The drop-off station at the Terrace Heights Landfill is dirty, dusty and loud, with a giant loader roaring around pushing garbage into piles in the corner. It sweeps by with terrifying speed, pushing a mound of smashed cabinets and branches, picking up a couch, a tinseled Christmas tree, and what looks like a perfectly good lamp along the way. It’s just a tiny portion of the 720 tons of trash the residents of Yakima County drop off at this landfill every day.
Pickup trucks piled with garbage wait for a worker in an orange vest and hard hat to wave them over to a drop-off spot. They can’t miss Lori Rae Amodio. Her hot pink hard hat sports a Seahawks logo on one side, a Mariners logo on the other, and a big rhinestone “L” on the front. Her personality sparkles as brightly as the rhinestones on her hat as she smiles and jokes with customers.
Working at a landfill was not what she planned for her life. She started in sales, then retail management. But she’s always loved sewing, so when a job as a seamstress at Yakima Tent & Awning came up — it seemed perfect. After a few years she realized that wasn’t the right fit either. “I love being a seamstress and I still do it, but doing it for a living kind of took the joy out of it,” she says. She was working at the Parks Department when she saw the job as a maintenance technician at the landfill. It was a union job with good pay, benefits, and a pension.
She knew it would be tough, but she went for it. “Originally — it was just not a girl’s job. There were women in the scale house, but I was the first female to actually be a maintenance worker,” she says, and grins. “I was told numerous times — you’ll only make it six days, you’ll only make it six weeks, six months — they were taking bets. At six years, I brought a cake.” Lori Rae’s been there for 11 years now. She says the pink hard hat is more about practicality than making a statement. “I work with all guys, and the first week, one of the guys accidentally grabbed my hard hat and put it on. After that, I got a pink one. Nobody’s stolen my hard hat since.”
It’s not an easy job, as the description makes clear: “Work is performed primarily outdoors for extended periods and under unfavorable weather conditions. Requires climbing, stooping, crouching, crawling, pushing, pulling and lifting.”
“You have to be able to lift 50-100 pounds on a regular basis,” she explains. “You have to be able to trudge up and down these hillsides, which are very steep and crumbly, and pick litter. The first couple months it was pretty difficult, but now I call it mountain goatin’ up the hillside.” She’s 49 now, and she can still do it.
When I ask her about the smell she doesn’t say a word. She simply smiles and pulls a neon-green neckerchief over her mouth and nose, so I can barely see her eyes. She says the benefits of the job outweigh drawbacks like that. She loves the camaraderie of working with the team of seven other technicians. She loves meeting new people and greeting her regulars. Plus — this job is never boring. She wants to write a book someday, called “I Saw it at The Landfill.”
To read the full story, visit http://www.yakimaherald.com/news/business/women_in_business/she-saw-it-at-the-landfill/article_d93de1aa-b84c-11e7-943e-43511712eec0.html.