Liberty Tax Hires Job Hoppers During Peak Season

There are paths worn into the grass on the side of Burnet road where Jeff Tydeman, and the employees who came before him, have marched, waved and danced since 2003. During tax season, Jan. 1 to April 15, Liberty Tax advertises their services with the iconic sign wavers in the Lady Liberty costumes. People working at Liberty Tax often bounce between short-term positions for months at a time. Some have mastered a handful of trades, including lawn service, house cleaning and pool maintenance. Others doing the job are just looking for the nearest opportunity to earn a paycheck and get away from their chosen underpass.

“When I was looking for a job on Craigslist I saw the posting and all it said was, ‘Come ready to play the fool,’” Jeff said. “The hardest part for me is the apathy, when people are just driving by. When people wave and honk obviously I’m doing my job. Maybe [if I was in a big city] they’d appreciate it more, the way you appreciate a flower when you’re surrounded by dead things.”

The one page application that requires nothing more than contact information and current employment data makes it easy for the company to uphold their equal opportunity employment clause. The policy covers things like race, color, age and sex but it extends beyond that, giving job opportunities to a range of people, including an 80-year-old Russian gentleman in Cedar Park who speaks no English.

“A free spirit if what we’re looking for,” Lynn Liles, Austin franchise owner said. “Most of our new clients come in because they saw a waver, which before I owned one of these places I would’ve never dreamed that any body doing something as serious as their taxes would be influenced by something as nonserious as a costumed waver.”

At the least, the Liberty wavers work four hour shifts. To fill the time, Jeff has mastered his own unintentional routines. During his last few weeks on the job he created a series of moves, including those modeled after Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley. But the dancing doesn’t change the fact that he is left to himself for hours of solitude.

He takes up the time by listening to sports talk shows, comedy bits and old school R&B. His radio player is broken, working only from 1000 up in the AM stations and 100 up on FM. To get good reception for his favorite station, he does a special march on the North West part of the hill. Cars and observers honk and wave, reacting to the special show they’re getting, but Jeff is just looking for a strong signal for BOB 103.5.

“I don’t dance,” Jeff said. “But I’ll go out there and I’ll play the fool. I don’t care what anybody thinks. I have something that people don’t have. I’m not good with math. I’m not good with computers. But I’m good at this, and it’s kind of good that I have that compensating factor.”

During his off season, Jeff works alternative jobs that require him to be dressed up. Most recently he’s been Santa and Bevo for Costume World, a shop just down the street from his current territory. He has yet to find someone to fulfill his career goal of working in a gorilla suit.

While his Liberty Tax job is just seasonal, his gigs that follow let him do what he’s good at – entertaining people through other personas.

His current career isn’t an accurate representation of his life plans. Originally, Jeff studied, and received his bachelor’s in English. Now he is a humor columnist for the underground street newspaper, The Challenger. If things went his way, he would be writing full time. His love for comedy spills over into his current job but that doesn’t stop him from pursuing his passion as a hobby.

His writing has gone beyond hiding his words in journals and freelancing for small publications. In the years of pursuing a career as a writer he has stumbled into the offices of book publishers in hopes of finding an in in the literary realm. That was one of the first of his encounters with a world that will only work with you if you are somebody.

Jeff and his manuscript left the office after being asked a question that would stick with him, “Who are you and why should we give you this chance?”

Now, to every passing car and pedestrian, he’s nothing more than the Liberty Tax guy, but to the customers he brings in and his employers he’s a hard worker and a guy with an impressive arsenal of dance moves.

The customers who come in are less concerned about the 7.8 percent unemployment rate than the wavers like Jeff are. But in the 75 mile radius around Austin there are 46 franchises, annually opening over 100 jobs for sign spinners alone.

At the store on Airport Boulevard, across from what is now a dilapidated gas station in a building that looks like a ran down IHOP, a sign waver works in a parking lot, constantly dodging vehicles that are trying to work their way back to the pizza shop down on the corner.

No one who is permanent in his life would know that his first name is Arnold. A.J. Johnson, the 32-year-old mainstay of the Austin east side and current sign waver, introduces himself using his formal name to keep up the air of professionalism. He makes nine dollars an hour, more than he would make flipping burgers, but not as much as most of the clients who come in the tax office make. Regardless, he respects every one he encounters. 

“I’m not the kind to stalk, or to say bad words, I try to be polite,” A.J. said. “So basically it’s like, ‘How you doin’ ma’am? How you doin’ sir? Have you done your taxes yet? If you haven’t done them with anybody else come do them with us.’”

Like anyone in this business, the job is a means to an end. Working six hour shifts, five days a week for 13 weeks makes tired legs and sore arms, but that doesn’t stop A.J. from striving to bring customers in and make them happy.

“Seeing a lot of customers come back and seeing customers smile from the time they save [is the best],” A.J. said. “That’s like the best part of my job, seeing people actually filing their taxes and being any help that I have been to them, that’s really, right there, that’s exciting.”  

In his off season, A.J. uses his mastered skills, everything from painting houses to fixing the things others prefer not to. While this is his third tax season working at Liberty Tax, the other 24 months he wasn’t with them he job hopped, working short term assignments, including mowing lawns and cleaning houses with his 60-year-old mother.

The jobs require a common skill – customer service. A.J., even when working a job where people are constantly turning their nose up at him, keeps a pleasant attitude. Outside, he and other wavers deal with the interactions from people on the streets.

“The worst part is when you have people who are rude,” A.J. said. “[But] a lot of people are wavin’, smilin’. If that happens I feel like I’ve made their day better.”

On the wall of the store, posters list the virtues of the company. Ideally, customers will feel at home. They can bring their kids in. They’re given chocolate if they get too stressed. There’s a snack bar to keep anxieties low. These policies extend beyond the customers and apply to the employees as well. While the mission is nothing as altruistic as seeking out the people desperately in need of work, once the stores hire their staff, the accountants and the sign wavers are all taken care of.

For 13 weeks of every year, the positions for Lady Liberty are filled with people who are looking to make it to the next seasonal job.

“A lot of our people come back year after year,” Liles said. “Some of [our customers] stop by and tell us that we’ve made their day. They’ll tell us, ‘I’ve enjoyed them all season long, thank you very much.’ And if you’ve got a good one of anything like that, it kind of makes you smile.”