At 6’ 3” and a muscular 217 pounds, Carl Jones, N.C. Central University grounds maintenance supervisor and garbage collector, looks like a model hardworking man.

He works like one too, 6 days a week, from 7:30 a.m. until dark, collecting garbage at N.C. Central University and, after that, mowing lawns for his lawn care business.

What stands out about Jones, 41, is the pride he takes in work that’s physically demanding and at times messy.

Two days after this year’s homecoming game, Jones backs a gray trash truck up to a chest-high pile of packed black and white trash bags sitting in front of the closed concession stand.

“It’s a lot,” he says, as he tosses a bag into the back of the truck. “...considering that I just picked up from here yesterday. I hope it all fits into the truck.”

He doesn’t look to see the liquid dripping from the bags of trash onto his oxblood colored boots. They already carry the soaked-in stains from trash pick-ups past.

He says he doesn’t mind the smell, a cross between beer and blue cheese. “I guess I’ve gotten used to it,” he says.

Jones seems to be somewhere else when he’s collecting garbage — he doesn’t frown or grunt from the physical demands.

People sometimes tell him he looks stern. That’s not how he is though; he’s usually in a good mood, he says.

He tosses bags of trash, sometimes two in each hand, into the back of the truck like they’re lightweight.

He makes it seem easy, but the physical demands of the job show in other ways.

It shows through the veins that visibly trail over his thick forearms. Muscles fill out his navy pinstripe shirt, but Jones doesn’t lift weights.

“I work,” Jones says when asked what he does to keep in shape.  “My doctor says that the body is meant to work hard. He never tells me I need to work out.”

But he does work out.

Watching Jones collect garbage is like watching a skilled sprinter or dancer. At the rear entrances of campus buildings, he swiftly glides up stairs to platforms that meet the back of the trash truck. He chucks bags into the truck one after another, barely pausing in between bags.

At the physical plant, he lifts waist-high barrels of trash effortlessly and empties them with 180-degree movements until they’re upside down.

That’s his first job.

When he’s done at NCCU, Jones goes to a second job that’s just as demanding physically. He won’t make it home until dark. He says two jobs allow him to live “comfortably.”

“I don’t think I could live the way I live on just a state salary — on this level of work. I’m sure other employees make more. Most of the people in the physical plant who are living well have extra incomes.”

Jones’ mother Roella Williams says that Jones’ work ethic started at 10 when he figured out how to transport a lawn mower with his bike. That’s when he started mowing lawns for money.

Today Jones calls lawn care work his “hobby.” It’s also his personal business and his second source of income.

He keeps a library of how-to books at home to read so that he’s ready to complete whatever job his customers ask for. Pleasing the customer is one of the most fulfilling aspects of his “hobby.”

“I like seeing the results of a lot of what I do,” Jones says. “I like to hear my customers saying that they like what I do.”

Jone’s wife Joyce Jones says she knows that her husband’s customers are important to him because he spends so much time with his lawn care business.

She says she doesn’t see Jones until late in the evenings when it’s too dark for him to mow lawns.

Jones is so busy that she has to make an appointment with him if she wants to go out, she says.

“I have to tell him at least a week in advance. Then I have to keep reminding him everyday.”

One Sunday evening, while Joyce watches a movie inside, Jones works on the trailer that carries his lawnmower. Joyce says she’d be lucky to see a movie with her husband, but she doesn’t complain. His work ethic is part of his personality, she says.

“When he doesn’t have something to do, he looks for something to do,” she says. “He’s such a hardworking person. I had to get adjusted to it after we got married. When I look at a lot of other men I think I’ll keep what I got: Some men, they won’t even take out the garbage. So, I appreciate it; I really do appreciate it.”

In his spare time, Jones breeds pitt bulls and pugs. His pitt bull, Sapphire, just birthed 11 puppies. Four of them are blue blood puppies like their mother — rare pits with blue noses. They will sell for about $800 each. The other seven will sell for about $300 each.

At the landfill where he dumps NCCU garbage, Jones sees that the bald guy who weighs the trash is wearing a t-shirt advertising a pitt bull kennel. Jones tells the man that Sapphire just had 11 puppies. The bald man says that pitt bulls can be vicious and that they’re fighters. Jones says that his pits are different — he has reared them.

“I raise mine for disposition and companionship,” he says looking down at the man from inside the trash truck.

“That’s good,” the bald man says, shaking his head yes. “That’s good.”

Back in his office at the end of his first job, Jones says that even if he weren’t working class, being a good worker would still be important to him.