When it comes to jobs with a proximity to showbusiness, we don’t usually consider cutting hair – at least I sure didn’t.
Clearly I was wrong though, seeing as Barber Bruce Hathcock, who used to work in LA but now does so in Sydney, has cut the hair of Shaquille O’Neal AND worked in the proximity of Queen B.
“I worked on a Destiny’s Child video and I got to eat whatever I wanted because Beyoncé was quite generous with the catering,” Bruce recalls.
I’m not fangirling, YOU’RE fangirling.
Bruce started his career in Los Angeles, learning the art of cutting hair and completing his apprenticeships. When he moved to Sydney over 20 years ago, he decided to brush up his skills with a course in Barbering at TAFE NSW using Recognition Of Prior Learning .
Now he’s set up two of his own barbershops (one in Chippendale, one in Hurlstone Park) and an organic line of barber products – all called 18 Bones – and he’s paying it forward by teaching at TAFE NSW. So, yeah, you could say he’s doing pretty well for himself.
“I think barbering is a great stepping stone for a plethora of careers. You don’t have to just be a barber, you can be a business owner, you can have your own products, you could even develop your own barber tools,” explains Bruce.
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Bruce feels his studies helped teach him the leadership and customer service skills that were as crucial as the actual barber skills when opening his own business.
“The good thing about being a business owner is being able to develop something that you believe in and that you have some connection to. There’s nothing like that.”
Personally, I think there’s nothing like having a perfectly legitimate reason to touch the hair of the coolest people in the world and dare be in the glow of Beyoncé, but that might just be me.
