THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 21, 1996 TAG: 9607170055
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: MY JOB
SOURCE: BY KRYS STEFANSKY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 74 lines
TO LOOK at him, it doesn't seem like work.
Half the time, Roy Nguyen is sitting in the sunshine with his feet propped up. A paper in his hands, he's reading up on the world's latest news or checking last night's sports scores.
He's got a cold drink, an umbrella to sit under, passers-by to shoot the breeze with.
Occasionally, he jumps to his feet and chats up a family from, say, New Jersey looking for a place to leave their car for the day.
But appearances can be deceiving. Being a parking-lot attendant at Virginia Beach's resort strip can get stressful.
Like when there's no juice going to your portable TV and you're about to miss your soap operas.
``Maria just lost the baby,'' Nguyen says. ``Edmund gave it back to the birth mother. And Laura's baby needs a bone marrow transplant, so they're looking for Bobbie's birth child - the one she put up for adoption when she was a hooker.''
Some guys carry a briefcase to work. Roy brings a cardboard box. Inside is his Sony Watchman and its 4 1/2-inch, black-and-white window on woe.
``I like `General Hospital' the most,'' he says.
Roy is 20, a college student at Old Dominion University and, by his own description, kind of ``in between fields.'' He's thinking about majoring in dentistry but is also tempted to get a business degree.
Fall semester and major decisions are a long way off, though. First there's all this sunshine and a pretty cool job parking cars.
``The guy who owns this lot says we are the ambassadors of Virginia Beach,'' Roy says. ``We're the first people tourists meet.''
In his case, they're meeting a friendly guy with the lowdown on where things are. Tourists spy him sitting next to the sidewalk under his umbrella or in the rickety red wooden kiosk and let loose with the questions.
``They ask me all kinds of stuff. Where is the highway, the boulevard, the nearest ATM? Where can I buy cigarettes? Where's the beach? . . . Now I get a kick when they ask me that. Right now, I'm an expert.''
Roy has barely taken a breath when a sandaled man leans in from the sidewalk and tests his expertise. ``Is there a 7-Eleven around here somewhere?'' he says.
``Two blocks down and to the right,'' says Roy, and then rocks back in an old metal and vinyl office chair and props his feet back up on the ledge.
OK, so he's gotten a few dates with out-of-town girls.
The job's still not as easy as it looks. There's the matter of charging people to park, after all. And not everybody pays quietly.
A teal green Mazda with Virginia plates pulls in.
Roy walks up smiling, ``How're you doing?'' He chit chats and then tells the driver she'll owe $7 to leave the car for the day.
``Seven dollars?'' hollers the woman, looking like she thinks Roy might give her a break if she fusses. But she pays. So does the van from Maryland, the sedan with Texas plates, the convertible from New Jersey.
Truth is, Roy hates asking them for money.
``I'm from here, you know,'' says the Virginia Beach native. ``It seems crazy to ask people to pay to park at the beach.'' Makes him even more uncomfortable when the rates go up on holidays.
Even so, he likes the job. And it's best when it's busy.
``Usually when I'm standing here doing nothing, time passes real slow. That's why I stopped wearing a watch,'' he says. ``But you get to meet a lot of different people.''
He stops to think and then says, ``I'll be back next year.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
DAVID B. HOLLINGSWORTH/The Virginian-Pilot
Roy Nguyen, a parking-lot attendant at the resort strip, looks
relaxed, but he jumps when a car pulls up. ``We're the first people
tourists meet,'' he says. by CNB