June 19, 2019 • 22 mins
Can a job lead to a life-changing relationship? In this episode, listen to several short stories of couples falling in love - on the job.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
On the Job is brought to you by Express Employment Professionals.
Express Employment Professionals as a leading staffing provider that employs
nearly six hundred thousand people annually across more than eight
hundred franchise locations in the US, Canada, and South Africa.
Our long term goal is at the heart of our
(00:22):
company's mission to help as many people as possible find
good jobs. By helping as many clients as possible find
good people. It takes more than just online searches to
land a job. It takes real people who will identify
your talents, a person invested in your success. Express Employment
Professionals understands what it takes to land a new position
(00:45):
at a top employer or start a new career in
today's job market. Express Nose Jobs, get to No Express,
Go to Express pros dot com. Welcome to on the Job.
(01:08):
This season, we're bringing you stories about people finding their
professional stride by virtue of who they know, whether it's
breathing new life into an age old profession, taking the
reins in a family business, forging your own path with
a new idea, or landing the perfect job doing something
you'd never before even considered. For this episode of On
(01:28):
the Job something a little different love stories, stories of
people who found jobs that led them to the person
that they would fall madly in love with. We have
four stories today, from a young couple who became local
legends after their lives collided at a cracker barrel, to
(01:50):
a forty three year marriage that started in the offices
of a power company. While I am not outright condoning
workplace romance, today I proudly share with you these stories
of love on the job. For our first story, Bayla
and Matt, who live in Burlington, Vermont. Now we did
(02:10):
something a little different here. Instead of me interviewing them,
I had them interview each other. What led you to
apply for the job that you applied for ten years ago?
This summer h ten years ago, I was managing an
art handling company in Seattle. I was fantasizing about a
(02:31):
change in my life. And then one day one of
my co workers came in and showed me this uh
ad that he found on the internet saying, you know,
asking the question, do you want to ride your bike
across the country and have it all paid for? And
I thought, that's the job for me. I can do
(02:53):
that job. I want that job more than anything else.
The job was for a New Zealand based vodka company
called forty two Below. As a marketing campaign. They were
looking for forty two cyclists to ride across America wearing
their logo and drinking their product and bars the whole way.
I let's see, I had already quit my real job
(03:16):
in New York. I've been working in marketing for like
a few years, and I was totally burned out. Bila
was looking for a change too, and she did a
lot of cycling on her free time. So a friend
of a friend told her about this forty two below
campaign and said that they were looking for more women.
So she applaied And then I got the call and
they're like, did a five minute interview, and they're like, great,
(03:38):
come on this ride for two months and we'll pay you.
The forty two riders came from all over the world.
They started in New York and they made their way south.
I remember the first time that we I mean, I
like noticed you, but we didn't talk at all in
New Jersey or New York, I don't think. But then
are the first time we had a conversation sh And
(04:00):
wasn't until we got down to d C. I was
definitely not I was definitely not looking for a relationship.
I was neither well, you were in a relationship kind
of not really, I've been dating someone, but I don't know.
Baylor Matt kept things cool for a while. But one
(04:21):
night they were in a bar in Austin drinking the
vodka that they were supposed to drink, and at one
point they went up to the roof of the bar
together and we just sat and watched the sunset and
just talked, and I was like, I want to hang
out with this person for as long as possible, because
there is never going to be a dull moment. Most
(04:43):
of the time during this ride, the whole group set
up tense to sleep in each night. Baylor's true nature
on the trip was that she never had her own tent,
or she you had your own tent, but you never
set it up, and so you always like a lot
of work to set up a tent every night. Yeah
that everybody, literally everybody else was doing it. You're the
only person that wasn't like pitching your own tent. Now,
(05:07):
a lot of people were sharing tents anyways. After making
the rounds and everyone else's tent when they were in Texas,
it seemed that it was match turn. You asked me
if you could stay the night of my tent, And
what did you think When I asked you, I wasn't
totally sure that it was like flirtation or that it
was for any other reason than you needed a place
(05:31):
to stay and maybe you had worn out. You're welcome
with everybody else. We got in the tent and I
remember like we were just lying there next to each other,
and like I wasn't sure. I mean, I definitely had
a crush on you, but I wasn't sure what was
going to happen. And then you grabbed my hand. We
(05:51):
may have kissed, and then I think it's probably like
for me, it's most comfortable to stay at this point
that for the rest of the trip, Baila didn't sleep
in anybody else's tent from there on out, from West
Texas to the end of the trip in l A,
(06:12):
the job ended. When they reached l A, everyone was
headed back to where they came from, Matt to Seattle
and Baila to New York. They visited each other back
and forth until Matt moved to New York to be
with Baila. Six months after the job. They got married
six years later. That was definitely the best summer job
I've ever had. Yeah, that that job, that job was
(06:33):
was an awesome job. It certainly was the best summer
job I've had, and it definitely paved the way for
the greatest job that I have in my life, which
is being your husband. It's certainly a labor of love.
