Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 31, 1992                   TAG: 9203310185
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By LOIS ROMANO THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

THE DOUBLE LIFE OF A FORMER SODA JERK

Call it her secret life.

She gets dropped off quietly - and alone - at the employees' entrance like any other worker bee. She dons appropriate attire. She rolls up her sleeves. And she sells ladies' clothes at a Woodward & Lothrop department store. Or hangs drywall at a construction site. Or cooks sizzling fries at McDonald's in downtown Washington.

"There is an unconnected aspect of the work many of us do here in Washington," said Labor Secretary Lynn Martin. "It's very easy to get hooked to your office and to be driven to a speech here or there.

"I'm running an operation of 18,000 people, so I know what it's like to run a large company. I want to know what it's like to do real jobs."

Ever since Martin took over the reins at the agency a year ago, the never-reticent former Illinois congresswoman - and one-time soda jerk - has worked half-days - unpaid - at a dozen different jobs.

Many times she works away from the watchful eye of the media and unbeknown to most of the people to whom she sold fries. "Well, there was a group from Iowa who recognized me," she confessed. "They asked for a picture."

Martin has assigned beds at George Washington University Hospital, cut sugar cane in Florida and worked in a Chicago factory assembling coffee makers.

"Believe me, I got no special treatment," she said, noting that her co-workers on the assembly line were quick to tell her she had messed up a coffee maker's electrical connection.

Martin, who had drawn sharp criticism from labor unions, said all this got started because she missed the retail aspects of public service - being able to communicate with regular people on a regular basis.

"Just being able to go through the towns and stop at the local diner and eat homemade pies and listen to the complaints," she said of her days in Congress. "I miss the dialogue." Martin, an Illinois Republican, became Labor secretary in February 1991.

Since her work project began, she said, she has passed along to President Bush some of the unsolicited comments she's gotten because "they're better than any poll."

"A labor secretary more than any other government official should be listening to people's problems in the workplace, sharing their pride and success, and getting her hands dirty, too," she said. "Otherwise you cannot speak for them.

"And I hate to admit it - but it's been pure fun, too."