Students seekdifferent waysto earn money

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    By SAMANTHA LE

    Many college students find typical jobs for the summer, such as restaurant or office work, but several BYU students have found success working at not-so-typical jobs.

    Aaron Merrill, a junior from Lehi, majoring in sound engineering and media composition, tunes pianos for a living.

    Merrill started his own company, ACM Music Co., in March of 1995. The company specializes in composing, arranging, engineering, piano tuning and repair.

    Merrill said his interest in tuning began when he had his new piano tuned.

    “When the man came to tune our piano, I could hear every imperfection being fixed,” he said. “I started asking him questions about tuning pianos.”

    His ability to hear and his curiosity landed Merrill an apprenticeship with the piano tuner. After the apprenticeship, Merrill invested $1,500 in tools and began his business.

    During the summer Merrill tunes two or three pianos a day. Merrill said a regular tuning takes two hours.

    For Merrill, the job is ideal. Because he sets his own schedule, he still has time to spend concentrating on his wife and daughter as well as school.

    “I’ve been involved with music all my life, so I honestly feel qualified for the job,” he said.

    Travis Johnson, a senior from Sacramento, Calif., majoring in exercise physiology, said his summer job at East Lawn Memorial Hills cemetery in Provo, did not require many qualifications.

    “My brother worked there before me,” he said. “When he decided to get another job, the job at the cemetery got passed down to me.”

    Initially, Johnson did maintenance work and lawn mowing at the cemetery, though his duties eventually included digging graves and lowering caskets into the ground after funerals.

    “My brother showed me how to dig a grave,” Johnson said. “That part wasn’t weird. It got weird after the casket was lowered into the grave. Then we’d have to stand on top of the casket to pack the dirt in around it.”

    Johnson said at first it was strange to think he was standing on a casket that had a body in it, but after a while, he didn’t let it bother him.

    Johnson said the job had several advantages including flexible hours and wages above most jobs in Provo. He also said the job was great for dates.

    “We had a few group dates at the cemetery,” Johnson said. “We would ride the four wheelers up to the top of the cemetery where we had buried a treasure chest. We had our dates dig the chest up. It was really funny to watch them — they would either be scared or laughing.”

    Michael Hoopes, a senior from Moraga, Calif., majoring in sociology said his job isn’t that odd, “if you don’t mind carrying around hundreds of thousands of dollars that don’t belong to you.”

    Hoopes is the driver of an armored vehicle for Armored ATM Service. He and two others man a van that transports large amounts of money from big businesses, like ZCMI, to their banks.

    “We act as guards and drivers,” Hoopes said. “Each of us carries a gun and wears a bullet proof vest.”

    He said the training for the job was not too in depth.

    “We learned basic things, like don’t let people walk up behind you and ask you for money. That may sound dumb, but you’d be surprised how many people try to joke with us and say things like ‘Got some money for me there?'” he said.

    Hoopes said the job is good training for him because he is interested in a career in law enforcement.

    “I thought to myself, what job can I do to carry a gun and wear a bullet-proof vest? This kind of job will look great on my resume.”

    Hoopes said he doesn’t consider the job in Provo too dangerous. But he used to drive an armored vehicle in Salt Lake. It is very different there.

    “There were definitely times in Salt Lake when there could’ve been danger. We’d see passengers in other cars who had guns and we didn’t know what their intentions were. We just had to wait each situation out,” he said.

    For Josh Johnson, a junior from Naperville, Ill., majoring in community health, having a job means getting up at 2:30 every morning.

    Johnson spends four hours each morning making fresh squeezed carrot juice at Main Squeeze Juices in Orem.

    “My job is odd because I don’t think many people would consider getting up at that hour of the morning for work,” Johnson said. “I am only getting about four to six hours of sleep a night if I’m lucky.”

    Johnson works with one other “squeezer” in the early mornings making the carrot juice for the day. The company also has freshly squeezed apple, orange, pineapple, spinach and celery juices, but they are made during the day.

    Johnson found the job by looking on the job board, provided by Student Employment Services in the ASB. Despite the odd hours, Johnson said the job pays well, and he will definitely keep it through the summer.

    Student Employment Services posts off-campus job listings between noon and 1 p.m. each day

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