Speaker 1: Welcome to On the Job. This season, we're focusing on
Speaker 1: how people and businesses are getting back to work. Let's
Speaker 1: call it a great transformation, a change in the way
Speaker 1: workers are thinking. Employers need people to work more than ever,
Speaker 1: putting laborers in a sort of position of power. We'll
Speaker 1: be hearing from people navigating this new normal for themselves
Speaker 1: as they find their life's work. Today we talked to
Speaker 1: someone who has never not been in a great transformation.
Speaker 1: Marcelli Bellinger lives in Yonkers and is almost maniacally dedicated
Speaker 1: to improving himself, which eventually landed him in a job
Speaker 1: where he supervises people all trying to do the exact
Speaker 1: same thing. Okay, all right, thank you very much for
Speaker 1: talking to I appreciate it. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: me for this episode. I had the pleasure of talking
Speaker 1: with Marcelli Marcelly Bellinger. He was fifty seven when I
Speaker 1: interviewed him back in March. Birthday comes next month on April,
Speaker 1: which I would turn fifty eight. He's a very sprite
Speaker 1: fifty eight, and he's a very busy guy. Are you
Speaker 1: talking to me in the middle of a workday right now? Yes?
Speaker 1: I am. As a matter of fact, yes, I am
Speaker 1: and uh. Marcelli was born and raised in Yonkers, where
Speaker 1: he works now as a Grayston Ranger, and his job
Speaker 1: is to take out the trash to make sure that
Speaker 1: yonkerstays as clean as we need to make it, no
Speaker 1: question about it. Okay. So the Grayston Rangers is a
Speaker 1: really amazing transitional workforce program designed to keep Yonkers clean.
Speaker 1: Grayston is actually a bakery founded in nine two with
Speaker 1: the goal of hiring anyone who wanted to work, no
Speaker 1: background checks, no resumes, and in the two thousands they
Speaker 1: started programs like the Rangers to create more jobs and
Speaker 1: make Yonkers a better place to live. My job title
Speaker 1: is Rangers Development Program Manager. I've been a manager right
Speaker 1: now for exactly four months, but prior to that, I
Speaker 1: was an actual worker for eight years. As a manager,
Speaker 1: Marcelli oversees the Rangers as they spread out through the city,
Speaker 1: drive routes and clean up the streets. A lot of
Speaker 1: people sometimes see us and the first thing that goes
Speaker 1: through their mind is this is such an easy job.
Speaker 1: But I'm here to tell everyone it is not an
Speaker 1: easy job. I never assumed trash collection was an easy job,
Speaker 1: but the way that Marcelli describes it, his job is
Speaker 1: like a big game of chess, with the street maps
Speaker 1: being his board. You need to be strategic about your routes.
Speaker 1: You need to have some serious hustle, and you're battling
Speaker 1: the elements all the time. You have to be a
Speaker 1: quick thinker. Every day is a different day. It's not
Speaker 1: the same routine. It may be the same route, but
Speaker 1: it's never the same routine. A big part of this
Speaker 1: is that the Rangers, in their fluorescent vests, have become
Speaker 1: a huge part of the Yonkers landscape. They're constantly interacting
Speaker 1: with the community, getting people involved, talking with them and
Speaker 1: spreading the ethos that Grayston and the Rangers are founded on,
Speaker 1: and believe it or not, they start to catch onto
Speaker 1: it as they see as work in every day and
Speaker 1: the Grayston Rangers. It's a truly immersive program that helps
Speaker 1: workers to get to a place of self sufficiency in
Speaker 1: every part of their lives. So in addition to cleaning
Speaker 1: the streets, Marcelli is always helping his workers out with
Speaker 1: housing issues, putting together resumes, and finding other work. So
Speaker 1: the Rangers is a place you go when you want
Speaker 1: to get on your feet work and you need a
Speaker 1: hand to get that started. And whatever the situation is,
Speaker 1: we're gonna assess that and we're gonna try our best
Speaker 1: to work a solution now for you. Marcelli is infectiously
Speaker 1: positive and exudes Grayston's mission of teaching self improvement, upward mobility,
Speaker 1: and second chances. He's even got one of those inspirational
Speaker 1: office posters behind him in the interview, I'm going to
Speaker 1: read it to you. My story is continuing, no punctuation.
