So, how many hours a week do you work? At how many jobs?
Be prepared to shake your head in amazement — tinged with a little bit of embarrassment that you ever complained about being tired from work.
Meet Tootsie, a full-time school custodian who doubles as the weekend pit master at the legendary Snow’s BBQ in Lee County, Texas. She’s in the restaurant at 2am and works all day tending fires, humping 150-pound cuts of meat on her shoulder, and creating what Texas Monthly recently called the best barbeque in Texas.
Tootsie, by the way, is 80 years old. Yeti, the booming cooler company with more than $500 million in revenues, recently shared her story in a video.
Tootsie’s secret? She truly believes in hard work, something she learned growing up on a farm. Locals say Tootsie embodies a work ethic that’s hard to find these days – even in Texas — and insist she gets more done in a day than the average 35-year-old man.
“I don’t think there’s a lazy bone in her body,” says one friend.
“It could be that I enjoy barbequing because it is hard work,” Tootsie recently told an interviewer. “I probably can’t lift as much as I used to, but I don’t use the phrase ‘I can’t.’ It’s just not in my vocabulary.”
“I don’t think she’ll ever retire,” says Tootsie’s boss at Snow’s. “They may close the lid on her.”
Huh. It’s not often that we think of hard work as a fountain of youth. Maybe Tootsie’s on to something…
