by Karen Brune Mathis
Managing Editor
It was an afterthought to the conversation Tuesday.
Firehouse Subs Corporate Communications Director Cecily Sorensen asked the Jacksonville-based company’s new technical writer, Scott Schalk, if he’d explained about the shoes.
He was wearing a pair of black Bostonians.
But not just any black Bostonians. These were Bob Barker’s black Bostonians.
Why is Schalk walking in Bob Barker’s shoes?
Schalk worked on “The Price is Right,” which starred Barker. As one of the people charged with interviewing contestants, Schalk briefed Barker before each taping about what to expect.
Schalk didn’t expect Barker to ask what size shoes he wore. Barker was wearing a new and uncomfortable pair and when he discovered Schalk could wear the 10.5s, he gave them to him.
“I was not expecting getting the shoes and enjoyed receiving them,” said Schalk. He still wears them.
Schalk, a Florida native, joined Firehouse in October, a career move that follows others that took him to Price as well as “Let’s Make a Deal” and brief work for “American Idol” and “Bridezillas.”
In an interview Tuesday at the Firehouse Subs in San Marco, Schalk said he wanted to return to Jacksonville, one of his earlier stops on his career path. The TV experience was fun, but he was ready for a change.
“It was a goal I had set in college. I had reached it and I wanted to do something different,” he said.
Schalk said he grew up in Palm City, where he played the tuba for seven years in middle and high school. He attended the University of Central Florida for a year, but then eventually earned a degree in communications from Florida Atlantic University in May 2002.
Focusing on television production, he took the inventive approach to delivering his resume, including one as “a message in a bottle” in a treasure chest of sand, shells and fake and chocolate coins.
He landed an interview for a job as an assistant producer, but didn’t receive an offer.
Same story at another station, this time through a resume delivered in a shoe to “get my foot in the door.”
A friend had an uncle who knew someone at “The Price is Right,” and Schalk moved to Los Angeles in August 2002, met the friend-of-an-uncle-of-a-friend and found no openings.
But he became a show intern, enrolling in college to qualify as a student. After the internship ended in May 2003, he took a job as an assistant in two departments of the parent company.
In February 2004, he was called back to Price.
His job was to help identify contestants. “It was my job every day to go to Bob Barker’s dressing room and tell him who he has to work with.”
Twice on Monday and once a day Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Schalk and a co-worker would interview the 320 people lined up for the show and choose nine of them. Contestants didn’t know they were chosen until called to “come on down” during the show.
He looked for people who were energetic and happy to be there. He looked for people who wouldn’t clam up if chosen.
“We did not want people to freeze on stage. We didn’t want people to not appreciate the prize,” he said. And, they looked for a contestant’s probability to “not be a showboat. There’s one star on stage.”
Schalk estimated that he and a colleague personally interviewed about 150,000 people during his time with the show, from February 2004 to March 2007.
“The interview process is a task that requires at least two people. One speaks while the other listens and writes information about each potential contestant,” said Schalk.
Barker retired in June 2007. Schalk posted his resume and landed an interview and a job with the National Safety Commission in Ponte Vedra Beach.
That lasted nine months, he said, as his job focus changed. Then came unemployment for almost two years, from November 2007 to August 2009, spanning the national recession that began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009.
He applied for production and communications jobs and waited tables.
Then he received the call to do the contestant selection for “Let’s Make a Deal,” which taped in Las Vegas.
“We chose contestants the same way,” he said.
Contestants would lug in suitcases just in case host Wayne Brady asked for a wacky item.
The most unusual experience was the man who tried to bring in a gun, just in case Brady thought to ask for one during the taping. He was stopped at security.
Schalk spent a season and a half with Deal, which moved to Los Angeles. “I was living bicoastal,” he said. He wanted to return to his partner in Jacksonville and be closer to family.
Schalk saw the Firehouse Subs job posting online in April, while he was still with Deal. Sorensen called in August. He interviewed in September, accepted the job in early October and started Oct. 18.
He’s in charge of the design, editing and production of internal documents, such as operations manuals and employee handbooks. Firehouse encompasses 400 restaurants and 6,000 owners and employees.
Being back in Florida, he is closer to his mother and twin sisters in Stuart, his grandmother in Port St. Lucie and his brother in Palm Beach Gardens.
He said he is enjoying the structure at Firehouse compared to the “organized chaos” of game-show television.
He also said he appreciates the security, having spent time out of work, “when you’re constantly getting the door slammed.”
He did have a few other TV stints during that time, including logging information for contestants auditioning in Miami for “America’s Got Talent” and working on an episode in Palm Beach for “Bridezillas.” He also did some licensing work with “American Idol.”
Being unemployed, “you do go through a panic and you don’t know if it’s survivable,” he said.
“I learned, I’m OK.”
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