Speaker 1: After talking with Marcelli for a bit, it feels like
Speaker 1: he's always been an inspirational poster in human form. Again.
Speaker 1: He grew up in Yonkers. His parents were both really
Speaker 1: hard workers. That was a mechanic. So I was well
Speaker 1: on my way to being that type of worker, you know,
Speaker 1: because I saw my father working hard every day. I
Speaker 1: saw him doing the things that he had to do
Speaker 1: to take care of his family, and I adopted that. Also.
Speaker 1: In high school, he was a very serious athlete, pushed
Speaker 1: himself hard. He ended up going into the Army after
Speaker 1: seeing their commercials about bettering yourself and thought boot camp
Speaker 1: might be challenging. I wanted to work out be the
Speaker 1: best that could be, So it wasn't like a patriotism,
Speaker 1: Go America. Oh nah, you wanted to do push ups?
Speaker 1: You wanted to That's all I wanted to do was
Speaker 1: make myself better. That's that's that's the only thing it
Speaker 1: was about. He quickly moved up the ranks in the army,
Speaker 1: then got out in worked at a T and T
Speaker 1: as an operator. Then he switched gears to do a
Speaker 1: more physical job with his uncle's business. And I started
Speaker 1: doing moving, being a relocation engineer, because that's what they
Speaker 1: called them now. They're just not a mover, and that's
Speaker 1: exactly who I am. You know, you want to pick
Speaker 1: up that a little bit. So I became a relocation engineer,
Speaker 1: and I got good at it. I got very good
Speaker 1: at it. I got so good at it that I
Speaker 1: did it for twenty years. He got married, had two kids.
Speaker 1: In the early two thousand's, he got a job at
Speaker 1: the local power plan. He and his wife had just
Speaker 1: had their third child, and the night before MARCELLI was
Speaker 1: going to start this new job, there baby passed away
Speaker 1: in his sleep. It was obviously an unspeakably horrible moment,
Speaker 1: and Marcelly remembers how his new boss at the power
Speaker 1: plant was human. He cried I cried, and he said,
Speaker 1: Marcel listened, Go take care of your business. He said,
Speaker 1: do what you have to do. Your job is still here.
Speaker 1: Do not worry about your job. Don't you even think
Speaker 1: about this job. They sent flowers to the funeral, give
Speaker 1: him as much time as he needed. Before he even started,
Speaker 1: Marceli was being treated as more than an employee. I
Speaker 1: caught a lesson from that that you have to treat
Speaker 1: people in a certain way. When you show your kindness
Speaker 1: and you show your heartfelt loyalty to somebody, you always
Speaker 1: get a back. And from that day that's what I
Speaker 1: planned to do. I said, I'm going to treat every
Speaker 1: person with respect and dignity. He worked there for a while,
Speaker 1: then he was a concrete inspector, then back to relocation engineering.
Speaker 1: He liked moving around and doing new stuff, so into
Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen, his friend told him about a program
Speaker 1: that Grayston put together for veterans. He was telling me
Speaker 1: about a range of program and I said, oh, you
Speaker 1: mean the bakery, and they're like yeah, I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I used to work there. I used to do a
Speaker 1: little part time over there. Of course he did. Marcelli
Speaker 1: went into Grayston to hear about the job and found
Speaker 1: that it was a trash collection program, and in the
Speaker 1: interview he was asked if he had any problems cleaning
Speaker 1: up the streets, but he said he wanted to work.
Speaker 1: He needed to feed his family. He wanted to be
Speaker 1: physical and outside. And he thought about this question with
Speaker 1: the mantra that his dad imparted to him early on
Speaker 1: whatever job you do, be the best at what you do,
Speaker 1: because people are going to see you. He said. It
Speaker 1: may seem like the lowliest job in the world, he said,
Speaker 1: but I guarantee you someone's going to see you. When
Speaker 1: we come back from the break, Marcelli gets seen a
Speaker 1: strong work ethic, takes pride in a job well done,
Speaker 1: sweats over the details. This is the kind of person
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Speaker 1: to Marseli story. He went into interview at Grayston for
Speaker 1: the Rangers job, but the interviewer was late. Marcelli was patient,
Speaker 1: and after two hours the guy shows up pretty surprised
Speaker 1: that Marcelli was still there. When he brought me into office,
Speaker 1: he asked me about myself. I told him a little
Speaker 1: bit about myself and he stopped me in the middle
Speaker 1: of it and said, you really stayed for two hours.
