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$1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
I am still making about $400-500 per day, and I have the occasional $1000 shift. My clients are still crass and rowdy and ready to brawl -people I would not otherwise associate with. But I keep my clothes on now, and instead of packing my dancer-bag each night at sundown, I wake with the birds and sunrise and I pack my briefcase. I have graduated from stripper to lawyer.
It was law school that gave rise to my dancing career. I felt there was no other way for me to pay my tuition. I didn’t manage to avoid the dreaded student loans, but I had the benefit of tens of thousands of dancing dollars to keep me afloat.
In my first year of law I worked many nights, this was before the economy got fucked up and I was making minimum $500 per shift, and often more. I would go to my classes exhausted, paid for my books and lunch off a fat stack of $20s, and had the blondest hair in the room.
As the years passed, I had to work less and study more. When the economy started to take a downturn, I quit dancing altogether to finish my last year in law. I planned to go back, after I graduated, to pay down these debts in short order. But something different happened… I decided to pay off my loans like most other folks, with a regular pay cheque from my regular job. I suddenly realized that it was impossible for me to keep stripping with my new job. I worked too hard getting to this place to get seen dancing and destroy my chances of being taken seriously. I also realized that I was at the point where my ‘regular’ income could compare to dancing, with the exception that the legal salary has an upward trajectory and the dancing is the opposite. The first $5000 retainer cheque sealed the deal }:D
It has been an adjustment, to say the least. While dancing I considered the 9-5 crowd ‘suckers’. Now, while I can see the financial benefits of a professional career, I am still not very happy to run for my train at 7:45 am, or to go to bed early when my old friends are partying.
The wardrobe was an adjustment as well, and I got a big shock with the demanding requirements for a 2 or 3 piece suit every day – even Friday. Before my first trial my boss asked me to ‘fix’ my hair, which I initially required clarification for what he meant. It meant to remove the extensions and darken it down a lot from the Holly Madison color I had. But luckily I found some decent suits (thank you Voctoria’s Secret!!) and I am getting used to my new hair color. These changes have helped me feel like a better advocate in the court room, and have helped me to make the mental transition to professional.
I still have to remind myself not to flirt and joke around, because that is no longer an asset for me. These changes do not come naturally and I have been surprised how hard it is to ‘reprogram’.
I would like to encourage all my dancing sisters to pursue their education as a dependable exit strategy from this business. Yes we all know some ‘lifers’, people who have their own ‘strategy’ to keep dancing forever. But for those reading this who intend to eventually hang up their dancing shoes, I must tell you it feels fabulous to exit the industry having laid the foundation for something even more lucrative!!
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
Your post is very encouraging to me as I plan to go the law school route also. just need to get through undergrad. first!!!! Congrats, I'm very happy for you!!!
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
I imagine this how I will feel after I am finished medical school.
I am very, very proud of you.
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
I'm glad to hear that your years of effort are finally paying off !
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
Hooray! Has your gap in "normal" employment ever come up? Did you go straight from undergraduate to law school?
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
congratulations! u should feel so proud!
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
Congrats!!! The hard work paid off and it is possible to achieve your goals through dancing! Woohoo!
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
Yay for you!
I'm currently in school to be a court reporter. I can't wait until I'm done...2 more years to go!
In the meantime, I'll be trying to make a buck in the shitty economy. But, I'll look to the brightside, and think of better times...times that helped me pay off my undergraduate...with which I did nothing with!
Congrats again, and good luck to everybody else!
Hopefully, we'll all have successful transitions.;)
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
The employment gap was never a problem, but that's because during law school I was networking like crazy, trying to arrange my job for after graduation. I think that only comes up in a job search. You could incorporate a hobby-business and say you have been self employed etc.
In terms of references, it would have been easier if I had a legit job part time. But a good student can get refs from professors too, if there is no legit former employer.
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
I don't know if school is really an option for everyone. I thought about going back to school because I realize that I can't dance my entire life but it's just too unrealistic for me.
