Meet Your Co-host, Elsa

In this conversation, Dawn and Elsa discuss the goals and experiences of their podcast, which centers on honest confessions from guests. Elsa hopes listeners gain a deeper appreciation for people's journeys, not just their careers, emphasizing empathy and understanding. They share personal anecdotes, including Elsa's experiences with fraud in her former industry, and discuss their excitement and nervousness about launching the podcast. The unique bond and long-standing friendship between Dawn and Elsa adds a special dynamic to their collaboration, making the podcast both fun and meaningful for them. The conversation highlights curiosity, connection, and the joy of working together as close friends.

Want to be interviewed? You can remain anonymous. Voice distortion now available. Email or Text us!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to Workplace Confessions Behind Closed Doors. I'm Elsa Barbie. And I'm Don Andrews.

SPEAKER_03 0:09

We have been friends since sixth grade. Somewhere between a car wash job, a few questionable boy choices, and 40 years of friendship, we became the kind of people who always want to know what was really going on, including at work.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Don spent 25 years as an employment lawyer digging into workplace drama from the inside out. I built a long career in the beauty industry as a brand educator with a few TV cameos sprinkled in for fun.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

We came up in very different industries, but we have the same passion. Meeting new people and asking how they got their jobs, what they love, what they can't stand, and what happens behind closed doors.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Every episode, we talk to a new guest about their lived experience in the world of work. And because our guests stay anonymous, they can spill the truth without the fallout.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

We get into the choices they made, the tiny cruelties, the surprise kindnesses, and some of the moments that never make it into human resources reports.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Equal parts informative and titled.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Hi, Elle. Hey D.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

And C. I have been dying to get you in the chair so that I can ask you all of my questions.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Which probably is why I'm so nervous.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

You should be. All right. Why don't you start by telling our listeners how you and I know each other?

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Okay. So um it was sixth grade. It was Mr. Warren's class, I remember. And I feel like we were, I think I was gonna kick your ass.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Um I love how you jumped to the conclusion. We weren't gonna fight. I was just gonna kick your ass.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

I was just gonna kick your ass. I'm still trying to figure out. Um, maybe I'm sure you pissed me off.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

One of many times.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

It started there. Um and honestly, it it couldn't have been over a boy because you and I have completely different tastes in boys. So I don't know. Maybe I don't know. I still cannot remember why. All I remember is the feeling that I get when I look at you.

unknown 2:37

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 2:39

Yeah, you know, it's funny you say that because in my mind, I thought it had something to do with like a turf war over Nikki Blackburn. Nikki, if you're out there somewhere looking for you, we want to reconnect and we want you on the pod. Um, but when I think about it more, I wonder if it wasn't just one of those things where we just locked horns. You know how some people you just see red when you look at them. Yes, yes, I do. You saw red. I don't know, and then all of a sudden we just fell in love. Well, you know, there's a small, very smiley, thin line, right, between love and hate. Isn't that what they say?

unknown 3:20

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

And ever since then, we've kind of been joined at the hip. Um, I do remember like in high school, there was a couple years where you kind of went that way. I was in flags.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

I remember that you went more the creative direction in high school. You did flags. And uh for those of you who don't know what flags is in high school, at our high school at least, um, the flags team danced with flags. I mean, it was it was legit. It was it was really, really um high level. And I was like playing softball and doing speech and debate and student government and that kind of stuff. So I feel like we developed a little bit of different friend groups, but we were still friends with the same core of people we were friends with in middle school. I remember that when I studied abroad in Barcelona in college, you came and visited me. And I remember that trip really, really well. A lot of funny stories. And then I remember running into you in the parking lot outside of some chain restaurant. Chevy's. It was Chevy's.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

You were you were in your Ford Explorer.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

Yes, I was in the Exploder. Um, sorry, Ford Motor Company, if they're listening. Um, and I remember it because you were wearing overalls.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

That's when I was like starting to lose weight, and that was my dream outfit.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

And the rest is kind of history.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

And then I couldn't, I actually, the funny thing is, I can't remember my I can't remember my life without you.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

Same.

unknown 4:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

I was waiting for that was a loaded question, D.

SPEAKER_03 4:56

It was a loaded question. It was. Um, so tell us, what was your very first job?

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Before you and I worked together at the car wash, I actually had a job at a yogurt shop, yogurt ice cream place. So I just remember eating a lot of the toppings while I was at work.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

And then there was a sub shop next to it. And the guy and I would like trade yogurt for sandwiches. Um, but that didn't last very long. I probably ate through their profits.

