A drain cleaner who’s also a full-time firefighter is probably about as common as a sewer lateral without tree roots inside.
But this unusual career pairing works just fine for Dwayne Mitchell, owner of Premier Drain and Sewer Cleaning in Memphis, Tennessee. Mitchell has been a firefighter — a fire truck driver, to be exact — at the Memphis Fire Department since 2004. And he’s been working in the plumbing and drain cleaning industry for even longer than that.
Mitchell says he wanted to be a firefighter ever since he attended a career day in elementary school. The father of one of his friends was a firefighter and drove a fire truck to the event.
“I saw that fire truck and I was hooked,” he recalls. “And now I drive one of those cool fire trucks.
“I also had a friend who was a firefighter and I’d visit him every so often at his fire station,” Mitchell adds. “He was always telling me what a cool job it was.”
A strong work ethic, fostered by his parents, motivated Mitchell to keep one foot in the drain cleaning world even after he became a firefighter.
“I like to stay busy,” he says. “I got a strong work ethic from my mom and dad. So instead of sitting at home on my days off, I wanted to work. I’m also driven by fear of failing.”
How does Mitchell handle two demanding jobs? For starters, he tries to avoid emergency calls.
“Just about everything I do is scheduled out ahead of time,” he explains. “And when things do arise when I’m at the station, my nephew, Brandon Mitchell, handles it. And if he isn’t available, I also have a small network of friends that do sewer and drain cleaning and help me out.”
In addition, Mitchell’s fire department work schedule provides him with large blocks of time to do drain cleaning. He works about 11 24-hour shifts a month at the fire department. The schedule also gives him four days in a row off work on a rotating basis.
For example, a typical stretch of firefighting duty might consist of working on a Sunday, a day off on a Monday, working on a Tuesday, a day off on a Wednesday and working on a Thursday, followed by days off on the ensuing Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
“For all intents and purposes, I have four days off every week, which allows me to schedule things accordingly,” Mitchell says. “And my customers and the plumbers who hire me to do drain cleaning for them are very understanding about my schedule.”
