ep 004 Workplace Romance Challenges

We are a team. As storytellers and dreamers there is always magic to discover. Once upon a time, A Las Vegas Showgirl and a comedian magician figured out that, even with different perspectives, our adventures, and experiences together are really just One Big Caper! workplace system right. And I was saying this right on the video. Yes, I remember you just do that like you just don’t really know. Okay, okay. Sounds good. Speaking you had a rule. You broke it. going back to that, okay? Yes, I had a strict rule and for good reason. Good advice that I got a long time ago that I’ve been pretty responsible. Up until a few years ago I do but the saying go and this is one of those old sayings. But using an alternative word is don’t poopoo eat, which means don’t with lustful desires, and pleasures of the flesh, and all of those things, don’t mix that with your job because it could have your career. Or it could at least highly dramatic, dramatic, but it’s one way you could. You could lose your job can cause all kinds of problems. And that is the basis of the subject of this episode, which was also requested, as I said, Yep, yeah. So thanks for that and keep keep those requests coming in or, or whatever, but, but we’re excited to tackle it. At the workplace, dating, dating in the theater dating anyone that you are working or playing with. Yeah, it’s worth it’s worth noting, you know, because of our experiences in our careers. We are familiar with the idea that perceptions by non theater, entertainment industry people are that those rules are looser in the entertainment industry. I think I think that there’s a broad perception that love is a little for your Indian. You know, you’re gonna be a poet today. No, I I’ve tried to discover ways that I can gently put things to, you know, yeah, you’re gonna have these up. I don’t wanna code things. Too much. But I don’t work blue. I try to keep this as not explicit other show as possible for various reasons being the Terms of Use and service on each of the platforms that we are. That’s that’s a major problem. So forgive my beliefs. bleeps happened. There’s a name. So it’s not as different as I think a lot of people might believe. In theater, what do you disagree? I kind of disagree. I’ve seen both. I think I’ve been in corporate environments. I worked as a graphic designer and a huge national sports retailer in the marketing department. And I’ve also worked in small boutique firms, and I’ve worked in a huge cast backstage and I’ve worked with some guests backstage, same issues, different faces, exact same things. Yeah. Workplace romances can cause drama, period, especially if it’s the types if it’s now I’m going to sound a little sexist when I say this, but there are certain males that perpetuated certain stereotypes in different shows, and they would be the womanizers I mean, some I’ve been told by many men, dancers that they got into dance for the pretty girls. So there’s that. But they did they perpetuated that stereotype and in turn caused a lot of drama, and, and heartache and frustration with some of the other performers. You know, it’s not it’s not awesome if he moves on to the next girl. And she’s left in a puddle and new girls happy yeah, so that’s like the probably the biggest problem or risk of dating someone in your workplace. And again, this happens everywhere. Doesn’t matter if it’s a theater or a corporate environment, but it comes down to the fact that it’s human nature Exactly. But what I was going to say, I think, you know, talking with non performers, the perception is that people who work in entertainment are a little more hedonistic in. There’s a fantasy that people have, especially about religion shows. Its origins in West vaccination, which is couldn’t be farther from the truth, right? Yeah, same thing with the show, Rochelle. It’s just like a regular job. You just aren’t good. It seems it seems it seems weird. And I understand that it seems weird and there’s certainly a time before I was involved. In any of this, that I would have been very entertained by topics like this, or by hearing from people who’ve had the experience. Gosh, if you told me when I was 1617 years old, I was performing already, but if you told me that, as a grown up, I would end up doing almost 3000 burlesque shows. I probably would have had to had to have you define burlesque. But yeah, I would have been beside myself to know that that was in the future. Yeah. So back to the subject. provinces in the workplace. We had one. Yeah. But it was both of ours. Were deal breakers. It was a deal breaker. How, why? Don’t know, we’ve, we’ve, as you know, we’ve been together for several years and that’s one of the things that we haven’t been able to identify is where exactly we were precisely where it happened, or, or why we compromise these rules. You’re being very inarticulate. Right now. I’m really struggling. It’s difficult for us to figure out where this even happened for us. I have an idea. You know what, for us? We started