SPEAKER_03 5:25

So I ended up- Were you were you allowed to eat the toppings or no? Oh. So you were embezzling yogurt, frozen yogurt toppings from your first employer. Is that what you're doing?

SPEAKER_02 5:38

You put me around peanut MMs, D, I will tell. But the most memorable job, the one that I love talking about, is the one where we worked at the car walk. It was amazing. It put me through beauty school and um it let me come back because we were such great exemplary employees. And uh I ended up spending probably like my was it my sophomore, maybe half of my sophomore or all of junior, senior, and then maybe 19, 20, 21.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

And then uh, and what did you do with the car wash? Because I think people are probably imagining you were washing cars.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Right, which I mean, it wasn't beneath me. Um, I started working out as a cashier and then I quickly moved up to um, I think I started out actually as a ticket writer working outside, and then um, I don't know, the manager must have seen my great potential and moved me inside to work inside the store. So I got to um work in the store, facing things, working in the cook in the cooler, uh restocking. It was such a great job. It really was fun. Um, and then slowly they kind of moved me around into like kind of more managerial responsibilities, ordering things in the store. So, so it was a mini mart, car wash, and a gas station. It was huge. And um yeah, and then I ended up making the schedule and kind of just working my way up, if you will, up the car wash world. And um, which allotted me to be able to like pay for school, my beauty school, and lived out of my house, so um had roommate situations and stuff, so and afforded my car and afforded me to come see you. And yeah, it was a great. In fact, I often dream about that job. If you I don't know if you ever do, Dee, but I often like will have dreams about me working the register. It's funny. So um lots of good memories, lots of good memories there.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

So there weren't any toppings to embezzle. What did you embezzle from the car wash?

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Probably soda.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

Yeah, definitely. A free fountain drink. Yeah, I thought we were allowed to have a free fountain drink, maybe. That was like the only perk. Oh, and a free car wash, maybe or discount car wash.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Yeah, I think we got discounts. I don't think we got free, but yeah, so um, yeah, it was fun.

SPEAKER_03 8:01

Do you remember when the there would there were these vendors who would come in and drop off? We had magazines for some reason, and there were these vendors that would come in and take out the old magazines and bring the new ones. And one of the magazines that was available to us for some reason was Playgirl magazine. Yes. Okay. Do you remember that vendor giving us free Playboy magazines? I mean, Play Girl magazine. Play girl, play girl magazine.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Yes, and I was like, I don't even think we were 18.

SPEAKER_03 8:28

No, we were not. We were not. So, as it turns out, those magazines have a center fold, just like Playboy magazines do, I've heard, um, which is just a very big poster of one of their images from the magazine. And um, my mom thought it would be funny to take the poster and put it up on the wall in her bedroom. Oh, my Dee, I don't think you ever told Diane. My stepdad came home and was like, what is happening? I don't even know what to think of that. What do you describe? How would you describe for our audience what you do for a living today?

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Uh was I actually have a license um in cosmetology. So I worked behind the chair, fast forward, moved to LA. I got a great job at a nail polish company. From there, we were purchased, and now I work for a hair care uh company along with nails as well, since I can do it all. Um, or so they tell me. Um, so uh I currently work with schools and hair salons in the respect of education. So I'm not in sales, and I say sales and air quotes. I'm more into education. I have a sales partner that comes in, sells the product, and then my responsibility is to kind of sell through and make sure that the stylists, students, schools of direct uh directors of education, um, salon owners know how to use the product and more so how to sell it in on their end as well. So I love my job. I'm much more partial to working with schools and inspiring students on how many different types of avenues they can have in this in this type of industry. Um it's not just a hairdresser industry, it's hair, skin, nail. It's working for corporate, it's working in shows, it's um working with students, working with um, you know, independent stylists, commission stylists, there's so many different facets when it comes to the beauty industry. Um and from that point, I've been able to kind of venture off because networking is super important in this type of industry, where I've able, I've been able to, you know, go on QVC and do something for other companies for makeup, or I actually had the opportunity to do HSN for the nail polish company. Um, because I make it no secret that I love to be in front of a camera, and I have no shamed of my game, other than hearing loving the sound of my own voice, I love camera work on the front end, and now I'm I'm actually more on the back end as well. So I just try to venture off and wherever I can. I try not to say no to anything basically.