Speaker 1: I said, yes, sir, when you want what you want,
Speaker 1: you have to stay and wait for it. I said,
Speaker 1: you can't lose your discipline. I said, I'm a very
Speaker 1: disciplined person. And he said, you know what, you got
Speaker 1: the job just like that. Just like anything he'd done
Speaker 1: till then, he wanted to go above and beyond, move
Speaker 1: up in the ranks and be challenged, and he definitely
Speaker 1: found that challenge coming into this job. Yonker's avenue at
Speaker 1: that time was drop off garbage City of the Capitol, mattresses,
Speaker 1: old furniture. This that which did it was a mess
Speaker 1: that's why the Rangers was put together a few years earlier.
Speaker 1: So he immediately went at it with his team and says,
Speaker 1: the streets looked completely different in two weeks, cleaned everything
Speaker 1: pristine to where now two weeks. In two weeks kind
Speaker 1: of taken care of to where now we can just
Speaker 1: do our usual cleaning and it's not a problem. The
Speaker 1: Younker's landscape changed quickly, and Marcelli was noticeably the guy
Speaker 1: out on the streets making that change. One day, he
Speaker 1: was out on one of his routes and a car
Speaker 1: pulled up. Guess who's in the car. The Mayor of
Speaker 1: Yankrews rolls down his window and he says, listen, I
Speaker 1: just want to tell you you're doing a phenomenal job.
Speaker 1: What's your name, Marcelli Bellinger. He said, I'll be seeing
Speaker 1: you soon, rolled up his window, went right on about
Speaker 1: his business. A week later, Marcelli gets invited to city Hall.
Speaker 1: The mayor shakes his hand in front of the assembly
Speaker 1: and as him a letter of accommodation, and he tells me,
Speaker 1: because of you, I'm gonna make this a job with
Speaker 1: the city. Because of you, the Grace and Rangers have
Speaker 1: been funded by grants to start out. Now, the mayor
Speaker 1: agreed to fund the program through the city. Marcelli picked
Speaker 1: up more routes on the other side of the city
Speaker 1: where he lived, so everybody seeing me everywhere. Somebody would
Speaker 1: see me even aren't you the guy that clean? Yes,
Speaker 1: I am, that is me, you know, and he was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: you do a damn good job, man, I see you,
Speaker 1: I see you. Eventually he became supervisor, the position he
Speaker 1: still holds today. And all I kept doing every day
Speaker 1: was making our routes better. How can I do this
Speaker 1: to make this more effective? Have my community see that
Speaker 1: it's clean, and how can I involve them in the
Speaker 1: clean up. As he and his team go around, they
Speaker 1: talk to people say, if you can clean your storefront
Speaker 1: or in front of your apartment, we can spend more
Speaker 1: time cleaning the parks in the streets, to the point
Speaker 1: where now it's part of the community routine that everyone
Speaker 1: does their part. So those are the things, like I
Speaker 1: said before, that when you put a hundred percent into
Speaker 1: it and you get involved with that community, those are
Speaker 1: the things that happened. Those are the results that happened.
Speaker 1: Those are the things that happened, because after you do
Speaker 1: a great cleaning for them. They want to see it
Speaker 1: clean all the time. Marcelli has simply helped make Yonkers
Speaker 1: a better place to live. The community has pride in
Speaker 1: the Rangers and what they do in cleaner streets, bring
Speaker 1: in more business, get people out and about more. We
Speaker 1: had little children that came up every day and said, listen,
Speaker 1: can I use your picker? Can I Can I help
Speaker 1: you with the picker? Cannot. So it wasn't a thing
Speaker 1: that we were like, hey, can't get out of here. Now,
Speaker 1: you don't know. We turned right around and I would
Speaker 1: bring extra pickers. Listen, here you go right before you
Speaker 1: go to school. Come on, do you think by bringing
Speaker 1: in the kids to what Grayston and the Rangers are
Speaker 1: doing with the foundation, they brought the parents in two
Speaker 1: families all got to know Marcelli by name, and he
Speaker 1: got to find out more about their lives, what they needed,
Speaker 1: if their housing was okay, if they needed work or
Speaker 1: help putting together resumes. I speak with everyone. I talked
Speaker 1: to him, ask them how they're doing, still working, not working?
