[AT WORK]
Tootsie Kobelansky >> Hair dresser, been doing that for over 25 years. It's just like seeing good friends all the time. It's a good way to keep in touch with old friends, because that's when I see them is when I do their hair. Hair dresser
Tootsie Kobelansky has been cutting
hair long enough to watch former UH
undergrads bring back their children for a trimAfter 25 years I still love it. It's the people.
Most of our customers are great. Sometimes we get bad ones, but they don't know they're bad so they keep coming. An interesting thing is -- even if you get those few, you know, even one or two a year -- it really makes you appreciate the rest of them, so it's good to have a couple.
It's just something I always thought I would do. My girlfriends were going to beauty school and I thought I'd just try it out. I guess I liked it.
One time, I thought about doing something else. I was working on the mainland doing nothing but shampoo sets. When I first started doing this, people would come every week and you'd wash their hair, put it in curlers and sit them under the hair dryer. They wouldn't wash their hair all week. That's how long ago it is. Having the same people every week is a little too repetitious for me. I really wanted to change my career.
Instead I moved to Hawaii and came to work at a more modern salon. Then it became fun again. We see some people every week, some every two or three weeks. Some only come a couple of times a year. It's more variety. We have really great customers.
It's a mix of university students and other folks from the community. A lot of the people we have were students 20 years ago and they're professionals now and we're still cutting their hair and giving their children hair cuts.
We have a deal where if someone's been coming in for 25 years, they get a free hair cut. We've given away a few of those. Then if they stay with us 25 more years, they'll get another free hair cut.
At Work is a weekly feature that shows and tells what people do for a living in their own words. Send comments and submissions to: business@starbulletin.com