Bonnie Friedman wraps her bejeweled fingers around buzzing, zebra-patterned electric clippers and shaves Donna Johnson’s hair to the scalp.

“Is that part too wide?” she says with mock innocence.

Johnson laughs, swallows nervously and tries not to cry.

“Leave it to Bonnie,” Johnson says, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “I knew you’d make this fun, at least.”

This might be one of the hardest days in Johnson’s life. The 52-year-old Austin woman, who is about to embark on a grueling six months of chemotherapy, is here to have her hair shaved off before the breast cancer treatment takes it.

Anyone can shave a cancer patient bald, but admirers say that Friedman — a stylist at Pat Painter’s Wigs and Hairpieces in North Austin — approaches the job with a rarely seen passion that keeps her clients laughing instead of crying.

“She is almost an Austin institution,” said Dr. Beth Hellerstedt, a local oncologist. “Bonnie does an amazing job of providing comfort to patients at the most difficult time.”

For 12 years, Friedman, a self-professed “hypochondriac Jew from Miami” who staunchly refuses to reveal her age, has been hosting shaving parties for women undergoing chemo. Just the sight of her violet and white hair, dagger-long nails and rings on every finger is enough to make her clients crack a smile.

She cuts their hair and fits them for wigs. She has given women mohawks, and she’s let their relatives shave them. She gives them funny buttons and pink cancer bracelets. She entertains them with off-color jokes that can’t be repeated in polite company, much less this newspaper.

“The thing about Bonnie is she is full of energy,” said Runi Limary,director of young survivor services at the Breast Cancer Resource Centers of Texas. “She really brings light and humor to the experience in a very compassionate way.”

Cancer has always been in Friedman’s life. Her mother died of the disease, as did her two aunts. Three cousins and her brother were also diagnosed, but they caught it early enough to beat it. In 1991 — two years after she left Miami to live near her brother in Austin — Friedman had a double mastectomy to prevent any chance of the disease. She later had a hysterectomy for the same reason.

So when Friedman went to work at Pat Painter’s in 1997, she helped market the shop as the prime place for cancer patients to go. And when the clients came, Friedman saw them for what they were: scared women terrified of going bald.

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We’ve all seen them, and many of us have worn at least one of them for a cause or two. I’m taking about the silicone wristbands first popularized by Lance Armstrong with his “Live Strong” promotion. Since they first debuted, others have championed different platforms. I have one friend who currently wears a red bracelet that remembers Hurricane Katrina survivors, while another is never without his tan band that reads “Vietnam Veteran.”

Well, yellow and pink bands are now making their own fashion statements, but this time the message is boldly printed in black letters: “Laid Off. Need a Job.” I have not yet personally seen any in our local job market, but according to the product’s website, wearing one might inspire an opportunity to get noticed and build networking leads. The brainchild of two Florida women, Barbara Bourn and Stephanie Aucoin, the bracelets seem to have been one of those light bulb moments between unemployed friends who were getting desperate for work. As the story goes, Barbara purchased 500 wristbands and gave them out to her network of friends in similar straits with good results, and it has grown into an online business.

According to The Hiring Site at Careerbuilder.com, at the end of May nearly 6,000 bracelets had been bought or given away. You can purchase one at the women’s website, www.laidoffneedajob.com for $3 apiece, or in bulk, should you choose to share this strategy with others in your circle who are also victims of the recession. Some may shudder at putting their employment situation out there for all to see, but when it comes to self promotion and job market competition, the old rules are gone. If wearing a wristband launches a conversation in an elevator…shopping line…doctor’s office…or just about anywhere that can give you an introduction or access to a hiring authority, I say why not, as long as you feel comfortable doing so. In my nearly 30 years in the staffing industry, I have certainly seen a lot stranger methods of gaining an employer’s attention. In fact, Careerbuilder annually publishers a survey of unconventional jobseeker tactics and 18 percent of the hiring managers polled this year reported seeing more unusual tactics than in years past. On this year’s list were items like a candidate staging a sit-in in the lobby to get a meeting or washing cars in the company parking lot.

There’s always that fine line between being innovative and being inappropriate.

At the very core of the wristband movement is what any job seeker ultimately faces, and that’s the need to market yourself. This requires the ability to sum up your skills and experience in a branding statement that succinctly promotes your candidacy to a potential employer. Why should someone hire you? What can you bring to the position that offers value? Practice this, it’s an important lesson—whether you do it on a traditional printed resume or in a conversation inspired by a silicone bracelet, have your personal elevator pitch ready for the moment because you never know when it may hit. I once had a boss who always said this about getting noticed by people who could advance your career: “Proximity is the mother of opportunity.” If wearing a wristband gets your foot, or maybe your hand, in the door, don’t let it close before you’ve told them what you had to say.

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