A Stadium Beer Vendor

10/15/23 • 27 min

Meeting Muhammad Ali, handling fans who are alcoholics, pouring with no foam, and dreaming about one last game with Howard Hart, who spent three decades as a stadium beer vendor.
If you want to see Howard in action, The Washington Post put together a great video feature on him in 2014.

NEW BOOK ALERT!
You may be aware that I’ve written or co-written five business books, including The Power of Moments and Made to Stick. I’ve got a sixth book out now called RESET: How to Change What’s Not Working. It’s a book intended to help you and your team get unstuck, to overcome the gravity of the way things have always worked. Learn more about the book and order it here. You can also listen to it on Audible and at Apple Books.
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What do people think your job is like and what is it actually like?
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What do people think your job is like and what is it actually like?
What’s a word or phrase that only someone from your profession would be likely to know and what does it mean?

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Coming Soon: What It's Like To Be...

Curious what it would be like to walk in someone else’s (work) shoes? Join New York Times bestselling author Dan Heath as he explores the world of work, one profession at a time, and interviews people who love what they do. What does a couples therapist think when a friend asks for relationship advice? What happens if a welder fails to wear safety glasses? What can get a stadium beer vendor fired? If you’ve ever met someone whose work you were curious about, and you had 100 nosy questions but were too polite to ask ... well, this is the show for you.

What do people think your job is like and what is it actually like?
What’s a word or phrase that only someone from your profession would be likely to know and what does it mean?

Next Episode

A Couples Therapist

Mystery dates, adult playrooms, habit stacking, and the misuse of “narcissism” with Laura Heck, a virtual couples therapist. Laura is also a co-host of the podcast Marriage Therapy Radio.

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What do people think your job is like and what is it actually like?
What’s a word or phrase that only someone from your profession would be likely to know and what does it mean?

What It's Like To Be... - A Stadium Beer Vendor

Transcript

Dan Heath:
Howard Hart was a beer vendor, one of the guys who walks up and down the stairs at the stadium during a game shouting, "Cold beer!" And it wasn't a summer job for him. It wasn't a starting out job. It was his career. And he loved it, partly because every now and then his job delivered these incredible moments. Like this one time he was working a Mike Tyson fight in Atlantic City, and he was in a back hallway.
Howard Hart:
And along comes this entourage like about, there was