Joe Ugolik is still alive bro.
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Joseph Ugolik used to make corrugated containers and other items as a factory worker. Now he has a new career.
“I took it because I just needed a big change,” said Ugolik, 38, who has become a manicurist.
Ugolik said he got the idea from some women friends who suggested he start cutting hair or doing nails after hearing how tired he was of factory work.
“At first I didn’t want to. It wasn’t anything I’d thought of before, and it wasn’t anything I thought a guy would do,” he said.
But soon he was thinking differently. And in doing so, he joined a trend: nail salons are cropping up everywhere.
Known as nail technicians, people such as Ugolik are doing more than buffing and polishing, and they’re doing it in some unexpected places.
“They’re going into gyms, they’re going into convalescent homes, they’re going into tanning salons,” said Lorraine Cewe, owner of the Connecticut School of Nails in Wallingford. The school runs a 40-hour program and graduates 55 to 65 people a year, Cewe said.
Ugolik gives manicures at the World Gym, a Wallingfordhealth club that his brother Nick Ugolik owns. Nick Ugolik said he knows club owners who are bringing in not only nail technicians, but hairdressers, tanning salons and the like.
“I guess people are just interested in going to one place to get all their needs met,” he said. “And I guess it’s still considered health and beauty, so they’re more or less getting it all done instead of going to the gym for an hour, running across town for a hair appointment and someplace else for a tanning appointment.”
To Ugolik, becoming a manicurist was a necessity.
“It wasn’t a dream of mine to do nails. I try to do anything to boost my income; I don’t care what it is,” he said. “I’ve been a welder, sheet- metal worker, box maker. I’ve done housecleaning – I was even an aerobics instructor. In fact, I’ll tie your shoes for $5. And I’m thinking of becoming a comedian.”
In becoming a manicurist, Ugolik has joined an industry that is growing nationwide, according to the “Nails 1993 Fact Book,” published by “Nails Magazine,” a monthly publication. Last year, nail services were a $4 billion-plus industry, the magazine said.
There were 750 nail salons in Connecticut in 1993; in 1992 there were 600, the magazine said. And 2,504 beauty salons included manicures in their list of services offered in 1993, up from 2,404 in 1992.
The magazine compiled the statistics from 2,200 nail technicians across the country who responded to a survey. According to the survey, the number of employed nail technicians in Connecticut has increased 10.2 percent, from 3,378 in 1992 to 3,723 in 1993.
Though business is picking up, the growth isn’t all for the good, said Jacqueline Verrone, who owns Jacqueline’s Nail Boutique in Wallingford.
“There’s not enough nail technicians who know what they’re doing,” she said as she filed and polished Griffin’s nails. “Anybody can do nails. You don’t have to be licensed.”
A lot can be done with nails. Besides teaching the theory of nail disorders and diseases, the Wallingford school teaches basic manicuring, hot-oil manicuring, tipping, acrylic nails, gel nails, sculptured nails, silk and fiberglass wraps, maintenance and designing, Cewe said.
It hasn’t been easy for Ugolik.
“I caught a lot of ribbing from some guys I knew for going into nails,” Ugolik said. But, he added, “If I can get paid for sitting there and holding a girl’s hand all day, I’d rather go for that.”
https://www.courant.com/1994/04/07/factory-worker-nails-down-new-career-in-a-growing-field/ .