it started off as a friendship. It was very different from any relationship I’ve ever, but not not just a backstage or on stage friendship. But we would talk on own and no, I think no romantic designs really. It was definitely one of my viewers. I’m not dating a performer ever again, because my husband was a dancer in leadership. And so that worked out to a degree because he was in a completely different shop. So I didn’t have to deal with any flirtatious coworkers. Yeah, we weren’t coworkers. We had same schedule. Pretty much. We’re dropping off and so he was chosen to come in for some reason he chose shorter than mine. So yeah, it was it was really weird. But when that went south, and this was at a time when Vegas performers the show started doing silos, their own silos instead of 20 years earlier, when everyone knew each other, everyone knew who’s sleeping with each other. And it was just a giant community of everyone it was everyone’s shows and so the ability to have gossip happening, and I actually experienced that when the divorce happened, and it was very uncomfortable because a girl in my show, worked in her husband work in the same show that he did. And there was a lot of it was it was it was difficult for a while and then it stopped being difficult, but that was when I made the decision, the agreement with myself that I wasn’t ever going to date a performer and then when you came along and you just had ruined that well, you ruined it for me, too. I don’t say ruins eventually, just because I think my life is so much better. That I get to have you in. Thanks. Yes. And sometimes basically the moral of that story is sometimes we make agreements that don’t really make sense for us in the future. Now, it might not make sense for our future selves. How’s that? Interestingly, we still work together and not just as performers. We work together on most things. Yeah, things that I’m trying to do, whether it’s with my my business, my websites, whatever helps me with that. And we have been grabbing costume pieces together. So that’s I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily business but it’s really working together. It’s definitely working together. It’s co creating. We’re creating art together. So I think the working together is a big part of our relationships. Like I was talking to, I was on a call this morning, and I was like, Oh, I have to write that down. I was explaining to this person who was not a performer. She’s an entrepreneur, and she had she checked out my first podcast and we talked about and she asked me, have you ever thought about making costumes where people are going that direction? I was like, oh, however, one thing that still strikes me even though we’ve been together, five years, six years, is how we came together. And then the little parts of our idiosyncrasies fit together. For example, when we first started having a friendship, we would talk a lot about art and creating and making things and he I remember when he told me oh my favorite media is coheres. And I was like my favorite media used to be paper and then it turned into fabrics and feathers and, and rhinestones and I was like, Who is this weirdo? Yeah, should run. But fast forward a couple years when I started making Shugborough costumes on burlesque show costumes. There’s a difference. You we had a project and he was a clown and he said I could totally make that and that’s when our our partnership on the costume General has started and I still to this day I’m like blown away that even though we’ve fallen in love and we know we work well together, how your favorite medium, and my favorite medium go together. To create these beautiful costumes. It’s still like you’re there’s a lot of mysteries that we allowed to themselves. It’s the adventure that we just leave basically declared we’re going on an adventure together and it’s just this long continuous string of adventures. We’re still discovering things to deal with here I’m just bringing in a way to invite you to learn a little bit more about what I do when you know a bit but I have been doing what I do since 1978 as a result of having a poorly is building links via the URL 30 years ago and left often to guess what people want to know from us. And our personal experience was as opposed to us you know, just delivering some kind of textbook. You know, here’s why office romances work or here’s why they don’t work. Here’s what you should or should not. How do we make it work? Do you wanna? I think people want to know if you’re out there and you’re even considering this. Although sometimes they run away don’t do it. But you can’t really say it goes yeah I don’t know that we necessarily planned any kind of exit strategy if we were run off together into the sunset holding hands. But lately, I can tell you that in the environment, where we met each other and work together on stage and backstage. We had projects outside of that venue also that were unaffected by our romance but that one was affected by our romance, and some people get