How old do you have to be?
To work for NATS, you must be 13 or older.
In Nebraska, the legal age to detassel is actually 12, but some seed corn companies have older age restrictions. NATS contracts with three different seed corn companies to make sure we have a good season and enough acres for the crew. One of the companies that we contract with requires that all workers be at least 13.
Also, please be aware that our crews are made of junior high, high school and college-aged workers. We do not hire adult post-college detasselers, except for supervisory positions. If you are post-college age and are interested in detasseling, we suggest you contact one of the temporary agencies in town, as they sometimes put together adult detasseling crews.
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When does the season start?
Generally, the season starts somewhere around July 10. It can start a few days earlier or later than this.
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How long does the season last?
A typical detasseling season lasts between two to three weeks. With the increase of corn production, we do sometimes see the season stretching into a fourth week.
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How much do you pay?
At NATS, we start out at a guaranteed $7.25 per hour. We have incentives for good and perfect attendance, as well as incentives for experienced detasselers. In addition, we have another incentive in place for the top five workers on each bus.
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How much can my son or daughter make during the season?
Because we are involved in agricultural work, it is very difficult to predict how much you can make during any given season. Some seasons are more spread out, giving us a longer period in which to do our work. Other seasons can be very compacted, and it doesn’t leave us a lot of time to get the job done.
However, our goal at NATS is to try to provide between 60-80 hours of work for detasselers on our regular buses. For our clean-up crew (called the Force), our goal is that they will come home with at least $2400 for the season.
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How do you get on the clean-up crew?
The clean-up crew is comprised of 16-year-olds and up, all of whom have detasseled before. If you have been a Top 5 detasseler from one of our regular buses and you are at least 16, you qualify to be on the clean-up crew. This is due in part because of the way the labor laws are written, which allow 16-year-olds and older to work more hours. Last year, half of our clean-up crew was in college--and the average season's earnings for those with good attendance on the crew was a little over $2800.
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How can I find a good detasseling company for my child?
I think the key to finding a good detasseling company is knowing what questions to ask.
Talk to teens who have detasseled before, and talk to their parents. At NATS, my philosophy is that the detasselers will not be asked to do something we adult supervisors are not also willing to do ourselves. In other words, we work shoulder to shoulder with them in the fields. Listed below are several things you can do to make sure your teen is hired by a reputable company.
- Make sure you know who will be working with your teen in the fields. Do the adults actually work in the field with the crew or are they at the front of the field, or simply checking rows after the crew has been through?
- Ask other parents whom they might recommend.
- Make sure you can understand their pay system. If it’s confusing or vague, this can lead to disappointment. Sometimes companies talk about what their highest paid worker earned last year, but this is generally not representative of what the average worker on that crew earned.
- Beware of companies that seem to be aggressively recruiting your son or daughter (Better companies do not have to do much recruiting, as they have a substantial number of returnees. Companies that have high turnover must recruit heavily the following year).
- Make sure you know whether or not your teen will lose a perfect attendance bonus if he or she chooses not to work on Sunday.
- Many companies engage in what I call “overhiring.” A company hires more workers than it actually needs to complete the number of acres that are contracted, and simply rotates detasselers around during the season. The goal is to find out who the very best workers are and then give them lots of hours; however, this leads to great disappointment for many on the crew because they may only get three or four days of work. NATS does not engage in the practice of overhiring; once you have a spot on a NATS bus, that spot is yours for the entirety of the season.
- Call the Nebraska Workforce Development Office (formerly known as the Nebraska Department of Labor). Be aware that they cannot specifically tell you which company to work for. However, if you have a particular detasseling company in mind, they can give you general feedback about that company. This is the office that handles complaints brought against detasseling companies during and after the season. Their number is 471-3712.
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How do I know when to pick my son or daughter up?
The length of the days do vary, depending upon how many acres need to be done and how far away the fields are. At NATS, we want to make sure that no one is left stranded in a parking lot after a long day’s work. When our buses pull out of the field at the end of the day, the bus assistant will announce to everyone what time they will be back to the bus site. The detasselers then can call the person who is picking them and let them know the time. If they do not have their own cell phone, they can use the bus assistant's phone to call. Pick-up times are generally between 1:00 and 4:30 p.m., with rare instances of it being earlier or later than that.
