SANTA ANA : Unemployed Appreciate These Cuts

For Pam McGuire, a year of joblessness has taken a toll on more than just her bank account. It has also affected the way she looks and feels.

“You just get down and out. You don’t want to get out of bed and even comb your hair. You don’t want to go outside,” said McGuire, a 46-year-old Costa Mesa grandmother laid off from a computer manufacturing job last year. “Why do anything? It’s really been hard.”

With this in mind, ANGLES, a stylish hair salon at MainPlace/Santa Ana, on Monday offered the unemployed a helping hand that didn’t involve resumes or cover letters.

The salon’s owners provided free hair make-overs worth as much as $80 to about 30 jobless people in hopes of lifting their spirits and leaving them with a successful look that might lead to work.

Time will tell if the new hairdos help them land jobs. But whether you asked the Mission Viejo salesman out of work for the first time or the Santa Ana man who toils at odd jobs until something permanent comes along, all said the experience was a rare treat in a season of hard knocks.

“This makes me feel better about myself,” said McGuire, whose beyond-shoulder-length blond hair was chopped off to make way for a shorter, more golden look. “I wanted to do something really different, a real change in appearance. It makes me want to get out of bed and do something.”

Oliver Harold agreed. The 51-year-old Santa Ana man has been without full-time employment for more than a year and works at temporary jobs to make ends meet.

“It’s been very difficult,” Harold said. “It gives me a lot more confidence having someone make you look a little more presentable.”

For many who filed into ANGLES, hair care has become a luxury they can no longer afford. Instead of paying a professional for a cut or coloring, they’re doing the job themselves.

Sometimes, this thriftiness can harm more than help when one’s personal appearance suffers, a fact employers are keenly aware of.

“Some people’s hair is so thrashed when they get here that it is amazing what a make-over can do,” said Richard Ouellette, who with his wife, Connie, owns ANGLES.

The salon’s hairstylists said they attempted to make their clients’ hair look “clean and professional”--pleasing to potential employers but stylish enough for their clients’ tastes.

“When you are at home for a while, you don’t see yourself the way other people do,” said stylist Wendy McCarthy. “That’s where we help.”

For out-of-work salesman Vic Packer, the cut brightened his outlook, which has been filled with fear, anger and concern about the future.

“I think I’ll feel a lot more professional when in job interviews,” said Packer, 48, who lives with his family in Mission Viejo and learned about the salon’s offer while at the unemployment office. “It’s nice to know people care.”

That’s thanks enough for the Ouellettes, who came up with the idea after receiving more than 300 calls for one job opening at their San Diego County salon. That opened their eyes to the seriousness of the state’s economic problems.

“If there were that many people out of work, we thought we needed to give something back to the community,” Richard Ouellette said.