I think the pay could be a little bit better,
and maybe it's time for me to get a raised. Rude.
(06:59):
I mean, I'm just saying, I mean, I can't come
to haven't I had reached the time from my review.
For our next story, we head down to Virginia to
(07:19):
meet a couple of local legends. I'm Katraina Nelson and
I work at Cracker Barrel. Well, one of them. Kat's husband, Travis,
was actually at work when we interviewed. He's kind of
like the phantom husband because he's not really into like
being out there and like public with stuff. He's more
of a private guy, so he's not been in a
(07:40):
single interview and I kind of feel like maybe he's imaginary.
They get a lot of requests for interviews, partly because
their love story starts at a Cracker Barrel. And for
those of you who don't know, Cracker Barrel is a
Southern country style chain restaurant. If you ever drive across country,
you'll notice that Cracker Barrel seems to be the glue
that holds American highways together. Cat works at the location
(08:02):
in Christenburg, Virginia, where she and Travis first met. So
I started working at the Cracker Barrel, and I was
very nervous on my first day because I wanted everybody
to like me. So I was there forty five minutes
early and I was just sitting in the car. I
remember I had the short haircut and I was like
checking my lipstick and making sure that my hair was good.
And he pulls up in parks beside me, and I
was like, oh, my gosh, he's kind of cute, though
(08:24):
um and he gets out of the car first and
starts walking inside, and I was like, oh, I'm going
to follow him. And the only thought that I have
of that moment that I remember is like, Wow, he's
got a great but foundation to a great relationship. Great
but yeah. He was a cook and I was a server,
and we fell in love in the kitchen. They were
(08:46):
just co workers for a while before they got together.
It didn't happen right away, no, because, um, funnily enough,
we were both seeing other people at the time, scandalous.
I know. About a year later they started seeing each
other and uh, and you guys continue to work together.
We did, and it was awesome. I know a lot
(09:08):
of people think that, like working with your significant other
is super scary, and maybe it is, but it was
perfect for us. Like, I've spent almost every single day
with this guy for four and a half years, working together,
living together most of that time, and I don't get
sick of him, So I think that's a pretty good sign.
(09:28):
Captain Travis got married four years ago and they decided
that they were going to take all of their wedding
photos at Cracker Barrel and these photos are awesome. I
shared one of our wedding pictures on Instagram and tagged
Cracker Barrel and it exploded. Cracker Barrel shared the picture.
Then their pr reached out to me and we started
sharing the story with like Southern Living. I think was
(09:49):
the first one to grab ahold of it, and it
just took off from there. Today dot Com picked up
the story. NBC Boston even Fox News had an article
about them, and they became kind of locally famous, to
the point where people were even coming into the restaurant
in hopes of seeing them. A lot of guests were
asking the servers like is the cracker barrel couple here?
Like are they working today? Yeah? Four years later, they're
(10:13):
still happy. Everything is really really great. I thought that
after we got married things would be different for some reason.
