By Emma Weidmann | Editor-in-Chief
In a 27-foot, hot dog-shaped van, the Oscar Mayer Hotdoggers are nothing short of conspicuous in a place like Waco. Wherever they go, they turn heads, drop jaws and make phones come out to record. But for Akira Potts, also known as “Aioli Akira,” the attention is welcome.
Being a Hotdogger was Potts’ dream job as an undergraduate communication major at the University of Missouri. Her friends would send her pictures when the Wienermobile came to campus — which was often — and when she left town to go to Madison, Wis., for the second round of interviews, her boss had the whole office invested.
“When I got the job, I got the call on spring break, and I was on a trip with a bunch of my friends,” Potts said. “I answered the phone, and I walked out into the hallway to be by myself. And then slowly, one by one, everybody just started trickling out into the hallway because they could hear me being like, ‘Oh, thank you so much.’… And then I hung up the phone, and they all just kind of looked at me, and then we all just started screaming. … I’m truly living my dream, and freshman year me? She wouldn’t even know what to say. I’d be so incredibly stoked.”
Potts has been on the road since June with copilot Connor Wolff. Wolff said that at 28 years old, he is one of the older Hotdoggers. For many, driving one of the six vehicles that are deployed regionally throughout the country is their first job, as the company recruits new drivers on college campuses like the University of Texas, the University of Alabama, Penn State University and others.
The entry-level marketing position only lasts a year, spanning from June to June and stopping for Thanksgiving, Christmas and spring break, much like a college student’s schedule.
To “cut the mustard,” as Potts said, is a tough process. After becoming one of the 12 chosen out of more than 8,000 applicants, new drivers will attend Hotdog High, a two-week program during which they learn the ropes and hear from the previous class of Hotdoggers.
Wolff took an unusual route, coming to the position after being in the U.S. Army for four and a half years post-graduation from Penn State. Wolff is also known as “Captain Glizzy,” his Army nickname, which he was able to keep.
Although this is a very different position than what he had been doing in active duty — he was an infantry officer running basic training — Wolff said the adaptability he learned in the military has helped him on the “hotdog highways.”
“We were supposed to go to Houston in July, and the day before we were going to leave for Houston is when the hurricane hit,” Wolff said. “So, we can’t go to Houston anymore. What do we do? We had our events, and we had to quickly come up with a new plan, and we rerouted to Dallas. It’s a saying in the Army — ‘no plan survives first contact’ — and I feel like that’s the exact same deal. You’ll pull up, and it will be an event going on. How do we navigate through this festival to get to our parking spot over there? We’re constantly working through little issues.”
The Hotdoggers hop from city to city, arriving on Mondays and spending the rest of the week at events like parades and festivals as well as pop-ups called “Surprise and Delights.” They’ve been to the Ronald McDonald House in San Antonio, driven the Wienermobile on the Circuit of the Americas track in Austin and paid a visit to a dachshund race at a wiener dog festival. All in all, they’ve hit 14 states so far.
“The people in general, it makes all the events go by in a heartbeat. It’s so fun,” Wolff said. “And no one’s ever upset to see the Wienermobile — always happy. So they just radiate that joy onto us too, which is great.”
The non-stop lifestyle can be exhausting. But one thing that makes it worthwhile, Potts said, is reminding herself what it was that made her want the job in the first place.
“I’m a people person,” Potts said. “I love talking to people and going into the communities. Getting to talk to everybody and hear their stories and share some of my story is always fun … It doesn’t feel like work ever. It’s never something we have to do; it’s something we get to do, and I relish the opportunity.”
The Wienermobiles have been on the road since 1936, but there have been cohorts of Hotdoggers since 1988. Because of that, Potts and Wolff said they frequently run into former Hotdoggers, and there’s a strong network made up of those who have been in their shoes.
“The first place that we went to when we left training was Chicago. So that was our first market before we made our way down. On one of our first couple of events, this guy walks up to us, and he’s like, ‘Hi. My name is Stan,’ and he introduced himself as a former Hotdogger. He was from class number seven — 30 years ago.”
Come January, Potts and Wolff will be reassigned to different regions and different vehicles to finish out the last leg of their journey. But Potts said when her time is up, she’s looking forward to passing on her knowledge and becoming part of the support system for the new Hotdoggers.
“I think that makes it the most fun, being able to give back,” Potts said. “We all like each other, and we know each other and want the best for everybody. And so just passing on the things that we got to learn while we were on the road helps a lot.”