SPEAKER_03 11:11

I'll remember that. Yeah, well, certainly. I think we're gonna get to that shortly. Um, so tell us how did you get from working in the frozen yogurt biz and the car wash biz to your sojourn through LA to where you are now?

SPEAKER_02 11:28

Um, so kept, I went to cosmetology school. Then I ended up working behind the chair, still working at the car wash this whole time. Now I'm working in La Jolla at Costa Verde. Ventured up to LA and I was a placement director for workers' comp. And I saw this. Oh, and by the way, my background is acting. Like that was really why I moved to LA for acting. Again, I wanted to be in front of the camera. Um, so in all parallelism of doing all this in LA, doing hair, I stopped doing hair. I worked as a placement director for workers' comp school, saw a job for OPI, and I was like, wait a minute, I'm licensed, so I can go work at OPI. Ended up, we were a smaller company. We've just we've since been sold. So for hair, it's a whole new world. Um, I think my common thread is I always looked for opportunities everywhere I was. I looked for an opportunity. I never said no, and I kind of just went with the wind. That was my external work career. But my foundation of the kind of person that I am is, you know, I just went with it. I look at every single thing as an opportunity. Did I set out to be a my official title is a field education business manager manager? No, I didn't even know what that was. But knowing that I still always had one foot in the creative aspect of being able to act, have an agent, that actually just kept me going in whatever career I chose. I could be the most boring career, but as long as I still had the outlet of being able to do things like this or opportunities to do TV, that always kind of just fed my hunger enough to where it didn't really matter what I did in the world. It wasn't going to be who who and what defined me. With who and what defined me was a completely different person. Does that make sense? Like, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:26

I love this idea of finding fulfillment outside of work where the work pays the bills and um you do it and you do it well, but it's it's not your everything. You can you can find other ways to get your needs met because I think so many of us go through phases in our career where we do feel understimulated or underappreciated or underutilized or just bored, you know, you've been doing the same job for a long time. It becomes kind of rote. So I love the idea of not not bailing on that necessarily, but finding fulfillment in other external arenas. I think that's really smart.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

I went and worked at a workers' comp school. I actually, because I was a placement director, I actually like customized and created job opportunity like workshops. So I always gave myself a platform to be able to speak. So you kind of have to make it with the way I am is I had to create opportunities for me to still be able to one, be in front of people and speak and talk and get objectives done. But that was me creating those opportunities and then presenting them. Um even with this, my company that I work for now, they asked me three years, three or four years ago, to be part of a podcast for internal companies. So obviously I'm getting fed little, you know, little nuggets here and there, but it's enough to keep me going and whatever I need, I do it on the outside.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

Nice. Yeah. When you look back at your early career, what is a moment you remember that really shaped how you still show up at work today?

SPEAKER_02 15:11

So when I started out with the nail industry, I I could talk about that. Um I was like, I mean, it was 21 years ago, so I was like a young person. And um I realized I was in the right place and that this was what I should be doing, was when we were in Orlando, and I stepped out on a stage for the very first time talking about one of our newest releases, our newest product launch in front of the crowd of about 400 store owners. And when I stepped on the stage and I almost became like this alter ego of just like, wow, I really know what I'm talking about. And I had fun. That's when I was like, I could do this.

SPEAKER_03 16:11

All right. Um, what is one thing that people think they know about the beauty industry that's really wrong? Like, what's what's a myth about the beauty industry?

SPEAKER_02 16:22

Well, I'll tell you exactly because this is what I thought. Um I thought you're either going to be an ascetician, a nail tech, or a hairdresser. And it was this is your lane, this is where you end up. Um one, there's so many other opportunities out there. But two, I think one of the myths is when people think of hairdressers, they think they're just gonna stand behind the chair.

SPEAKER_03 16:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

And they're going to stand there all day and do your hair. Um it's a hustle job. Um, there is such a huge business component of being a hairdresser that unless you get kind of under someone's wing, you're all you're out there by yourself.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

When did you first realize that you are have this fascination with the sort of the behind the scenes of the work world?

SPEAKER_02 17:14

I don't know. I think it's just being super curious. I'm just a very curious person. And I don't have, as you know, I really don't have a filter. I think me being really, really overweight made me feel so much safer when it came to talking to people. I'm genuinely interested in people, and I don't think people found me threatening at all. Like I was just a quote unquote, like cool chick, easy to talk to.