But it's exactly the same, and I think that's how
it's supposed to be. So it's perfect, and you guys
are still working together. How's how's that going. Unfortunately, no,
he got a new job at the beginning of March,
something that he couldn't pass up, and that's kind of
(10:36):
been hard him getting a new job. That must be
a big change. You look really sad. Oh everything is
good now, But at first it was like it was
really hard. I cried a lot. I mean, we we
were working the same shifts on the same days. We
were always together. I'm an opener, so I go into
work at five, I'm usually home by three, and then
he leaves for work at five, so I see him
(10:57):
for like five minutes a day now. But you gotta
do what you gotta do. For now, you can rest
easy knowing that the Cracker Barrel couple is happy and thriving.
Did you guys have a favorite dish together at Cracker
Barrel or do you have different preferences? We have different preferences,
(11:19):
and also we don't share. Usually he gets a country
fried steak and I'm a huge fan of those, um
maple onion and jam burgers. Those things are good. Oh,
I'll leave you with that. I hope you're hungry more
(11:40):
love stories when we come back. We'll get back to
the story in a second. First, a word from Express
Employment Professionals. A strong work ethic takes pride in a
job well done. This is you. But to get an
honest day's war, you need a call back. You need
(12:02):
a job. Express Employment Professionals can help. We'll connect you
to the right company. We're committed to your success and
never charge a fee to find you a job. Express
Nose Jobs get to no Express find your location at
express pros dot com or on the Express Jobs app.
(12:24):
And now back to our story. For our next story,
we go to Philadelphia to meet Amanda. I'm Amanda Fifer O'Brien,
and I write about and teach food fermentation. Before she
taught fermentation in Philly, Amanda was in grad school in Monterey,
California when she decided to well sort of go into
the business of fermentation. I needed a job, like a
(12:47):
weekend gig, and there was a opening at a tasting
room of winery tasting room, and I was like, Oh,
that sounds amazing. I'll be you know, getting free wine,
getting paid to like drink and talk to people about whine.
This sounds amazing. So I applied for it and I actually,
like totally remember I was walking into a class and
I had a message on my voicemail from this guy
(13:11):
and like, I'm an oral person. I like sounds of things,
and I was like, I really like his voice. That
guy's name was Jake, his dad on the winery. Amanda
went into interview with the dad and she ended up
getting the job. And when I went to pick up
like the packet, the starting packet, that was the first
time I met Jake Um And I walked home and
(13:33):
called my best friend and I was like, I'm totally
going to marry the guy that I just met, And
I swear I'm not that person. Like I didn't ever
say that about anybody before him. I'm like, not, I'm
not like a particularly romantic person. I don't know. I
felt the thing, and I felt like a real thing,
and I was like, he had an amazing voice, he's
very cute. I think like a lot of women can
(13:56):
really tell when they've met like the nice guy, which
probably earlier times in my life that would have been
less appealing. I would have been like a nice guy. Um,
but I was like, oh, nice guy, Like I'm ready
for nice guy. Nice guys. Where I'm headed right now?
To tell my friend that I was going to marry
him when I talked to him for fifteen minutes is
like insane, But turned out I was right. It was
(14:17):
at a time in my life where I was kind
of trying this whole nice guy thing. I'm just shocking.
This is Jacob Brien. I was the manager, so the boss.
I had a very giant mental block towards entertaining the
notion of dating one of my employees. It just felt wrong.
So um, we were we like we're in a in
(14:38):
a situation for a very long time where a man
it was working there. Obviously affinities were developing. There was
like some flirting happening, but I was really trying to
not let it go past a friendly level. The tasting
of employees and people who worked in the shops around
the area would always get together after hours to drink
and have fun. It was a motley crew, and they
(14:58):
all saw the attraction between Jake and Amanda, so they
all kind of try to convince Jake to make a move,
led by this charismatic older gentleman named Down. He was
like the Don one of the community. He was like
seventy years old, was very charming, um and with like
you know, just kind of like flirt with all the customers.
