Twenty-four year old Lorenzo Cisneros has worked as a driver at MyLackey.com since December, 1999. In that short period of time, he's become one of the company's head drivers and regularly puts in 10 to 12 hour days. Even though the work is hard, Lorenzo says he loves it -- besides, hard work is something he grew up with in a small farming community East of the Cascades near Yakima.

Q: Where did you get your work ethic?

I'd have to say it was my father. At a very young age, he made us work in the fields a little bit, to get our hands dirty. He'd tell us, "This is what you have to look forward to if you don't apply yourself and want to succeed.

This is what you can fall back on." My father is a foreman on a ranch, and my mom cleans houses. I've had an odd relationship just like every other son would with his father. But, you know, it's one of those things that I can never thank him enough for -- there's not a dollar amount I could put on that.

After I graduated from high school, I knew that I would have been either a professional tractor driver or fruit picker. I decided there was a lot of opportunity in Seattle so I went to the big city. When I first moved here with two friends, we didn't have jobs. Between the three of us, we had $500. I did my fair share of eating Top Ramen as my main staple.

I've remodeled houses, been a dishwasher, driven a produce truck…in my last job, doing produce delivery, I worked very early and very long hours. It made me feel like I was a fifty year-old man. I hated it. I called myself a pack mule.

Q: What do you like about being a Lackey?

I love interacting with people. If you don’t have a personality, this isn’t a job for you. You have to joke around. You’d be surprised by the response from clients, how grateful they are, because they are just overwhelmed. You are there to do the stuff they don’t have time to do, like dry-cleaning and laundry. Occasionally we’ll have repeat customers, and you sit there for a couple of minutes and chat it up. 

Q: What is your workday like?

I'm the head driver of six other drivers so I have to make sure that they get their routes taken care of. I'm one of the first ones there and the last to leave. I work ten-hour days -- sometimes twelve-hour days. I try not to go past twelve. I am paid hourly. I get plenty of overtime. We have six drivers and we are always on the hunt for more.

Q: What's the strangest errand you've run?

This lady was registering her child for preschool, and she had something she had to do. She had me sit in line for two hours surrounded by a bunch of women in a church to get her son in the better time slot for preschool.

Bottom line: anything that people don’t have time to do, they call us up.

Once a lady called up and needed to return some videos

She was willing to pay $40 to return these movies. We didn’t get it until the driver called me and said he should have parked the van around the block. He was returning the movies to a porn shop.

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