he'll go.
Speaker 7 (13:26):
Smoke with the bows.
Speaker 6 (13:27):
And so we just kind of all have to listen
all the time and then just keep That's how we
keep tack of our customers want I was it, okay,
(14:00):
I got Here's so weird. I ended up in Seattle
at the end of twenty sixteen. When I was living
in Nashville is when Trump first ran for office. The
people I was living with openly began to become like
they were openly racist after he came out and ran
for president, and they were openly doing racist shit, and
so I was like, not a chance. So I packed
(14:20):
up all my stuff. I took some of it to
my aunt's house in Wisconsin, my aunt uncle's house, and
then I took shoved the rest of it in a
closet and left for the summer. And then I worked
in Boston, got some money together, just to see what
I was going to do next. And one of my
friends that I met at a festival was like, Hey,
I'm going to move to Seattle. I know you're up
in the air about what you want to do. Do
(14:42):
you want to move with me to Seattle? And I
was like, I've never been there, Let's do it. My
first job was here in the market, and the second
I stepped into this market, people took care of me immediately.
I actually came here. The first day I came to
Seattle was allo of the day I moved here, just
like Boston. But that first week we came down to
(15:04):
Pipe Place Market, which I'd never heard of before, never saw,
never knew anything about. I really just didn't know about
Seattle at all. I will say Seattle is one of
my favorite cities now, but it's also like a hidden city,
like people kind of forget that this is a metropolitan place.
So I came down here and I stood outside pipe
place fish actually, and I was standing by Rachel. This
big golden pig that's right in front of the shop.
(15:26):
It's a statue.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Definitely google it. She's a prize winning pig. It's really weird.
It's like a bronze thing.
Speaker 6 (15:32):
But I was standing there next to Rachel, just staring
at the fish market and they're throwing stuff and they're screaming.
I've never even seen a fish market before. I don't
even know what I'm looking at. And this guy, who
is a legend here's name's Justin Hall shouts. He's like,
you gonna buy something? And I'm like, ah, I'm poor,
Yes I will. I'm like, I don't have any money,
I don't live anywhere, but I'm for sure about to
(15:53):
buy this cocktail, this shrimp cocktail.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
So I get it.
Speaker 6 (15:57):
And I started talking to the guys and they're like, oh,
you know, where are you from? And I told him
I just moved here. I'm looking for work. And I
asked them, you know, I was a very experienced bartender.
You know, I bartended for and waitressed over a decade,
so I was like, do you know any restaurants that
need help? Because I'm the lady, they will hire me.
And one of the guys at the time was dating
(16:18):
a lady that had also been down here about twenty
five years. He's like, yeah, my girlfriend runs Albaracho upstairs,
and you know, I'll put in a word for you.
And I went in there and got hired, and it
was funny because I did all the things you shouldn't do,
and all the servers out there we'll understand this. I
went in on a Friday afternoon with like a shoddy
(16:40):
resume because I didn't have a printer, and it was
like during a rush. I also wasn't really sure what
day was or well, you know, I was in like
this insane place in my life where I didn't live anywhere,
I didn't have any money. I was trying to get
a job desperately. So I walked in on a Friday
afternoon lunch rush and I was like, hey, hire me.
And then I had to convince Kira to hire me,
(17:00):
and she did, and she told me she was a
straightforward lady. I loved working for her. She's really fun
and really cool and really took me under her wing
in the market and she was like, honestly, she's like,
I would never hire someone coming in on a Friday.
But I convinced her. I was like, you need to
hire me. You will be happy that you hired me.
I was like, I know that I have no one
here to vouch for me. I was like, but I
(17:21):
promise you. I was like, I don't even have a
place to sleep tonight, but I will be here every
day on time. And I was there every single day
on time. And I worked there for a year and
a half.
Speaker 7 (17:36):
So they're called TETs, which stands for.
Speaker 6 (17:38):
Test toss or tourist toss, and they are a keeto
or chump salmon, and we actually buy them for throwing
and then we donate.
Speaker 7 (17:47):
Them to the zoo and also a Wolfhaven.
Speaker 8 (17:54):
Pay did.
Speaker 7 (18:01):
Thanks boss? Oh, thank you?
Speaker 6 (18:04):
Don We have different whole fish all the time, but
also some of the stuff kind of lives here, so
we always have king salmon we filter through coho and
sake depending on season, halib it from Alaska. We've got
Alaskan black cod, we have trout from Idaho springs, and
bronzino come fresh from Turkey, so we get those fresh,
(18:27):
which is really cool eleven hour flight or something. Yeah,
it's awesome. All sustainable. We're sustainable seafood market. Our octopus
come from Spain because we can get them sustainably.
