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BOB EDWARDS, host: If you're having a party, you can hire people to cook the food, serve the drinks, even send out the invitations. But how do you make sure your guests will have a good time? In the
Profile: Professional party motivators
Click
here to listen
BOB
EDWARDS, host: If you're having a party,
you can hire people to cook the food, serve the drinks, even send out the
invitations. But how do you make sure your guests will have a good time? In the
(Soundbite
of voices)
JIM ZARROLI reporting:
Inside
a rented party room in Short
Hills,
Ms.
SUZY CHOY (Party Motivator):
Hi, Graham.
GRAHAM:
Hi.
Ms.
CHOY: How are you?
Unidentified
Boy: How do you know him?
Ms.
CHOY: I know 6) ________________.
ZARROLI:
The boys stare at Choy with her
long blonde hair and black Spandex pants as though they've never seen 7)
________________ like her. Choy
is what's known as a party motivator, one of six hired to work this bar mitzvah today. Over
the years, she's done 8)
________________ of
weddings, sweet 16 parties and corporate gatherings. Her job is to make sure that all
of the guests have a good time. She talks to the boys for a while, and then
moves on. She goes to a small group of bored-looking girls sitting around a
table and tries to 9)
________________ them
talking.
Ms.
CHOY: Do you graduate this
year or do you graduate next year?
Unidentified
Girl: This year.
Ms.
CHOY: You grad--and then you
go to high school? You excited?
Unidentified
Girl: ...(Unintelligible).
Ms.
CHOY: Freshman year actually
was my 10) ________________year of all high school, it really was.
Unidentified
Girl: ...(Unintelligible).
Ms.
CHOY: Yeah, everyone says
it's the hardest. It's scary for like a week and then it's just a ball. It
really is.
ZARROLI:
Any adult who's ever tried to draw out a 13-year-old knows what Choy
is up against, but her efforts pay off. Soon the girls are 11)
________________ about what
it would be like to have a personal shopper, and she moves on again. Choy
has been a party motivator since she was a 12)
________________. She saw
one once at a bar mitzvah and instantly knew what she wanted to be when she grew
up.
Ms.
CHOY: Well, when I was 13 I
just thought they were the coolest things, I really did. I said, `Wow, these are
people that love to dance, and they get paid to party. They're getting 13) ________________ to have a great time. There
can't be a better job than this.'
ZARROLI: Choy, who's trained as a dancer, eventually went to work for a
Mr.
JOEL GOLDSTEIN: Well, Suzy's
unbelievable. She is just--always has a smile on her face, upbeat, outgoing,
just happy to dance with 15) ________________. And she just really keeps the party
going. Just her inner self just keeps everyone happy and going, and she is just
awesome.
(Soundbite
of music)
ZARROLI:
One thing Choy loves to do is
dance, and lucky for her the Goldsteins' guests are big dancing fans. Soon
everybody heads for the ballroom, a deejay begins playing a lot of vintage dance
songs and the party kicks into
high gear. In no time Choy is out
on the floor, 16)
________________ to the
beat and pumping her fists in the air, never spending too long with any one
partner. If she sees a couple not dancing, she sometimes tries to gently prod
them onto the floor. Choy dances
a long time, but eventually she comes in for a break, panting slightly and
dabbing the sweat off her 17)
________________. Her goal
at parties like this, she says, is to help people connect, to leave
them feeling energized and wanting more.
Ms.
CHOY: You know, a lot of
people sometimes are 18) ________________ by nature, but deep down within they have,
you know, a wild side and they want to let go and they want everybody to, you
know, be involved. And I think that the party
19) ________________ kind of take--you know, reach inside and grab that wild side of
them out, because you can always tell the people that stand 20) ________________ the
outskirts of the dance floor and they're just kind of bouncing along, you know
that those are the people that want to be on the dance floor but maybe they just
don't have the guts to go out and do it. So at least if we're there, we can, you
know, kindly pull them and encourage 21) ________________ to be involved.
ZARROLI:
And with that, Choy goes to pass
out party favors to the dancers.
The kids are a little slow to join in, but many of the parents have become
dancing fools. The ballroom is filled with men and women in suits and long
dresses wearing silly hats and oversized 22) ________________ and
shaking their hips and arms with abandon. Choy
disappears into the crowd, but every now and then you can see her pop up
somewhere and look around, searching for someone, anyone who's not yet having a
23) ________________ time.
Jim Zarroli, NPR News.
(Soundbite
of music)
Unidentified
Man: (Singing) That's what I'm talking about. Burn, baby, burn. Burn, baby,
burn.
(Credits)
EDWARDS: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm
Bob Edwards.
Questions
1. What is Suzy Choy like, according to Mr. Goldstein?
_________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
2. Why is it important for her to be this way in her job?
_________________________________________________________________________________
3. What does she say is her job?
_________________________________________________________________________________
4. What does she like doing best at parties?
_________________________________________________________________________________
5. What does she say shy people are like deep down? Do you agree?
_________________________________________________________________________________
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