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