upset, but it’s I don’t know, I can’t guarantee guaranteed. We could ask every person backstage it was, it was so Felix and I are very sensitive to humans and not necessarily you chose but we can feel that’s part of our superpowers, or you can call us and I definitely identify as an empath in an orchestra who was anti psychics. identified as an empath. However, we could feel you could cut it with a knife when we walked in. When we came out from scratch when we felt it. We absolutely felt it. I felt the daggers he felt the Rotten Tomatoes. We felt it all. And I don’t blame anyone for that. I guess I take full responsibility for it because because Ella kind of painted a picture of herself. DREW That’s what it was. Yeah. So it was you know, had an alter ego as a different name traditional burlesque for safety sake as much as anything else. And very often every night. I think it would hold court in the dressing room. Until fantastic tales of exploits for the sake of horror and entertainment. They were hilarious. Yeah, come on. So she painted a picture of her own personality that his alter ego was great, and you know, no one really knew my first name, which is fine you know, they learned it and they really loved it and feel like it’s a very sensitive loving person. Enter develop who was pretty much going through. I was okay. I’ll think about doing two boys. My boy, my boy days and I would tell these fantastic stories in the dressing and share photographic evidence of such escapades. So, I take full responsibility for that, that there were some upset people mostly that paper free for you and your poor little part of it was going to eat your life, but that was that was that was that we understand what was happening. We were and so a lot of the awareness that we were an item I’m a private person. I don’t discuss my personal affairs even with people I’ve worked with for 10 years. We’ve been trying to do this podcast for two years. I’m just getting very private. I’m opening it up a little bit by doing this product but who knew me Rosen faced with whether or not they actually knew me. This is one of the inherent problems of what I do for a living is the title of magician means liar to most people, and always and they were questioning whether or not they could leave anything I never thought it was he was lying for people, particularly for more than one individual who I naively did not know had some kind of crush on me or something. Like that. I don’t why would you put a design on you like that? I personally that was perfect. You didn’t have to articulate any kind of crush on you. And I get it I totally absolutely understand I just I I know you are I don’t pick up signals. I guess like, I don’t know. It was just like I was not aware. So there were there was a I guess a casualty or two. were furious about our union. And I think that no one expects you to last under all the circumstances. So they’re probably puzzled to see that we are not only it’s drawn but in the strongest relationship that I’ve experienced. So it’s thing Yeah, yeah. So yes, if you’re considering dating someone in the workplace, you know, I you know what I want to say on it. I don’t know if this is a proper juicy bit. What was the temperature? I don’t know should it be? Did we did we get anywhere? No, we, I think we’re good. Ready? Are you ready for purchasing? I’m not sure absolutely. Okay. It’s kind of the moral of the story, at least in our experience. I don’t think I have not knowing what you’re going to say but I don’t think I have anything to top it. i It was a strict rule for me. Yeah. And I can’t say well, alright, I take that back. Even in burlesque I have seen coworker romances go horribly south and and and it affected the environment for everybody in the venue in the show. So I have seen poorly. You know our last episode we talked about the etiquette I know, this way public pressure, it could offend people. You know, there’s a lot of there were a lot of people of faith in the in Jubilee. And, you know, that’s just less it’s frowned upon. Not just here but in general. But if you’re in a relationship with someone who there’s people around you, any hand holding kissing, any type of infection could prevent people, especially if we go back to my earlier example, the playboys of the it wasn’t always men that did that. It was women too. But then we get to the host machine and it’s just that it created an environment where the girls were then forced into this animosity and it just it made the environment feel very rigid. So no, we knew that was a consideration. I wasn’t worried about it, because I knew that if it didn’t go well that I could either be performing or so for me that it was fine for you. It was a lot more because it was at home. So for me it was just like Well, that’s true. I think they use total shows and the shows changed over the 13 years I was there. There were new shows and those shows. Traveling shows that would put me to be a mobile radio within show the troubled country. I don’t i i could probably count