And eventually Jake was convinced that it was okay, and
(15:22):
he was so funny. I'm sorry, this is actually making
me laugh to remember this. He um he asked me out,
and like without like moments hesitation, I was like, yes, yes,
they well go out with you. And then he before
I had finished saying yes, he was like, I've invited
a whole bunch of people to go. No one could
(15:44):
make it but Don, the older guy. So they all
drank throughout the day enough where Jake was in no
shape to drive home at the end, and either was Dawn,
who slept on Amanda's couch. Yeah, so our first date
ended in a slumber party with a sixty five year
old man. I think he's definitely least seventy, but everything
else about that's accurate. Amanda and Jake live in Philly
(16:09):
and they've been happily married for fourteen years. For our
last love story, we go to Manhattan to meet Charlie
Charles Cleary Senior and originally from Brooklyn, New York, and
Raquel Raquel and do you want to know where I
was born? Where? Come away? Cuba. Charlie and Riquel have
(16:30):
been married for forty three years. They both grew up
in the city and met back in ninety two. Charlie
was working in the accounting department at con Edison, the
energy company, and uh, one day she came in and
started to work, and I noticed her very quickly, that
that's one good looking babe. She had long, round hair,
(16:52):
and she had on a platform shoes. I think it
was a beige pants and a flowery blouse. And I
just remember all that very nice. I remember Charlie. I
don't know that I was interested in him at first,
and I got to know him a little bit and
(17:13):
I found him to be extremely annoying, and uh, that
hasn't changed much. But I also found him to be
a very honest and sincere person. I liked um. I
like teasing him and I would go by his desk
and he has a cleft chin, which you can't tell
(17:35):
because of his goatee, but um, I would press it
together and call him like, it's a little But how
did you feel about her picking on you? I loved it.
I loved it. It was attention that I was getting.
They worked together for about two years before they started dating,
but after they did, Charlie proposed to her. Two months later.
(17:58):
I went to her father. Of course he said yes,
and uh that's it. The rest is history. As they say,
Even though it's been forty three years, it hasn't always
been smooth sailing. We are very very different people and
we come from very different cultures. Raquel's family is Cuban,
Charlie's is Irish, and this ended up being a problem
(18:20):
for Charlie's family. When I was going out with Raquel,
it came across that they really didn't like her because, uh,
she wasn't Irish, she was in Italian, she wasn't German.
She was Cuban, and uh, a little bit of anauchie
bunker attitude came out from both of them, and I
didn't really like it. And it got to a point
(18:41):
where it was her well then and I said bye bye. Yeah,
it just was a racial thing with them, and and yeah,
that change our lives in a big way. Um, because
(19:05):
he lost contact with his parents and I never wanted
that for him. So that was tough. That was tough.
I had no problems with it at all. You don't
like it, tough, I mean, I'm not going to give
it for someone that I love very much and to
(19:25):
have a walk away no, Well, I worked for that.
They lost contact with Charlie's family for eight years. They
eventually started seeing each other again three years after Rickel
and Charlie had their first kid, Jen, But to this day,
Charlie is not very close to his family. If you
(19:50):
had to, um, if you had to define love, how
would you do that? You know, everyone is going to
have a different different issue of the word. To me,
it's compassion. It's trust the other person having feelings for you,
who care for you, who attend to you when you
(20:11):
really need it, whether it's physically or emotionally, and Raquel
is everything that I've just described. That's what I be all.
It is respect and just caring about each other honestly,
and that's what we've done. Do you still think you're
(20:32):
figuring stuff out? Absolutely? Absolutely. I don't think you ever completely.
You know, I still wonder what's inside his a noggain
Most of the time. It's always me. No, I'm I
talk nice about you. Here you are talking about what
what's inside my head? For On the Job on Motus Gray.
(21:05):
To see pictures of all the couples in this episode,
go to our website Express pros dot com slash podcast.
(21:39):
Thanks for listening to On the Job, brought to you
by Express Employment Professionals. Find out more at Express pros
dot com. This season of On the Job is produced
by Audiation and Red Seat Ventures. Our executive producer is
Sandy Smallens. Our producer is Otis Gray. The show is
mixed by Matt Noble at The Loft in Bronxville, New York.
(22:00):
Find us on I Heart Radio and Apple Podcasts. If
you liked what you heard, please consider rating or reviewing
the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. We'll
see you next time for more inspiring stories about discovering
your life's work. Audiation
On the Job is brought to you by Express Employment Professionals.
