After 40 years and thousands of businesses hell bent on getting rid of him, the Middleman has finally thrown in the towel. On December 29, he enrolled in Midwest Barber College of Ashtabula, Ohio.
“I needed something more dependable,” he says. With so many companies eliminating him, says he’s earning just 45 percent of what he did five years ago.
“Not only are you scrambling to make ends meet, but you don’t feel good about yourself, either,” he says. “Every time you turn on the TV or radio, there’s another ad where they’re bragging about eliminating you.”
At one time, says the Middleman, being the Middleman was extremely lucrative. He got used to earning pretty big money, and also to the lifestyle that went along with it. “You know how it goes,” he says. “The more you earn, the more you spend. Cars, booze, cruises, middlewomen. I’m kicking myself for not saving any of it.”
After graduating from Midwest next year, he’ll serve three years as an apprentice – specializing in trimming the nape of the neck – and then plans to go to work in an actual shop.
“That should see me through until I retire,” says the Middleman. “Unless someone invents self-cutting scissors.”