Sometimes dancing is the best someone can do. It's sad but its a fact of life.
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
^^^ I don't think it's sad at all. Dancing is a great career, but you have to ENJOY doing it. I wish the best of luck to the ladies that want to leave this industry... as for me - I love it and hope to do this as long as I can.
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
^^ I'd like to add to that. I've seen girls that are in the 10th-something year of dancing, still making good money because they've honed their marketing skills, and their "exit strategy" is to save and invest, when they finally retire, that is.
You can't dance forever, no, but you can do well enough dancing to actually retire when you hang up your heels.
(I, however, am in school to get a paralegal degree.)
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
Customers are surprised when they learned I recently graduated with two degrees (technically not totally graduated; I have one survey class to complete by the end of summer to receive them), and it's always a little sad that they're so impressed, because why should it be a big deal if a stripper goes to school? It stabs at my heart a little that there still is such a degrading stereotype that runs rampant throughout this industry.
I tell them I wanted to dance, but I was too busy during my collegiate career to have a night job! As of right now, I'm not actively looking for a "real" job, because I plan to move in a year, so I'd hate to get a career I'd just leave. But my long-term goal is to make as much money as I can now, so that when I move, I can try to get into a graduate degree program and not have to work if I go back to school.
And congratulations, Luvly, for making your transition a profitable and exciting one. All that hard work (studying AND getting naked!) certainly has paid off. You're an inspiration to those of us who want to further our education, giving us the knowledge that it's certainly attainable with a dancer's salary. :)
However, I also firmly believe there are women who can make dancing their true career, and be fulfilled in doing so. Power to them, these gals who can retire young and have lots of money to do with what they want! If school isn't your dream goal, who cares? As long as we all do something we enjoy, that's all that matters!
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
Way to go, LuvlyDancer! :)
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
Congrates on finishing! And thank you for the insight you've given us! I am curious more about what your boss said to you:
He told you to "fix" your hair, right? What type of extensions did you have (I have SoCap and LOOOOVE them...they are really long and blonde). How did that affect you? I'm very attached to my hair, etc.
I just finished my last class towards my degree, and start my internship next week and will have my degree in Sept. I'm wonde ring if i'll get told the same thing.
What would have happened if you just pulled it back in a low pony tail, braid, etc. "conservative" style...that way you could keep extensions...
Sorry about all the hair questions! I'm just so curious :-0
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
Congratulations! You obviously worked your ass off, and it sounds like you're happy and enjoying the fruits of your labor now. ;D Brava.
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
Frequently, I'll explain to a customer that I dance in order to save money to move and start a business & family. I get told too damn often that I'm "too smart for this shit." Well, if that's the way those who run the industry think, then why on Earth do any of them complain about how "dumb" their dancers are? Ugh, it just irritates me, this still-pervasive stereotype...
Anyway, immense & intense congrats on getting into law! You must (and should!) feel proud of yourself.
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
when I read "blondest hair in the room" I couldn't stop thinking about Elle Woods from Legally Blonde lmao
good work!!!!!
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
The dressing up and playing it down is the hardest part!
What I have found works is on those nights that I go out the make up is no holds barred and the heels are the highest I can stand.
Right now the hardest part for me is working until 2 am and showing up for a meeting at 10 am ready to kill it.
It can be done but the beauty of dancing is setting your own schedule. Take a night off the day before "a big day" or presentation. ;)
Congrats!
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
Congratulations girl!! I encourage all the dancers to take advice and prosper into a better career and life. I will be graduating next year in business/management and opening my second company. I left the industry abt 3 1/2 yrs afo to move on with my life. I feel really good and optimistic and can't wait until I have an entire corporation of companies! To all women, I wish u guys the best and to always reach ur potential!! :)
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
Quote:
Originally Posted by
NREXM
Sometimes dancing is the best someone can do. It's sad but its a fact of life.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kylea2
^^^ I don't think it's sad at all. Dancing is a great career, but you have to ENJOY doing it. I wish the best of luck to the ladies that want to leave this industry... as for me - I love it and hope to do this as long as I can.