Speaker 1: What are you doing? Oh? I'm not doing anything. Listen,
Speaker 1: you need to come to twenty one Park Avenue and
Speaker 1: come see me listen, we got jobs. Everything up. They
Speaker 1: come see me. Since I've been the manager, we have
Speaker 1: created at least thirty jobs. We have thirty people working
Speaker 1: right now. How does it feel now that you have
Speaker 1: transformed the space that you grew up in? It feels great.
Speaker 1: It feels that I've accomplished what I needed to accomplish,
Speaker 1: but I know I still got more road to go.
Speaker 1: Marcelli doesn't really have an off button for his self
Speaker 1: improvement drive, and that's what he's passed on to the
Speaker 1: people he works with. Every day before work, he has
Speaker 1: meetings with his team and he asked them what can
Speaker 1: he do for them? Their family? They're my family, and
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that when they go out,
Speaker 1: there's nothing on their minds to inhibit their work. A
Speaker 1: happy worker is a great worker at worker that has
Speaker 1: no problems. It's one of the best worker you're going
Speaker 1: to ever see because there's nothing on his mind but
Speaker 1: the work itself. And at the end of every day,
Speaker 1: he makes sure to tell everyone he's working with one thing.
Speaker 1: I say thank you. I'm so appreciative of their work
Speaker 1: because I've been there so many times nobody told me
Speaker 1: thank you, So every day I make it a point
Speaker 1: to tell every one of my people, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for just doing what you do. You make me.
Speaker 1: I don't make you, you make me. Marcelli might seem
Speaker 1: like one of those cheesy inspirational posters in human form,
Speaker 1: but that's because he actually operates by the mantras that
Speaker 1: most people pretend to live by. And it makes a
Speaker 1: difference when you come across someone who actually lives their
Speaker 1: lives like that or does their daily job with that ethos,
Speaker 1: no matter what it is they do. And if anyone
Speaker 1: thinks that sounds cheesy or unrealistic, or questions that one
Speaker 1: person thinking like that can make a difference, just walk
Speaker 1: down Yonkers Avenue and take a look around. Ask the mayor.
Speaker 1: I think there's a stigma against people who have worked
Speaker 1: as many different jobs and careers as someone like Marcelli has,
Speaker 1: like they can't lock down one or stay the course,
Speaker 1: always in transition. But why stay a course? Marcelli has
Speaker 1: transitioned so many times because he's never wanted to stop growing,
Speaker 1: despite any hardships that you assume would stop him or
Speaker 1: anyone us right in their tracks. And the workers he
Speaker 1: supervises at Grayston are people just like him. Humans in transition,
Speaker 1: just trying to be better. And if that means that
Speaker 1: one of his workers finds other opportunities and moves on
Speaker 1: from the Rangers, he's proud of them. Listen, don't think
Speaker 1: that because you whin it got a better job, that
Speaker 1: I'm feeling mad at you, that I'm some sort of hater.
Speaker 1: I don't drink hate to ration. I don't drink hate
Speaker 1: to raid. I don't do any of that. What I
Speaker 1: do is I'm proud of you for taking another step
Speaker 1: towards your goal. There's no roof. Don't make a roof.
Speaker 1: There's no roof. Whenever you think that you hit the ceiling,
Speaker 1: guess what, it's some more and more wrungs that you
Speaker 1: gotta go up in. This season all about the great
Speaker 1: transformation we're going through. That's what I took away from MARCELLI.
Speaker 1: Lean in and keep transforming. It's literally all we can do.
Speaker 1: Stick to the goal of just being better her for ourselves,
Speaker 1: and just keep going. Once you lay the blueprint, just
Speaker 1: follow the blueprint, and it'll all makes sense to you
Speaker 1: at the end of the day because you will receive
Speaker 1: the prize that you need to receive. You know, no punctuation,
Speaker 1: No punctuation. That's it for on the job. I'm a discray.
Speaker 1: To learn more about Grayston and the Rangers program, go
Speaker 1: to Grayston dot org. Thank you for listening.