Express Employment Professionals as a leading staffing provider that employs
nearly six hundred thousand people annually across more than eight
hundred franchise locations in the US, Canada, and South Africa.
Our long term goal is at the heart of our
(00:22):
company's mission to help as many people as possible find
good jobs. By helping as many clients as possible find
good people. It takes more than just online searches to
land a job. It takes real people who will identify
your talents, a person invested in your success. Express Employment
Professionals understands what it takes to land a new position
(00:45):
at a top employer or start a new career in
today's job market. Express Nose Jobs, get to No Express,
Go to Express pros dot com. Welcome to on the Job.
(01:08):
This season, we're bringing you stories about people finding their
professional stride by virtue of who they know, whether it's
breathing new life into an age old profession, taking the
reins in a family business, forging your own path with
a new idea, or landing the perfect job doing something
you'd never before even considered. For this episode of On
(01:28):
the Job something a little different love stories, stories of
people who found jobs that led them to the person
that they would fall madly in love with. We have
four stories today, from a young couple who became local
legends after their lives collided at a cracker barrel, to
(01:50):
a forty three year marriage that started in the offices
of a power company. While I am not outright condoning
workplace romance, today I proudly share with you these stories
of love on the job. For our first story, Bayla
and Matt, who live in Burlington, Vermont. Now we did
(02:10):
something a little different here. Instead of me interviewing them,
I had them interview each other. What led you to
apply for the job that you applied for ten years ago?
This summer h ten years ago, I was managing an
art handling company in Seattle. I was fantasizing about a
(02:31):
change in my life. And then one day one of
my co workers came in and showed me this uh
ad that he found on the internet saying, you know,
asking the question, do you want to ride your bike
across the country and have it all paid for? And
I thought, that's the job for me. I can do
(02:53):
that job. I want that job more than anything else.
The job was for a New Zealand based vodka company
called forty two Below. As a marketing campaign. They were
looking for forty two cyclists to ride across America wearing
their logo and drinking their product and bars the whole way.
I let's see, I had already quit my real job
(03:16):
in New York. I've been working in marketing for like
a few years, and I was totally burned out. Bila
was looking for a change too, and she did a
lot of cycling on her free time. So a friend
of a friend told her about this forty two below
campaign and said that they were looking for more women.
So she applaied And then I got the call and
they're like, did a five minute interview, and they're like, great,
(03:38):
come on this ride for two months and we'll pay you.
The forty two riders came from all over the world.
They started in New York and they made their way south.
I remember the first time that we I mean, I
like noticed you, but we didn't talk at all in
New Jersey or New York, I don't think. But then
are the first time we had a conversation sh And
(04:00):
wasn't until we got down to d C. I was
definitely not I was definitely not looking for a relationship.
I was neither well, you were in a relationship kind
of not really, I've been dating someone, but I don't know.
Baylor Matt kept things cool for a while. But one
(04:21):
night they were in a bar in Austin drinking the
vodka that they were supposed to drink, and at one
point they went up to the roof of the bar
together and we just sat and watched the sunset and
just talked, and I was like, I want to hang
out with this person for as long as possible, because
there is never going to be a dull moment. Most
(04:43):
of the time during this ride, the whole group set
up tense to sleep in each night. Baylor's true nature
on the trip was that she never had her own tent,
or she you had your own tent, but you never
set it up, and so you always like a lot
of work to set up a tent every night. Yeah
that everybody, literally everybody else was doing it. You're the
only person that wasn't like pitching your own tent. Now,
(05:07):
a lot of people were sharing tents anyways. After making
the rounds and everyone else's tent when they were in Texas,
it seemed that it was match turn. You asked me
if you could stay the night of my tent, And
what did you think When I asked you, I wasn't
totally sure that it was like flirtation or that it
was for any other reason than you needed a place
(05:31):
to stay and maybe you had worn out. You're welcome
with everybody else. We got in the tent and I
remember like we were just lying there next to each other,
and like I wasn't sure. I mean, I definitely had
a crush on you, but I wasn't sure what was
going to happen. And then you grabbed my hand. We
(05:51):
may have kissed, and then I think it's probably like
for me, it's most comfortable to stay at this point
that for the rest of the trip, Baila didn't sleep
in anybody else's tent from there on out, from West
Texas to the end of the trip in l A,
(06:12):
the job ended. When they reached l A, everyone was
headed back to where they came from, Matt to Seattle
and Baila to New York. They visited each other back
and forth until Matt moved to New York to be
with Baila. Six months after the job. They got married
six years later. That was definitely the best summer job
I've ever had. Yeah, that that job, that job was
(06:33):
was an awesome job. It certainly was the best summer
job I've had, and it definitely paved the way for
the greatest job that I have in my life, which
is being your husband. It's certainly a labor of love.