I'm gonna sound negative here but gotta be honest And say it...not everyone is good career (or atleast successful) stripper material, not everyone is school/professional career material, and there's also some people out there who r NEITHER. Im talkin bout the kinda girls who do not have the right look/personality/hustle to make more than "bottom feeder" earnings of $100/nite as a stripper. They also were never smart enough to excel in school or even earn entrance to a tech/vocaitional school program...which by defalt translates to NO collegeate job for them, thus $0 in a collegeate career field. For these girls, the $100/nite stripper earnings is not much $ at all, but is the only job they can get, except mebbe some unskilled job like taco bell that pays like $50/shift and rarely has full time hrs available. So yea for someone like described, whose "best option" is making subpar earnings at a stripper job she's neither good at nor even enjoys (can't imagine anyone "loving" stripping if they know there earnings r low, and suffer even more customer rejections than the average $300/shift stripper), then YES that's SAD.
(I knew a girl like this, wrote bout her b4 in the "scandocous" thred. As a stripper, she was hirable at most midlevel clubs but was a "bottom feeder" money-wise. She hated the job but sadly it was the best she could get, bein she didnt have an education, smarts, or skills. She even got rejected from a med assistant/aid program at a local for-profit vocaitional school--you know, the kind always advertised during commercial brakes during Jerry springer or maurry--becuz she couldnt pass the entrance exam. To cope, she went around in bravado talking bout her pipe dreams of becoming a model and an actress)
So yea if strippings the best u can do but ur not happy there or make anything close to livable wages let alone the high "stripper-standard"'earnings (which not only justify the job but also allow for 1 to buthen good retirement after ending stripping) then it's sad. I think that's what the 1 poster was gettin at.
Then there's the strippers who ARE capable of making high earnings as a stripper and getting hired at high end clubs, but just arnt HAPPY stripping full-time and/or forever. These girls WANT a strait career but for whatever reason can't get into/thru schooling for it, or they might have the right degree but can't find a relevint job (the recession, being "overqualified", etc). For them stripping mite seem sad too becuz it's not how they intended to live there life. And even if some1 like this has the ability to make good earnings, odds r those high earnings won't last too long if she's unhappy...she'll be more prone to burnout or snapping at work, and thus more prone to impulsively leave stripping w/o a backup plan.
For those who honestly enjoy stripping AND are successful at it, that's terrific. But these kinds of strippers r very few, esp in these hard economic times, when the stripclub industry gets a big influx of laid-off chicas who want to become strippers becuz there desperate for a job/money.
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
Congrats on finishing law school and having a "regular" career :) Glad you got what you wanted! It's a refreshing story.
Kthanx, that's an interesting post, and insightful.
I hope everyone finds their happiness and gets there eventually
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
Congratulations! Im sure you will do well in your career. :)
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
That is a great testimonial!
I too have fully transitioned to the career I'm going to ride to the grave. Hopefully I'll be as good at it one day as I was an entertainer.
I miss some things about dancing (not all of it, of course).
When I reflect, dancing came so naturally and i was instantly good at what I did, but we know it's easy come, easy go in that world.
Being a tattoo artist is the hardest thing I've pursued. It's like trying to climb a vertical rock wall barehanded. I really love the tattoo culture, but I've had my feelings hurt more deeply in my new world than I ever did as a dancer. One place I worked in entertained a rumor that I did gang bang videos (totally untrue).
I guess college was hard too, but it was so long ago that I've forgotten. A lot like the pain of getting a tattoo.. you forget it.
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Re: $1000 shifts - Traded My Dancer-Bag for Briefcase
Congrats! I'm going to seminary to be a pastor.. so I'll be making about 1/4 the amount a public teacher does, and on-call 24/7.. I'm pretty jealous ;0)