Businesses give freebies to unemployed

<p>A prominent businesswoman in Lancaster, Pa., made a tearful phone call last year to her friend Darla Broderick, an owner of Visage á Visage, a local day spa and salon. The woman explained that her real estate and restaurant businesses had been slammed by the economic downturn, and she could no longer afford to keep her hair appointment.</p><p>"She was crying and embarrassed," said Tina Stoltzfus, Broderick's daughter and a co-owner with her parents. "Of course, it broke our hearts, so we asked ourselves what we could do."</p><p>The Brodericks decided to start offering free haircuts to those who had lost jobs or were otherwise struggling because of the recession, even providing limousine service to anyone who didn't have transportation to the salon.</p><p>After some media attention, not only were they flooded with phone calls from the recently laid off, but they also heard from owners of other nearby businesses, including two restaurants, a dog-grooming service and a comedy club, who subsequently started similar free programs for the unemployed.</p><p>"It really blew up," said Stoltzfus, 41.</p><p>With the national unemployment rate close to 10 percent, the swelling ranks of the jobless have generated an unexpected wave of benevolence: Businesses are offering freebies to laid-off workers everywhere -- and not just necessities like groceries and flu shots. Instead, they're providing free monthly gym memberships, yoga lessons, golf rounds, therapy sessions and salon visits.</p><p>This generosity reflects a changing attitude toward the unemployed, said John Challenger, chief executive of the out-placement agency Challenger, Gray and Christmas.</p><p>"There's more empathy out there because everyone has friends and family who are caught up in this," Challenger said. "There isn't the stigma that there used to be, because there's so much no-fault job loss."</p><p>While the offers sometimes generate skepticism among the unemployed, many report being pleasantly surprised by the quality of the services and the professionalism of the personnel.</p><p>Michael Dixon, a software engineer from Seattle who is out of work, was prepared to be disappointed when he attended a two-day event last week at Flint Men's Grooming, a salon in Bellevue, Wash., that was offering free haircuts, suits and career counseling to the jobless.</p><p>"I thought it might be an up-sell, where they get you in and then immediately put you in front of a salesperson," said Dixon, 35.</p><p>So he was stunned when a staff member escorted him to a room full of high-quality gently used suits and provided him with a tailor, as well as a free shirt and tie, all of which he estimates would have cost him $1,000 otherwise.</p><p>Michelle Immel had a similar experience at Visage á Visage.</p><p>Immel, a 41-year-old single mother, was initially reluctant to request a free cut and blow dry. Since losing her administrative job five months earlier, she'd had her share of humbling experiences, such as frequenting the local food bank with her head down and her face shaded by a baseball cap. But at Visage á Visage, only the staff members knew she was a pro bono client, and Immel said they treated her as well as, if not better than, the salon's paying customers, even offering to trim her 2-year-old daughter's hair, too.</p><p>"They really took the time to make you feel good," Immel said. "That helps because when you're unemployed you can get to the point where you start looking down on yourself."</p><p>Because the effects of this recession are so widespread, there is also a stronger sense of humility among the still-employed, as business owners see customers dwindle and employees brace for the next round of layoffs.</p><p>Gary Donlin, owner of the Quail Hollow Golf and  Country Club in Oakham, Mass., said gratitude for his own job inspired him to offer free weekday golfing to the unemployed. He had noticed membership was down -- both because of golfers who had lost jobs and those who feared they might -- and he realized that his longtime customers shouldn't be taken for granted.</p><p>"These were the people who had given us a job for 18 years," said Donlin, 64. "If they didn't have a job, then what kind of people would we be if we didn't help them?"</p><p>However noble the intentions, though, these programs do offer some financial upsides. If the barber chair or golf course would otherwise be empty, why not generate some good will and positive press with free services?</p><p>And Donlin noted the laid-off golfers frequently bring paying friends, who often rent golf carts and buy sandwiches and beer at the clubhouse.</p><p>"It hasn't been a completely one-way street," he said.</p><p>There is also the hope that such offers will build future clientele.</p><p>Janet Raiffa, an unemployed law-firm recruiter who writes a column for a networking organization in New York called the 405 Club (named for the state's maximum unemployment benefit of $405 a week), said many businesses recognize that the jobless are a group worth investing in, like students.</p><p>"There are a lot of lawyers and investment bankers who made a lot of money in the past and will make a lot of money in the future," Raiffa said. "They may be low now, but it's still a population you want to build inroads with."</p><p>Whatever the motives, business owners do need to be mindful that their good deeds aren't punished.</p><p>Last April, Giuseppe Lazzara, owner of Papa Joe's Barbershop in Chandler, Ariz., placed a sign in his window offering free haircuts to the jobless after several regular customers said they were out of work and couldn't afford a trim.</p><p>Two weeks later, a local TV station featured a story on Papa Joe's. Soon Lazzara's barber chair was full of laid-off workers from across the Phoenix area; he estimates he gave out about 150 cuts -- none to his original customers. So in June he quietly took the sign out of his window.</p><p>"If someone comes in and says they are having a hard time, I'll give them a cut, but I don't advertise it anymore," he said. "I would go out of business."</p>