Some Job Descriptions Are Simple: Hot

Even in the pre-dawn darkness Wednesday, Burke Stuchlik could tell it was going to be a scorcher. He couldn’t wait to get to work.

At 5 a.m., as usual, the bird keeper and his colleagues at Sea World began to bundle up: sweat shirts, heavy parkas, and yellow rubber slickers. And then, just as they were about to break a sweat, they stepped into the cold--the marine park’s Penguin Encounter, where temperatures average 18 to 23 degrees.

“Sounds good, huh? We were laughing,” Stuchlik said later, remembering his co-workers’ giddy mood as they tossed herring and smelt to the hungry penguins. “The thought crossed over our minds that we have to be the only people in San Diego that were dressed this way.”

Indeed, as San Diego got steamier Wednesday--hitting 91 at Lindbergh Field and breaking the heat record for the date--most people weren’t so lucky. Whether picking tomatoes, flipping burgers or hawking newspapers, San Diego County

workers found that a hard day’s work left them just another day older--and covered in sweat.

“It’s so hot, you almost can’t think,” said Charlie Moore, a foreman at the Parking Palace construction site on A Street downtown.

“Everybody seems to be moving at 33 1/3 r.p.m. instead of 45,” said Gary Priest, a senior animal trainer at the San Diego Zoo, where workers spent more time than usual showering rhinos and elephants--a thinly veiled attempt to keep themselves cool.

How much do the elephant keepers themselves sweat?

“Gallons,” said Gerald (Red) Thomas, the head elephant keeper, wiping his brow as if to emphasize the point.

From where Xavier Vazquez was standing on the top of a six-story building downtown, it looked like his was the hottest job in San Diego. Vazquez, a 27-year-old roofer, was feeding coal-black chunks of tar into a 600-degree asphalt heater. What was worse, he seemed to be dressed for brisk weather in a long-sleeved shirt and long pants.

“You have to carry hot asphalt around in the buckets, and it will splash just like water,” he explained.

Rick Greeny, who was mopping the steaming tar between two-by-fours strapped to the roof’s surface, took a philosophical approach. When it came to sweat, he said, he’d seen worse.

What most people don’t realize is that what matters most to roofers is not what the mercury says, but where it says it, Greeny said. For his part, he was glad to be working near the fresh winds of the Pacific instead of the still air of East County.

“Up here, if you just stay wet, you’ll stay cool all the time,” said Greeny, 40. Still, he said, “You’ve got to move you’re feet around, because, if you stand in one place, they’ll burn up.”

Out at Lindbergh Field, Rob Slattery used the same theory of relativity to help put his baggage-handling job in a more positive light.

“If you’re working inside the belly of the plane, it’s not too bad,” said Slattery, a ramp supervisor for Southwest Airlines. “I used to work in Phoenix, and that’s murder.”

Far from the cooler breezes of San Diego Bay, Ed Abners, a salesman at All-American Chevrolet in El Cajon, regretted having to leave his air-conditioned showroom to court the few prospective buyers that visited his lot.

“It’s like going out into a little microwave oven--you don’t want to,” said Abners, 43. “It’s just one of the things you have to do. . . . If they came out to brave the heat, you have to go out to brave the heat and sell them a car.”

By noon, Abners said, five people had visited the lot, about half the number that would have come by on a cooler day. But Abners didn’t blame those who stayed away.

“Going to buy a car should be a pleasure, not a task,” he said.

At the Del Mar Fair, 18-year-old Kriss Showalter dabbed her brow as she stood over the heating lamps at the Bonanza Hot Dog on a Stick. She said that, if she decides to work for the fair again next year, she might steer clear of the food booths.

Over at the San Diego Police Department booth, meanwhile, Community Service Officer Garry Clark donned a trench coat and an oversized dog’s head to become “McGruff the Crime-fighting Dog.” He said he was thankful that a fan was mounted inside the dog’s sweltering snout.

Peter D’Alessandro, 30, knew how Clark felt. The Sea World employee figures it’s 10 to 15 degrees hotter inside his Captain Kidd costume than out of it.

“If you can find breeze, it’s always nice,” he said. But, since part of his job entails posing for photographs, and since most people like to take pictures in the sun, he was hard-pressed to name a sweatier job. “I’m sure digging ditches wouldn’t be very pleasant. Although you’d get a good tan.”

At Kansas City Barbecue downtown, Robert Anthony Capoeman looked as if he might give D’Alessandro a run for the title. Standing in front of a 450-degree oven, the 40-year-old chef stirred several pots of boiling barbecue sauce. Occasionally, he used tongs to retrieve the ribs and roasts that sizzled in cast-iron pits--just a fraction of the 300 pounds of meat he would cook that day.

“I’m used to it,” said Capoeman, who said summers spent in Mexicali acclimated him to the job. “I drink a lot of sodas.”

According to kitchen manager Bob Cook, the heat makes an already tough job tougher. “You’ll strain, you get tense, sometimes irritable,” he said.

It might make him feel better to know that, when Stuchlik, the Sea World penguin keeper, left his deliciously chilly job at 3 p.m., he headed home to La Mesa, where temperatures hit 103 degrees Wednesday.

“I have air conditioning in my car, so I try to get in my car real quick,” Stuchlik said as he prepared to make the trip. “But stepping out of the car, it’s a blast furnace.”

Times staff writer Amy Wallace and photographer Barbara Martin Pinhero contributed to this report.