Speaker 7 (18:38):
There.
Speaker 6 (18:39):
Actually one of the people that works here show she
makes authentic Spanish ink prints. She used the Spanish octopus
to make ink prints. They're beautiful.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
And then I got fired.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
I think that me getting fired from this place was
actually it didn't go the way any of us wanted
it too. I'm still very good friends with the owners
and it's all okay now, so I definitely have no
bad blood there. But it was hard. It was a
hard let go. I don't think it's when anyone wanted.
It just happened that way for whatever complex reasons. And
then I stopped serving and I'd wanted out for a
(19:15):
really long time because I'm also sober six years and
alcohol was an issue for me, and I had stopped
drinking a few months before I got fired because my
grandmother got sick and I wanted to take care of her,
and so I just I always told myself, like, I
could have a drink again if when she got better,
and she never did. She passed, and so I stayed sober,
and one of the things that helped me with that
(19:37):
was not going back to restaurants. And I knew that
if I wanted to stay sober, that was probably for
me one of the healthiest ways to do it. And
I didn't know how I was going to do that,
and then I ended up getting fired, which I knew
was coming. I knew it, and then I just, you know,
chose because I was able to just not go and
work in another restaurant. I was very fortunate that I
(20:00):
I didn't have to do that, so I was supported
and I wasn't ever in danger of not having a
place to live or not having food because people here
take care of you like a family.
Speaker 8 (20:09):
You know.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
I came in here homeless and people were bringing me
groceries that didn't have to be refrigerated and making sure
I had somewhere to stay. And nobody was like giving
me money or anything, but they checked in and they
treated me like family. The second you start in the
market and you become a market worker, you become part
of this really insane, loving circus family and there's nothing
anybody down here wouldn't do for you. So I was
(20:30):
able to not have to dive back into getting tips
every day, and I ended up one of my regulars,
who was also just a very good friend, hired me
at the ice cream shop Shy Giant here in the market,
and then as I worked there, I worked there for
about a year and a half as well. Where I
worked in Pipe Place Market, there's many stalls. If you
(20:52):
haven't ever looked it up, google it. There's tons of businesses.
There's eight floors. Some of it's an indoor market, some
of it's an outdoor market. I worked in an outdoor
ice cream stand that was year round and it was lovely.
It's called Shy Giant Frozen Yogurt. And I worked for
my friends ce Last for about a year and a
half and I kind of ran the ice cream shop
on my own. Oh yeah, I live really close. My
(21:16):
commute is very short, so I look like I'm in
my pajamas all the time. I live about twenty yards
from my job. I live in Pipeclasce Market. I won't
say where, but I do live here in the market
very close. And I walk down my stairs and I
take about ten steps outside in my door and I'm
(21:38):
at work. I was living in the market and the
way I got my apartment was very interesting. Mostly I
was really annoying. You have to put yourself on a
wait list, and there are years of waiting for apartments here.
They're not widely known. There's not a ton especially for
the building that I live The building that I live
in has tenants that have been there for like thirty
(22:00):
and there's only.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Like twelve of us, like twelve.
Speaker 6 (22:04):
Apartments, so it's like kind of the friends building, but
really it's just the hallway of all of us that
know each other. But I had put myself on the
wait list for the market apartments and I called every week,
every single week. I was like, Hey, do you have anything, Hey,
do you have any apartments? And they're like, no, I
don't have anything. Also you're not at the top of
the wait list, and like they were nice and stuff,
but I was like, I'm getting in those apartments. I
(22:26):
cannot live here anymore. I can't be in the situation
I'm in. I didn't want to commute anymore, you know,
Like I lived on Alcai across the water, which is awesome,
but it was still two buses. Even if it's an hour,
it's still two buses. It's still like weirdly timed buses.
I had to take a bus from the water to
you know, the middle part of West Seattle to get
on another bus to come downtown. And it was just
(22:47):
the situation was not ideal. So I just kept calling.
I kept calling and calling and calling every week. And
then right when we almost gonna get evicted, not because
of me, I'll just say that, they called me and
they're like, hey, we've got an apartment available. Do you
want to come see it. I was like, right now,
(23:10):
I can come right now, And so me and my
husband went and saw it and got the apartment, and
so then we just we've lived there for almost seven years.