how many shows it was in that but not the amount of times I was in those shows was an important venue and it was it had a lot of impact I suppose for me to go the drag my heart was on the alert. Because I knew that that might be the final bit of punctuation on time at that venue, and I don’t think it was solely responsible for me withdrawing from venue. I just get another contract that we’re gonna prevent me from being able to perform there were years but it was just time and so but I didn’t have another contract on the line or whatever when I quit. Probably still Yeah. Well, yeah, cuz you’re trying to exit strategy. Exit Strategy, like okay, well, what happens to this? What’s our experience and look at it in retrospect to be able to give somebody advice if they’re considering entertaining the idea of interoffice romance? Yeah, it’s hard. I just it felt felt right. Like we there was a hug. We had we celebrate the day. We celebrate the day it was a hug. And that was before there was any even desire or anything. There was a specific hug and like I’m a very conscious person. And I felt our solar plexus that we had because this guy’s 100% He loves to hug. He’s very touchy feely. And it was just a typical friend hug that we and just this one particular hug. It was it was he was coming in for the next show. I was leaving from the first show. And I felt our solar plexus do this thing. Come to find out he felt it too. So I was very curious. I just I didn’t freak out. And I didn’t jump on anything. But I was just like, Well, that was interesting. And we just kept talking and I’m just like, I don’t know what’s going on here but something is happening. That happens for people when they fall in love that just is something I can’t tell you if this is going to be the person or not. But I’ve gone through two other long term relationships. One was my first love. The second was my children, the father of my children. And I’m just like, at this point where I was done with the boys and I was just ready to change things. So that’s where I was, you know, but I can’t like give advice because say what happened to us. I just think we are matched in so many different ways. Not even just our favorite medium media to create with our work ethic. Our ideas about life, hopefully, and the kind of lifestyle that we want to have. And just so I think bottom line is thinking and engagement which will be our next episode a very clear conversations a whole episode if that wasn’t that was gonna be my use of it. But then I’m teaching the juicy bonus juicy bit. So the story of the hug was never shared. publicly. Okay, so the beauty of it is this guy’s a touchy feely person. And we were getting ready for a very important show at this venue with friends that we perform with all the time, and there’s a certain bit of trust between all friends. And it was a very stressful show because it was a number we were going to debut together. It was the very first time we were performing together. So there was high nerves, level of nerves, high level of nerves, not between us, but individually because we wanted to play our parts. And I happen to be sitting in a chair in the greenroom. Ready to just preparing myself mentally preparing myself not only do I physically prepare my body for performance, but I have to mentally be there as well and bring on the full power of whoever So I’m sitting there, injuring grabbing and I can come here with honor me and I can do it’s coming to find another performer, you know, coming and there’s like I said, Scott loves to hug. We were hugging before we were friends, and just the do loves to hug so I see this happen in front of me normally and it just happened to happen. So I’m sitting there and the hug is happening and my left hand is going further and further down the bottom, the back of this person to a point at which I was like there’s a line there. I think he knows the line but maybe he doesn’t know he doesn’t know the line. And that line was crossed with his hand. And I was curious. And it took a lot to not bring it up before the number to not bring it up in the house and to wait until we got home until we had a podcast to talk about what just happened. I’m not a jealous person. I used to be but he definitely triggered this like right in front of me. But knowing how when it comes to the opposite sex that it was just a thing that you had to have a discussion about. And he had to come to terms with like, oh, did I screw up? Oh, I might have screwed up. But that’s why there are rules. There have to be rules. I cannot fault this as always, we went to the keep sending us your questions, suggestions, observations just interact with us. That’s really what helps us keep going and validates these this effort that we’re doing. We will see you in the next episode. We can keep doing this without you. It was just a little bit of your time by subscribing, sharing rating for talking about one big paper for someone else. We truly appreciate your support. 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