SPEAKER_03 17:43

Uh so let's talk about how this podcast came together.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Oh my gosh, I remember.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

So uh what was your first reaction when I said, hey, let's make a podcast where we ask guests to share their darkest, deepest workplace confessions.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

And we're walking, and you're like, hey, Elle, I have a quote unquote great idea. And I was like, oh boy, here we go. But the more you and I kind of vetted out what our objective is and our interviewing style and just the kind of people that we are, um, it, I, I, it, I was like, okay, this can totally work. And you and I have kind of just danced around. I mean, you've never, you and I have never really, quote unquote, like done a project together. We've always been each other's sounding bored.

SPEAKER_03 18:35

Uh so it sounds like you took me seriously, though, when I mentioned the podcast. You didn't think it was just one of my one one of my many ideas that sort of fade by mourning.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

No, no, no. I mean, I did think that at first, which is why I was young ho about participating with you. I'm like, sure, I'll do it. Like I was all on board. And then I was just like, the next day you kept talking about it, and I'm like, this bitch is for real. She won't do this.

SPEAKER_03 19:02

Uh um, all right. So you have spent your entire career helping people feel confident and seen and understood. And I'm wondering, how does that sort of lens shape the way that you approach our anonymous conversations with our guests?

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Well, I want them to trust us in that we take care of our guests. Um instead of just fire rabbiting questions, we kind of craft a whole conversation and we always bring it back to their first job before they became who they are now. But it really drives people career wise. I think if we bring them back to what they learned, which I love the questions that you always ask, well, we always ask about like, what did you learn in your first job that you Apply to your job now. I think it just grounds our guests that we're one listening, be you know, they're being heard because whatever position they have or job they have, they're probably not heard because of the type of people that we are interviewing. Um, some of them might be, you know, VPs or managers. And I think that we humanize them. Does that make sense? Like I think we we humanize them that they're not just a VP, they're not just owners of companies, things like that. Like other their employees might look at them that way, but we don't. And I feel like our guests appreciate that. Like they get to just talk about their quote unquote like beginnings, what got them to where they're at, self-doubt. I think we just humanize our guests instead of putting them up on pedestals.

SPEAKER_03 21:00

Love that. Yeah. What do you think your superpower as an interviewer is? And then how do you think it complements what I bring to the table?

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Yeah, I always feel like you and I are yin-in-yang, right? Like we have our underlying like drive, but you're you're a professional. And yes, I'm a professional in my own right, but you're like a lawyer, like you actually had to speak a certain way, come across a certain way in your career. I don't have to do that. I can be exactly who I am throughout my whole entire career, and people still accept me, you know? And and I've obviously developed a thick skin around it. So I feel like you bring like the grounded of, I mean, just look at how we talk. You know, I'm here moving my hands around, and you're just super grounded. And I feel like everybody, I feel like you and I make the perfect person.

SPEAKER_03 21:59

Okay, let's just mind melt.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

I think the way I come across is I'm very playful, but I can be serious, and I try to match people's energy. And I feel like I know how to communicate to people who maybe will be closed off. And I think you and I both know how to do that. I think you're trained in how to do that. And I feel like I'm not trained, which you and I, of course, have this perfect balance, right? Um, so yeah, I think our style's different, but our personalities are different. You know, um, yeah, I think it's just it's just kind of like that magic sauce where I think we just work.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

We're like Chick-fil-A sauce or something. Yes. Oh my gosh, yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 22:51

Uh, so I'm positive from all of your experience working and in your acting life too, that you've been in rooms where you know when people are telling the truth and you've been with people that were clearly performing. What helps you tell the difference when we're interviewing a podcast guest?

SPEAKER_02 23:11

Oh, 100%. It's how I feel. I can like I can literally, you know what they say, like it takes a bullshitter, bullshitter to know a bullshitter. Yeah, I think I have played both parts. Um, and I think it it is because of the acting background, but I will say also, um, you know, people cannot fake being genuine, you know. Um and I'm not gonna say your intuition though, is I'm very totally my intuition is I've never faltered and I've always relied on my intuition about people. People, I feel like I read people really well. Um and again, I think that's because of childhood, teenage years, adult years, um, struggling with weight and things like that. Like, are people genuine in in getting to know me as a person, or genuine they want to get to know me because of what I look like?

SPEAKER_03 24:15

Yeah, yeah. What kind of workplace stories or situations do you think people are particularly hungry to hear about right now?