(23:32):
And so I lived there while I was still bartending
at Elbaracho. I lived there when I worked at Shy
Giant Frozen Yogurt, and I still live there now. At
pipe Place Fish Market where the ice cream stand is.
It's in a small little building called the Sanitary Market,
and that's in pipe Place Market, and there's a little
corner where there was a pickle stand called Britz Pickles.
There was the poke stand the I believe it's wild
(23:53):
poke is what it's called.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
And then the famous.
Speaker 6 (23:57):
Unmatched Oriental Mart and is a three generation owned Filipino market.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
They are so.
Speaker 6 (24:04):
Cool and during the slow freezing times, ice cream sales
not super high. So I could see the ice cream
shop from the Oriental Market kitchen, and so I would
sit back there and hang out with them, and I
would watch my shop from across the hall because they're
very close, so it wasn't like if somebody came up
(24:24):
and wanted help.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
I'd be like, oh, hey, I'm coming.
Speaker 6 (24:26):
Over and they'd be like great, Like you're two steps away,
And so I would sit back there and I would
just sit over there and hang out and have fun
and hear old market stories from like people that really
are the ones you want to hear it from. They've
been down here a long time, they've seen everything. They're wonderful.
It's just like it's awesome. It's like sitting in a
live movie. It's crazy. And one day I just kind
(24:49):
of joked with Sam. I was like, I think I
could do what you guys did for a day, I
really do. I think I could do it, and I
just we kind of joked about it for a few months,
and one day he walked by the ice cream shop.
He's like, hey, I put you on the schedule for
this day. He's like, you got to show up at
six thirty, you got to stay the whole twelve hours,
because you know, he knew my schedule because we were
(25:09):
around each other all the time.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
And I was like, okay, I can do that.
Speaker 6 (25:15):
You know, still living right next to the fish market,
so that was helpful. But one morning, I just that morning,
I went down there, got there at six, started shoveling ice.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
I put on a He.
Speaker 6 (25:26):
Dressed me up in the bibs and the boots, and
I wore one of the guy's boots. They were too
big and the bibs were kind of too big and
also too short because I borrowed everyone else's stuff. And
then I worked here for one day and I did
it as a volunteer, but at the end of the
day they paid me, which I wasn't expecting. But I
was like, I just wanted to come have the experience,
and I knew I couldn't do that at my husband's job.
(25:46):
I didn't want to go work with my husband. I
wanted to go do this other thing on my own. Also,
just a different operation. Our neighbors we love, but they
do a different thing than we do. And I just
I went and working here for one day changed my life.
Just being here changed my life. And it's because of
the way that the team moves like as one and
(26:09):
the way we support each other and the way we
lift each other up. You know, I was invited into
this really, really interesting, loving space that I've never been.
I've never been involved in anything like that.
Speaker 7 (26:24):
Some of the guys that have been here a little
bit longer will say, like they're.
Speaker 6 (26:28):
So he called out two bows as is, two rainbow
trout as is. That means they don't want us to
cut them. They're just as they come. That's what they want.
Speaker 7 (26:36):
Now. If it was me, I would have said.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Two bows as is.
Speaker 6 (26:39):
Then I would have waited for the pause and I'd
say going home.
Speaker 7 (26:43):
Going home means no ice.
Speaker 6 (26:45):
I set up means I set up twenty four in
a bag. It's a twenty four hour ice tsa bag.
We have twenty four mini, which is the same thing
in a box, and then we have a four y
eight hour box which is what we used to ship
in and also for people that want to.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Take a little x A on the plane.
Speaker 6 (27:00):
So we actually have little things that we say so
that we don't even have to ask each other what
they need. Yes, chef, thank you chev. It is very
much like that. Yes, there is definitely a call in response.
It's an interesting team dynamic we have here, and it
sounds a lot more hectic than it is. It's intimidating
when you start, but then you sort of get into
this like weird flow of like we say, some weird
stuff we have, like our own little slang and lingo.
(27:24):
It's like our own dialects.
Speaker 7 (27:25):
I guess.
Speaker 6 (27:27):
Getting paid a pipe place fish is interesting because as
an adult, I now factor in the paid time off
and sick pay and insurance as part.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Of my wage.