We do pay our bus assistants to stay at the site until everyone is picked up, so we do appreciate you being prompt in picking your son or daughter up.
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Where are the fields located?
The fields that we will be going to are located anywhere between Milford and York, Nebraska, both south and north of Interstate 80. For the Omaha crew, most of our acres are located in the Elkhorn Valley near Waterloo.
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Do you work for just one farmer?
No. We will be on many, many fields during the course of the season. Seed corn companies utilize farmers and their fields to plant specific varieties of corn. The seed corn companies then offer contracts to detasseling companies in order to perform detasseling services for them.
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Does my son or daughter bring their own lunch?
Yes. We recommend that you pack a large lunch and some snacks the first day. We leave the lunches on the bus, and then take our breaks on the bus. We recommend avoiding foods that can spoil in the heat, such as mayonnaise, meats, dairy products, etc. Detasselers often mention that they are very hungry for fruit, and also enjoy something salty, like chips or pretzels, in order to replenish salt they’ve lost through sweating. We do not recommend taking salt tablets.
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How much water should my son or daughter bring?
We recommend using a gallon container of some sort. You can even freeze milk jugs full of water if you don’t want to buy one. Clearly label your jug with your name in permanent marker. Also, freezing larger “ice cubes” will help your water stay colder longer. You will carry this jug down to the field with you and leave it on the front side of the field. We also recommend taking a smaller water bottle with you up and down the rows to help keep you hydrated. Many detasselers find that camelbacks are extremely helpful. (There are inexpensive versions of these at Wal-mart). We will have plenty of extra drinking water on the bus as well. Pop and other caffeinated drinks can actually dehydrate your body, and we do not recommend drinking these.
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What about restrooms?
On every field we will go to, there will be at least one port-a-potty for you to use. Generally they are equipped with water for handwashing and soap. If not, we have handwashing water and soap provided for detasselers on the back of the bus. We recommend you use the port-a-potty when we first arrive at the field or during breaks.
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What kind of adult supervision is there on the field?
Every NATS bus will have one bus driver and one bus assistant. Both of these supervisors will be in the field with the crew at all times. When the crew is working, they will see an adult supervisor approximately every 30 minutes. This level of accountability is important both for safety and behavioral issues. My supervisory staff is very carefully chosen. I do not place ads for these people, but use networking and references to make sure quality individuals are in place. Every bus driver must go through a screening process, which includes drug testing.
In addition, every bus is equipped with a cell phone. I am in constant communication with the buses throughout the day, and emergency numbers are laminated onto cards for field personnel to carry with them at all times in the field.
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I heard your crews fill up very fast. How can my son or daughter get a spot on your crew?
The buses do fill up fast. On March 1 we activate the online application. This year we had our first application in at four minutes after midnight! Most of the buses were full within two weeks. When I look over the applications, I look at primarily three things: Do you meet the height/age requirement? How many days will you be available to work during the season overall? What did you put in the chores/work and/or sports experience column? If you leave that blank, you're not going to get hired, even if you're 6'2". If you want to detassel, I at least need to know that you know how to take out the garbage without whining, right?
Although I can't do personal interviews with everyone, I do notice the small stuff, too. For example, if it's getting pretty full on the buses and I have to choose between two seemingly equal applications, I start looking at the small stuff. Which applicant followed my directions about using correct punctuation on the application? (Detasseling is detail work, so details matter. When you don't use correct punctuation for street addresses and stuff, I have to go back in and correct it all so I can use it for mailings). Hate to say it, but again, if you've chosen to identify yourself with a raunchy email address, I'll choose the applicant who sounds more legit. I know you may mean it as a joke or whatever, but to a prospective employer it spells trouble.
