working hard for the money

Jeffrey Williams Arizona Daily Wildcat Danielle Schanke, a marketing senior and employee of Party Animals hold up a hoop for the ring toss game as a young party-goer looks on. Party Animals is a service that provides entertainment at children's parties.

The Blood Plasma Donor

Twice a week, sophomore Tony Wilkes enters the disinfected halls of NABI Biomedical Center, 135 S. 4th Ave, a blood plasma donation center in the heart of downtown Tucson. There, Wilkes and a diverse sampling of socio-economically challenged individuals - transients, students, newspaper writers - are paid to pump varying amounts of blood plasma into a complex series of medical machines, where red and white blood cells are filtered and blood plasma is reserved for future medical use.

According to Wilkes, the procedure, which takes about an hour and involves inserting an extraordinarily large needle into one's arm, isn't particularly painful. At least, not after a while.

"It's kind of like getting a tattoo," Wilkes said. "It's sort of a small, annoying pain, but you get used to it. I just read a book and try not think about it," he said.

Of course, with one's arm strapped to a large churning blood-sucking device, page turning can prove problematic.

"I've really learned how to do things with one hand. Sometimes you forget and sort of yank on your needle arm. That's a little painful."

For Wilkes, who also works part-time as a bus boy at a local restaurant, plasma donation is an easy way to make a little extra cash. A full-time student who devotes most of his free time to painting and various artistic endeavors, the cash is a necessary supplement to what he describes as a "paltry, peasant-like existence."

Wilkes' visits net $25 a piece (new donors are paid $20 for the first visit, $50 for the second and $25 per visit thereafter). Sometimes Wilkes and his blood-donating brethren are awarded with special prize fees, and extra money is awarded to those who refer new donors.

"Plasma donation isn't for everyone," Wilkes warns. "I have a friend who passed out in a Subway after donating. If you're hungover or dehydrated, it really screws with you. But it's not that bad. It's basically free money." - laura bond

Nabi Biomedical Center is located at 135 S 4th Ave. Phone 623-6493. Hours are 8 a.m. -6:30 p.m., Monday - Thursday; 8 a.m. - 5 p.m., Friday.

Jeffrey Williams Arizona Daily Wildcat Danielle Schanke gives a party-goer a hug Sunday following her performance as a Teletubby. Schanke works weekends dressing up as such characters as the Teletubbies and Barbie.

The Teletubby

Here's Danielle Schanke's story, and she's sticking to it:

"I am Barbie," said the international marketing senior. "At the factory, a magician sprinkled magic dust on me, and I became 5-foot-4."

She hopes that five-year-old girls whom she entertains at parties buys it.

Schanke works for Party Animals, an organization that supplies pop-culture characters for young children's' birthday parties, and Barbie is one of the many characters that Schanke finds herself impersonating each weekend. Sorry, Barbie's not available for bachelor parties.

Schanke is a senior who lays her activities on thick.

She's graduating in May, and going out with a bang. Schanke carries an 18-unit load, and along with her job at Party Animals, also is taking part in an internship at Right Fax.

On the weekends, Schanke can find herself in any part of town, as any character from Sesame Street's Elmo, to a clown, to Laa-Laa of the Teletubbies.

Sometimes she even takes gigs in Casa Grande and Phoenix. She makes up to $135 each weekend, including tips, and gets recouped for gas money.

"You have to enjoy working with kids," said Schanke, who graduated from Tucson's Mountain View High and used to coach gymnastics.

"Sometimes I get cranky, but then I realize that it's some 4-year-old's birthday party. Their smiles are priceless."

But the job isn't always fun and giggles. Sometimes it requires dealing with pesky, party-pooping kids; sometimes it requires keeping a level head.

"The worst thing that could happen to you would be to lose your head," Schanke said. "One time when I was Winnie the Pooh, my head nearly slipped off, but I caught it and put it back on just in time. I've heard of peoples' head falling off and rolling down hills."

Not to mention the thick costumes that she sometimes has to wear.

"Elmo is really, really hot," Schanke said. "Also, you always have to speak in Elmo's voice - high and in the third person. You have to say 'Elmo is hungry!' " and things like that. My throat hurt for a while after I did that for the first time."

- phil villarreal

The Lab Worker

Josh Cruz is a strange man with a strange job, and he's the first to admit it.

"I'm unusual, actually," said Cruz, a Biochemistry senior who works in Dr. Gary Thompson's lab in the Marley Building. "A lot of people take lab jobs for credit, and they get shafted. They work the first nine hours for free, than after that start getting paid at an hourly rate. My job isn't for credit."

A Phoenix native, Cruz hooked up with the lab at the beginning of the school year, and has thrived in his work. He hopes to have a paper detailing his experiments published by the end of the year.

Until then, Cruz is working 10-20 hours a week in the lab, making experiment after experiments on... well... it's best to let Cruz describe it himself.

"I'm experimenting on the most viable protocols in which to transform agro-bacterium into living plant tissue," Cruz said. "I'm looking to get foreign DNA or genes into hosts, or target plant tissue."

Huh?

Cruz is thrilled with his job, but that may be for the wrong reasons.

"It's a great opportunity to play with liquid nitrogen," Cruz said. "For all those youngsters who like to blow shit up, this is the job for you."

- phil villarreal

The Topless Dancer

At 7 p.m. on a Sunday night, the parking lot at Curves Cabaret is nearly packed to capacity. Inside, scores of beautiful young women who look like they're prepared for a bacchanalian festival on the beaches of Rio De Janeiro circle the floor, offering patrons individual table dances for a minimum of $5 a pop. On the stage and the floor, breasts are everywhere - popping out of see through bras or just happily bouncing around, unobstructed.

Political science major Secret is among the nubile young ladies who've made a living of flaunting their stuff - taking it all (or most of it) off for the enjoyment of a mostly-male clientele. And like her stripper sisters, Secret maintains dancing is a legitimate way to face the financial pressures that accompany student life.

"I've always loved to perform," says Secret, who began dancing at the age of 4. "Being on stage, dancing to the music, it's kind of a thrill," she says.

Secret was drawn to topless dancing after working in a print shop and as a waitress. In terms of employment freedom, dancing has got them both beat, she says.

"It's cool because there are no set hours, no long hours. You can come in, take off whenever you want. You don't have to call in sick," she says.

Not to mention, dancing tends to pay a bit better than running the photocopier at your local Kinko's.

"The money is, well, it's pretty good," she says with a sly smile.

And though Secret seems to ooze with an unabashed enthusiasm for her job, she admits there are some unsavory moments.

"Sometimes you get guys who touch you and they're not supposed to," she says. "We have lots of rules, like you're not supposed to touch them on their private parts, stuff like that."

- laura bond