Speaker 6 (27:39):
So in the places where some people might say, hey,
this isn't enough of an hourly, I always check myself
really quick and go, oh, I'm also having all of this,
Like I can all this other stuff that we would
normally pay a lot of money for, I don't have
to pay for And so for me it works out wonderfully. However,
I bartended and waitress for a really long time, and that,
(28:00):
as you know, for the people that do it, is
really different money and it's everyday money, and so that
was definitely adjustment, and it was definitely a hit but
I also knew that happiness for me couldn't be attached
to how much I made anymore. It wasn't sustainable because
I wasn't I could make a lot of money and
not do music, or I could make a little bit
(28:21):
less money.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Be happier and do music.
Speaker 6 (28:23):
And so I really was consciously choosing a better lifestyle.
And also, you know, I felt better and I was
living in it. I was working in a space where
the bosses and the other employees care about you, and
in restaurants it's really not often that way. You're a
body there and you really connect with some people. And
(28:45):
some restaurants aren't like that, but the majority of them
are like, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
I don't care if you're sick, come to work.
Speaker 6 (28:51):
You don't get insurance, you can't really call in, you
don't get those privileges. You just have to get people
to cover for you, which is doable but obviously not ideal.
So working here I didn't have to experience that, and
I actually got to That was a big weight lifted
from me. I was making a little less, but I
had been given all of these other things. So no,
it wasn't in dollars, but it was in quality. Of life,
(29:14):
and I would choose that any day. My work ethic
is a strange creature because it's also tied into my
anxiety of failure. But I also tried to overtime, treat
that more like a superpower instead of something that hinders me.
And I do not like making mistakes. That being said,
(29:34):
I make them. I just try to make sure it's
not often in that it's as less as possible. I
don't like making mistakes. I don't like learning in front
of people. It makes me really anxious. And so my
work ethic is always learn it fast, do it right
the first time, and keep doing it right. Don't cut corners.
(29:56):
I don't recommend this work for everyone.
Speaker 8 (29:58):
No, I do not.
Speaker 6 (30:00):
I do recommend everyone trying anything they want to try.
I do not think this job is for everyone. It
gets very cold here, and immediately some of our listeners
are gonna say, well, it's really cold in Minnesota and
it's like negative twelve degrees.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Yes, I agree with you, it is much colder.
Speaker 6 (30:17):
However, standing outside for ten hours anything below twenty degrees
is miserable. And also our hands are constantly in ice.
I will start to lose feeling in my fingertips, and
then that'll slowly travel all the way to the back
of my knuckles and then I just can't feel my fingers,
and then I just keep working. But really what happens
(30:38):
is our we lose feeling in our hands. Then we
go wash our hands in warm water, and then we
start that process over again. It's just always going to
be painful for our hands and our feet.
Speaker 7 (30:51):
So we just got done with the day.
Speaker 6 (30:53):
It was pretty cold, so we're going to go through
what a fishmonger wears to stay cold or to stay
not cold for.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Ten hours outside in Seattle.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
I think today I woke up and it was told
it was going to be twenty six degrees. So we'll
start from the outer layer. I've got a down jacket
and I have a scarf from the Seattle Winter Classic
when the Kraken played the Vegas Night, so that's pretty cool.
I have on a Grundan's Leee pullover. Grundans takes really
(31:26):
good care of us. Grundans is a company Slash brand
that makes deck fishing gear like so like the Deadliest Catch,
and guys that are really and women that are out
there in the the Favor Sea.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Are mostly wearing grundans.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
Oh that's my knife that's connected to my bibs.
Speaker 6 (31:44):
So also now after the pullover, I've got a t
shirt and then under armour and that's just for the
torso on my bottoms.
Speaker 7 (31:53):
We wear these things called.
Speaker 6 (31:54):
Hercules bibs, the hirks, that's what they call them, and
they are orange.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Overalls essentially that are made out of like a.
Speaker 6 (32:01):
What is this, like a plastic of some sort. It's
like a something like that. It's a definitely patented design.
But they are bright orange and they keep you really
really dry, and I wear them every.
Speaker 7 (32:13):
Day, and then I have sweat.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
Pants on, and I have leggings on, and I have
two pairs of socks, and then I have insulated boots
from Extra Tuf which are like the best deck boots
available on the market. Like across the board you'll see
most fishermen and women in Grundans and Extra Toughs.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
It is eleven PM and we are now fully going
to sleep. I paid hers still cold. I never really
warmed her all the way today and they've got our
kiddies a prain and it's very quiet and it's a
(33:02):
good time.
Speaker 5 (33:03):
Okay next time on finally a show.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
I don't understand why, what what the big fat ones
are and those were really big and fat is are those?
I mean what you don't put those inside of you?
Do you?
Speaker 2 (33:34):
I mean you do like a penis
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