Of course, preference is given to detasselers who have worked for me before or who have experience from other companies. Preference is also given to 14-year-olds over 13-year-olds. On April 15th, I will send out acceptance letters. It's always the case that when someone receives their acceptance letter in April that something has changed since they signed up at the beginning of March. They're now going to play baseball or go on a trip or something, and so then we'll have some more openings, etc. I try to send out more acceptance letters on a weekly basis after the first main batch goes on, constantly reviewing the applications on my waiting list and the new ones that keep coming in. If we are full, we will place your application on our waiting list and you will be notified by mail or email if and when something opens up.
As a word of caution, I receive calls every summer from disappointed teens and parents who signed up to work with other companies but only got to work two or three days. It is common practice in this industry to “overhire”—that is, to hire more teens than can actually fit on the bus. The contractor then rotates detasselers throughout the season.
NATS does not operate this way. Once you have been notified that you have a spot on a NATS bus, you will have that spot and no one can take that spot away from you, provided that you are performing the work in keeping with NATS standards.
Because of the way that NATS is set up, we sincerely ask that you communicate with us if your summer plans change and you are no longer able to detassel. We would like to be able to offer your spot on the bus to someone else. Failure to let us know will result in not having future work opportunities with us. But more importantly than that, if you fail to communicate it means someone else might not have a job who really needed one.
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Where do you get your workers from?
NATS operates solely by word of mouth. We have been very blessed to have an incredible group of young people working for us, many of whom come back every year. The only thing I do is to send out a letter to workers from the previous year to remind them that the online application will be activated on March 1st. In 2010, we already have over 460 years of combined detasseling experience coming back onto our buses. Our workers come from the Lincoln and Omaha areas, as well as surrounding communities. Many parents are willing to drive a little further to get on one of our crews.
In order to thank our employees who come back the next year and recruit their friends to work for us, we have an incentive program called “Mall Money.”
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How does “Mall Money” work?
“Mall Money” is our incentive program for detasselers who invite their friends to work with us as well. If you recruit a friend to work for us and they fill out an online application, make sure you send me an email with the words MALL MONEY in the subject line and let me know the name of your friend that you recruited. For every friend who applies, is accepted and works at least one week in the field, the person who recruited them will receive a $10 gift certificate to Southpointe Mall (or an Omaha mall if you live in Omaha) by way of thank you. If you recruit five friends, you will receive a $75 gift certificate.
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If there is a storm, do you still go out?
Yes. Often weather conditions change quickly. We do work in the rain. However, if there is lightning, we will pull the crew from the field and wait it out. If we sit on the bus to wait out a storm, the rate of pay is current minimum wage.
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Do you guarantee a certain number of hours?
No. Because we are in the agriculture business, so many variables regarding the detasseling season make it impossible to guarantee a certain number of hours. However, because NATS does not engage in overhiring, you can be sure that your teen will have an opportunity to work the most hours possible. Also, NATS works hard to divide up the acres so that there is not a great disparity of paid hours between the bus sites.
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How do you handle inappropriate language/behaviors on your crew?
NATS seeks to provide a positive working environment for all its employees. We are thankful for each of our employees, whether they be from the public, private or home school sector. We require a high standard of excellence on our crew, and profanity, harassment or other inappropriate behaviors are not allowed. Profane language is grounds for being fired.
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Why do you need my son or daughter's social security number?
In order to legally hire workers, NATS needs every detasseler to fill out a W-4 and an I-9. Both of these forms require social security numbers. The W-4 is for the IRS. While most detasselers can claim an “exempt” status from having income tax withheld, we are still required by law to subtract approximately 7.5% of every paycheck for FICA. NATS also matches that amount, as required by law. We want to assure you that NATS uses great care in handling information in order to prevent identity theft. The I-9 form is for the Department of Homeland Security to ensure that NATS is not hiring illegal aliens. Both the W-4 and I-9s are filled out at our orientation meetings.
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What time do the buses leave in the morning?
The buses leave at 5:30 a.m. For those who get on at the Milford Exit at the gas station, the bus usually arrives between 6 and 6:15 a.m.
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How tall do you need to be?
The corn is generally between 5' and 6' tall, but some varieties can grow to over 7'. This is why we must enforce a minimum 5'2" height requirement.
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