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Like jobs, like careers? Yeah, or yeah. Um I can only speak for myself, and I'm super fascinated about people who upload information into AI.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

What do you hope listeners walk away with after they hear our guests' confessions?

SPEAKER_02 24:45

An appreciation for all people, not just all careers, all people. We are not who we are today without the journey that we've taken thus far. And the appreciation not for who that person is today, but what that person had to go through to get to where they are today. That's the appreciation where I think um I hope our podcast like really um empowers people to be like, wow, like we're not just people, we're not just paychecks.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

Oh, you know, Elle, that when we reach the end of our guest interviews, we get into the money question, which is usually what is the craziest thing you've ever seen anywhere you've worked. So I'll ask you, keeping in mind you're not anonymous here, if you can share something about your own career without disclosing where you were working or who was involved, maybe something you've never even shared publicly that happened at work, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02 25:51

I wouldn't say in the position in the industry I am now, but in the industry I was before workers' comp, um a lot of fraud. There was so much fraud in workers' comp. Um before I got into the beauty industry. Um, you you got injured on the job, you can milk it for as long as you wanted to. Um, whether it was going to school, getting a cash payout, having medical insurance for the rest of your life. People who would come into my school or the school I worked at, injured, let's say they hurt their arm or any other type of limb, and yet, you know, a couple weeks later, once they graduate, they are out there using those limbs as if they never got hurt and they just got a huge cash settlement that they can never use that body part again. And it was a lot of fraud, a lot of dishonest people that I saw come through our school because the industry made it. Now it has changed now. There's like a cap. I don't know where it's at now, but I knew when I was leaving the industry, there was a cap on how much payout somebody can get. But you're talking about somebody who can fall like on the chair that we're sitting on, and now you're suing the chair company. Now you're suing your your boss, your job, your your your the company you work for. You're doing you're suing so many different people and layers of one injury. And then six months later, you're physically totally fine.

unknown 27:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

What are you most excited or maybe nervous about as we launch this podcast together?

SPEAKER_02 27:31

Well, one, of course, I'm excited about spending more time with you.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

Uh you're welcome. Yeah. Um, I'm excited to learn about other people just in general, and not without like their quote unquote job title, just to meet other people. I mean, you and I love we love meeting people. Yeah, you know, I love being the butterfly, like walking around into a room and meet people and all that. I love that part about our podcast. Um, I think we have a really good edge in something special between you and I and how we ask questions and how we work. And um I think it's just really nice that we get to kind of do something that has brought us up to this point in our life, and we're still curious about other people, about their jobs, about people, about you know, um, I'm excited for the rest of the world to listen to us and hear us. And again, back to having appreciation for humankind, not just titles.

SPEAKER_03 28:38

Love it.

SPEAKER_02 28:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:40

All right. Final question.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 28:42

What is it really like doing a podcast with your best friend of three plus years? And don't lie because we'll know.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

It's the first word come fun. It's fun. We have as much as we could probably get on each other's nerves, we have fun together. We have fun together. Um I get to work with my wife.

SPEAKER_03 29:13

You're I'm your work wife now.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I hope everybody subscribes, listens to us. Yeah, no, I'm excited just about like how far we're gonna take. Not that, not even how far we're gonna take it, because we're gonna just take it wherever, however it goes. It's not like we have plans, but I've never been like that with my life anyway. So it's like, we'll just do it till till we do it.

SPEAKER_03 29:38

Like we're bringing the stories to the people.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

100%. Yeah, bringing the story to the people. Yeah, and I would love for our listeners to, you know, um, put it in our comments as to what other type of positions, what kind of other kind of career careers do they want to hear about? Like, you know.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

And if you want to be interviewed, let us know. If you have questions for us that we didn't answer today, you want to know more about Elsa, let us know. We'll ask her, we'll put her on the spot again, the hot the hot seat.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:08

All right, Elsa. I guess technically you've joined the ranks of the brave and the bold. So uh thank you for being my ride or die. You know, for life.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

That's it for this week's confession. We've laughed, cringed, and maybe questioned our own career choices. Big thanks to our anonymous guests for keeping it real and reminding us that behind every job title is a story worth telling. If you've got a workplace confession of your own, we're all ears. Hit us up at our email address. And don't forget to subscribe, rate, and share. Your support helps us keep the secrets flowing. Until next time, keep your badge clipped, your coffee strong, and your stories wild.

SPEAKER_03 30:51

This is Workplace Confessions Behind Closed Doors.