Hell To Pay: A Myomassologist's Nightmare

Greetings everyone, I have not been blogging for a while because I have been trying to make career moves that seems to be going absolutely nowhere. The truth, is today (6/24/11) makes exactly one year since I last blogged about anything massage related. I just wanted to let life as a newly touted certified M.T., take shape for me and boy, I don't know what to make of this "shape" as it stands.

Over the past year, I have worked for individuals who employed my services at their events, only to not be compensated. I worked for a terrible salon that shall remain nameless. The proprietors of said business, treated their employees terrible. To them you were as good as the amount of clients you could handle in one shift. They had little to no respect for the customer clientele and the place was possibly being targeted by OSHA for its complaints of mold within. I did not stay there long and ever since, it has been a struggle to rebound.

With the help of some friends who attended IMI with me, I began to interview at many Spas, Salons, and Chiropractor's offices throughout Oakland County and Metro Detroit. All to no avail, as I am STILL trying to find decent work. It got to the point where I was very stressed (still am), and prepared to move out of this state (that thought is still pending as of this writing). It has been very difficult trying to get my foot in the door. I did an interview with a M.T. who's manager was the Chiropractor at a local office. The M.T. thought that I was indeed the perfect candidate for the job. She told her manager and I received a call for a second interview. Apparently, the Chiropractor did not see what her M.T. saw in me and so I didn't get the job. Funny thing is, this very same Chiropractor called me a few days later asking me to show up at an event to do chair massage for her business! I was NOT good enough to work at her office, but good enough to stand in for her company at a public event.

I am noticing that there is an increasing amount of people calling themselves entrepreneurs. That's fine, but if I can't open a business under a title that I had no prior training for, how are they allowed to hire for positions that they aren't familiar with either? I will briefly speak on another interview I had which was really ridiculous. This place was located in the Hamtramck area and it was still in it's developmental phase. This person who apparently knows absolutely nothing about massage therapy, was in charge of hiring. The plans for this particular place included a spa, tanning salon, and an internet cafe. I don't know how that internet cafe would work, but that is apparently what the owner of this place wanted. The man in charge, stated that the owner wanted all of the female M.T.s to dress sexy! That was it for me, as I promptly got up and left.

I am aware that as an entrepreneur, you can hire for whatever positions you are looking for to make your business work. But what I don't understand is, how do you know what you want in this particular position that you are looking to fill, if you know absolutely nothing about what said position encompasses? I know some people have entered my field with relatively no problems at all. However, I am not one of them. I have not given up because I am truly passionate about what I have learned (eager to learn a whole lot more too), but it has been an absolute nightmare for me thus far. Namaste