I think the pay could be a little bit better,
and maybe it's time for me to get a raised. Rude.
(06:59):
I mean, I'm just saying, I mean, I can't come
to haven't I had reached the time from my review.
For our next story, we head down to Virginia to
(07:19):
meet a couple of local legends. I'm Katraina Nelson and
I work at Cracker Barrel. Well, one of them. Kat's husband, Travis,
was actually at work when we interviewed. He's kind of
like the phantom husband because he's not really into like
being out there and like public with stuff. He's more
of a private guy, so he's not been in a
(07:40):
single interview and I kind of feel like maybe he's imaginary.
They get a lot of requests for interviews, partly because
their love story starts at a Cracker Barrel. And for
those of you who don't know, Cracker Barrel is a
Southern country style chain restaurant. If you ever drive across country,
you'll notice that Cracker Barrel seems to be the glue
that holds American highways together. Cat works at the location
(08:02):
in Christenburg, Virginia, where she and Travis first met. So
I started working at the Cracker Barrel, and I was
very nervous on my first day because I wanted everybody
to like me. So I was there forty five minutes
early and I was just sitting in the car. I
remember I had the short haircut and I was like
checking my lipstick and making sure that my hair was good.
And he pulls up in parks beside me, and I
was like, oh, my gosh, he's kind of cute, though
(08:24):
um and he gets out of the car first and
starts walking inside, and I was like, oh, I'm going
to follow him. And the only thought that I have
of that moment that I remember is like, Wow, he's
got a great but foundation to a great relationship. Great
but yeah. He was a cook and I was a server,
and we fell in love in the kitchen. They were
(08:46):
just co workers for a while before they got together.
It didn't happen right away, no, because, um, funnily enough,
we were both seeing other people at the time, scandalous.
I know. About a year later they started seeing each
other and uh, and you guys continue to work together.
We did, and it was awesome. I know a lot
(09:08):
of people think that, like working with your significant other
is super scary, and maybe it is, but it was
perfect for us. Like, I've spent almost every single day
with this guy for four and a half years, working together,
living together most of that time, and I don't get
sick of him, So I think that's a pretty good sign.
(09:28):
Captain Travis got married four years ago and they decided
that they were going to take all of their wedding
photos at Cracker Barrel and these photos are awesome. I
shared one of our wedding pictures on Instagram and tagged
Cracker Barrel and it exploded. Cracker Barrel shared the picture.
Then their pr reached out to me and we started
sharing the story with like Southern Living. I think was
(09:49):
the first one to grab ahold of it, and it
just took off from there. Today dot Com picked up
the story. NBC Boston even Fox News had an article
about them, and they became kind of locally famous, to
the point where people were even coming into the restaurant
in hopes of seeing them. A lot of guests were
asking the servers like is the cracker barrel couple here?
Like are they working today? Yeah? Four years later, they're
(10:13):
still happy. Everything is really really great. I thought that
after we got married things would be different for some reason.
