Jenn Pardue, talent scout and education liaison, started her career at Juut Salon Spa as a stylist in 2008.
“I’m one of the Juut ‘boomerangs,’” she says. “I have left the salon for other opportunities, but have always been drawn back. Juut is personally and professionally the best I’ve known.”
The Daymaker culture resonates with her naturally optimistic, joyful personality, and while she has many positive stories and experiences at Juut, one in particular stands out.
A few years ago, when Pardue was still a stylist, an older man came into the salon looking for someone to do his wife’s hair. She was being treated for cancer at a nearby hospital and could not travel to the salon.
“I said, ‘I’ll do it.’,” Pardue says. “The man then asked what I charge. So I explained that I would just come and do her hair and there would be no charge.”
Pardue ended up visiting the woman three times and still remembers how it felt to be a bright spot in her day.
“I would go style her hair, give her a hand massage, and just sit and talk with her,” she says. “I just kind of loved her up—it was a nice opportunity to spend time with her and her husband, who had made such a chivalrous and romantic gesture in coming to find a hair stylist in the first place.”
Pardue references a term David Wagner talks about in the salon—“palm-down giving”—to describe the situation.
“If you hold your hand up in the air with your palm down to give something, it’s like saying there are no strings attached,” she explains. “With your palm up, the other person takes it out of your hand, and in a metaphorical way, you’re expecting something in return.”
Pardue says that’s one of the reasons Juut employees are so special—they share that “palm-down” mindset of doing something and expecting nothing in return. “We look for that generous spirit when we hire people,” she says.
A few weeks after the initial visit, the woman passed away, and a couple months later, her daughter came to Juut for a hair service.
“It was such a cool moment to talk to her about her mom,” Pardue says. “What a gift to be a snippet of their life in her last weeks.”
While Pardue no longer works behind the chair, she says it doesn’t matter what your role is at Juut, everyone is expected to act the same way in acknowledging and respecting each other.
And in difficult times, employees rely on each other. “We can lean on each other in times when your spirit is darkened or you’re stressed out,” she says. “There’s always someone else to help carry your burden so you can give to the guests.”
But she also stresses the importance of being your true self every day.
“In this industry, you can’t be Jekyll and Hyde,” she says. “Who you are in the world is who you are at work. Daymaking affirms and creates awareness that you’re always present and have integrity with yourself.”