Thanks to RI Dolls I Have a New Career I Love

I thought I had the career of a lifetime – until I didn’t. I was working in the tech industry and had been at the same job since college. I worked my way up and I thought I was set.

The problem is, the owners of the company weren’t exactly transparent. It turned out they’d been borrowing money left, right, and center, trying to keep the business afloat. They couldn’t maintain that cycle though.

One day, they announced that the business was going bankrupt. That meant that all of us were out of jobs.

It had been twenty years since I had to look for a job. Twenty years since I’d been in college. I was older than all the other job seekers. So, even though I had education and experience, I wasn’t getting interviews.

I started going to RI Dolls, a gentlemen’s club in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. I’d been there lots before but it was usually with guys from work and it was usually in the evening when it was really busy. But now I started going during the day. I wasn’t getting wasted or anything. I just didn’t know what else to do with myself.

I’d go and watch the dancers and drink a beer as slowly as I could. I didn’t have a lot of money to spend. But no one gave me a hard time about it.

Then one day, I met this guy there that was starting a new business. He was telling me about it and I was really interested. He asked me if I had any experience in that field. I didn’t. I didn’t have the education for it either. But I liked what he was doing. The more he talked about his business, the more I could see that it was the kind of job that I wouldn’t mind doing for the rest of my life. And I could see that it was the kind of business that had a lot of room for growth.

I asked him if I went and enrolled to take the courses that were necessary to do the job if he would mentor me and hire me for his business. He agreed and before long I was back in school.

It felt weird to be back in school again at my age, but it gave me hope. I wasn’t moping around anymore. I stopped applying for jobs in my old field and focused on my school courses. I started working for his business as an intern (but paid!) and he taught me everything he knew. Within a year I was working for him full time and the business had already grown quite a bit. I knew I had made the right choice.

I think that sometimes the universe puts you in the right place at the right time. I thought I was beyond hopeless the day I walked out of that last interview. I went on and headed to RI Dolls. I didn’t know what to do with my life. I was slowly giving up and I didn’t like the way it felt. But if I hadn’t gone to RI Dolls that day, I might never have met my new boss. I certainly never would have even considered going into this business (mostly because I didn’t know it even existed) and I highly doubt that I would have ever gone back to school. My new boss opened up a whole new world for me and it never would have happened if I hadn’t met him at Rhode Island Dolls.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not trying to say that if you go to RI Dolls in Woonsocket you’re going to find a job. That’s not the point. The point is that there are a lot of people that go to this gentlemen’s club. They are friendly and it’s a good place to go if you need to chat with people. You never know who you are going to meet. You might meet a new boss or even a new girlfriend (not the dancers or servers or bartenders but someone that’s a customer – it happened to a guy I know).

At the very least, you’re likely going to feel better about whatever is bothering you. Have a drink, eat some good food, and let the smiles of the Rhode Island Dolls cheer you up. It can’t hurt!