But it's exactly the same, and I think that's how
it's supposed to be. So it's perfect, and you guys
are still working together. How's how's that going. Unfortunately, no,
he got a new job at the beginning of March,
something that he couldn't pass up, and that's kind of
(10:36):
been hard him getting a new job. That must be
a big change. You look really sad. Oh everything is
good now, But at first it was like it was
really hard. I cried a lot. I mean, we we
were working the same shifts on the same days. We
were always together. I'm an opener, so I go into
work at five, I'm usually home by three, and then
he leaves for work at five, so I see him
(10:57):
for like five minutes a day now. But you gotta
do what you gotta do. For now, you can rest
easy knowing that the Cracker Barrel couple is happy and thriving.
Did you guys have a favorite dish together at Cracker
Barrel or do you have different preferences? We have different preferences,
(11:19):
and also we don't share. Usually he gets a country
fried steak and I'm a huge fan of those, um
maple onion and jam burgers. Those things are good. Oh,
I'll leave you with that. I hope you're hungry more
(11:40):
love stories when we come back. We'll get back to
the story in a second. First, a word from Express
Employment Professionals. A strong work ethic takes pride in a
job well done. This is you. But to get an
honest day's war, you need a call back. You need
(12:02):
a job. Express Employment Professionals can help. We'll connect you
to the right company. We're committed to your success and
never charge a fee to find you a job. Express
Nose Jobs get to no Express find your location at
express pros dot com or on the Express Jobs app.
(12:24):
And now back to our story. For our next story,
we go to Philadelphia to meet Amanda. I'm Amanda Fifer O'Brien,
and I write about and teach food fermentation. Before she
taught fermentation in Philly, Amanda was in grad school in Monterey,
California when she decided to well sort of go into
the business of fermentation. I needed a job, like a
(12:47):
weekend gig, and there was a opening at a tasting
room of winery tasting room, and I was like, Oh,
that sounds amazing. I'll be you know, getting free wine,
getting paid to like drink and talk to people about whine.
This sounds amazing. So I applied for it and I actually,
like totally remember I was walking into a class and
I had a message on my voicemail from this guy
(13:11):
and like, I'm an oral person. I like sounds of things,
and I was like, I really like his voice. That
guy's name was Jake, his dad on the winery. Amanda
went into interview with the dad and she ended up
getting the job. And when I went to pick up
like the packet, the starting packet, that was the first
time I met Jake Um And I walked home and
(13:33):
called my best friend and I was like, I'm totally
going to marry the guy that I just met, And
I swear I'm not that person. Like I didn't ever
say that about anybody before him. I'm like, not, I'm
not like a particularly romantic person. I don't know. I
felt the thing, and I felt like a real thing,
and I was like, he had an amazing voice, he's
very cute. I think like a lot of women can
(13:56):
really tell when they've met like the nice guy, which
probably earlier times in my life that would have been
less appealing. I would have been like a nice guy. Um,
but I was like, oh, nice guy, Like I'm ready
for nice guy. Nice guys. Where I'm headed right now?
To tell my friend that I was going to marry
him when I talked to him for fifteen minutes is
like insane, But turned out I was right. It was
(14:17):
at a time in my life where I was kind
of trying this whole nice guy thing. I'm just shocking.
This is Jacob Brien. I was the manager, so the boss.
I had a very giant mental block towards entertaining the
notion of dating one of my employees. It just felt wrong.
So um, we were we like we're in a in
(14:38):
a situation for a very long time where a man
it was working there. Obviously affinities were developing. There was
like some flirting happening, but I was really trying to
not let it go past a friendly level. The tasting
of employees and people who worked in the shops around
the area would always get together after hours to drink
and have fun. It was a motley crew, and they
(14:58):
all saw the attraction between Jake and Amanda, so they
all kind of try to convince Jake to make a move,
led by this charismatic older gentleman named Down. He was
like the Don one of the community. He was like
seventy years old, was very charming, um and with like
you know, just kind of like flirt with all the customers.
And eventually Jake was convinced that it was okay, and
(15:22):
he was so funny. I'm sorry, this is actually making
me laugh to remember this. He um he asked me out,
and like without like moments hesitation, I was like, yes, yes,
they well go out with you. And then he before
I had finished saying yes, he was like, I've invited
a whole bunch of people to go. No one could
(15:44):
make it but Don, the older guy. So they all
drank throughout the day enough where Jake was in no
shape to drive home at the end, and either was Dawn,
who slept on Amanda's couch. Yeah, so our first date
ended in a slumber party with a sixty five year
old man. I think he's definitely least seventy, but everything
else about that's accurate. Amanda and Jake live in Philly
(16:09):
and they've been happily married for fourteen years. For our
last love story, we go to Manhattan to meet Charlie
Charles Cleary Senior and originally from Brooklyn, New York, and
Raquel Raquel and do you want to know where I
was born? Where? Come away? Cuba. Charlie and Riquel have
(16:30):
been married for forty three years. They both grew up
in the city and met back in ninety two. Charlie
was working in the accounting department at con Edison, the
energy company, and uh, one day she came in and
started to work, and I noticed her very quickly, that
that's one good looking babe. She had long, round hair,
(16:52):
and she had on a platform shoes. I think it
was a beige pants and a flowery blouse. And I
just remember all that very nice. I remember Charlie. I
don't know that I was interested in him at first,
and I got to know him a little bit and
(17:13):
I found him to be extremely annoying, and uh, that
hasn't changed much. But I also found him to be
a very honest and sincere person. I liked um. I
like teasing him and I would go by his desk
and he has a cleft chin, which you can't tell
(17:35):
because of his goatee, but um, I would press it
together and call him like, it's a little But how
did you feel about her picking on you? I loved it.
I loved it. It was attention that I was getting.
They worked together for about two years before they started dating,
but after they did, Charlie proposed to her. Two months later.
(17:58):
I went to her father. Of course he said yes,
and uh that's it. The rest is history. As they say,
Even though it's been forty three years, it hasn't always
been smooth sailing. We are very very different people and
we come from very different cultures. Raquel's family is Cuban,
Charlie's is Irish, and this ended up being a problem
(18:20):
for Charlie's family. When I was going out with Raquel,
it came across that they really didn't like her because, uh,
she wasn't Irish, she was in Italian, she wasn't German.
She was Cuban, and uh, a little bit of anauchie
bunker attitude came out from both of them, and I
didn't really like it. And it got to a point
(18:41):
where it was her well then and I said bye bye. Yeah,
it just was a racial thing with them, and and yeah,
that change our lives in a big way. Um, because
(19:05):
he lost contact with his parents and I never wanted
that for him. So that was tough. That was tough.
I had no problems with it at all. You don't
like it, tough, I mean, I'm not going to give
it for someone that I love very much and to
(19:25):
have a walk away no, Well, I worked for that.
They lost contact with Charlie's family for eight years. They
eventually started seeing each other again three years after Rickel
and Charlie had their first kid, Jen, But to this day,
Charlie is not very close to his family. If you
(19:50):
had to, um, if you had to define love, how
would you do that? You know, everyone is going to
have a different different issue of the word. To me,
it's compassion. It's trust the other person having feelings for you,
who care for you, who attend to you when you
(20:11):
really need it, whether it's physically or emotionally, and Raquel
is everything that I've just described. That's what I be all.
It is respect and just caring about each other honestly,
and that's what we've done. Do you still think you're
(20:32):
figuring stuff out? Absolutely? Absolutely. I don't think you ever completely.
You know, I still wonder what's inside his a noggain
Most of the time. It's always me. No, I'm I
talk nice about you. Here you are talking about what
what's inside my head? For On the Job on Motus Gray.
(21:05):
To see pictures of all the couples in this episode,
go to our website Express pros dot com slash podcast.
(21:39):
Thanks for listening to On the Job, brought to you
by Express Employment Professionals. Find out more at Express pros
dot com. This season of On the Job is produced
by Audiation and Red Seat Ventures. Our executive producer is
Sandy Smallens. Our producer is Otis Gray. The show is
mixed by Matt Noble at The Loft in Bronxville, New York.
(22:00):
Find us on I Heart Radio and Apple Podcasts. If
you liked what you heard, please consider rating or reviewing
the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. We'll
see you next time for more inspiring stories about discovering
your life's work. Audiation
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