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Close Encounter: Massage message - Relax for charity
Tuesday, July 21, 1998 By Diana Nelson Jones, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The first Corporate Massage Day groaned and whimpered its way through yesterday's big stress hours, though most of the people who needed it most were too busy being pummeled at work to slip away to the Doubletree Hotel for 20 or 30 minutes.
For quite awhile in the late morning, massage therapists were taking turns doing each other and the media crumbs who agreed to be stroked for the benefits such experience might hold for the reader.
Back for Life, a local company whose massage therapists visit client homes and offices, did the honors. One of its clients is the Doubletree Hotel Pittsburgh, whose director of operations, Coleman Hughes, chose massage as the fund-raising vehicle for the hotel's charity.
Hughes was getting a massage at his hotel's fitness center one day when the idea popped into his head. And it's apparently an idea whose time has come. With mergers and job eliminations rampant in the corporate world, several polls say the workplace is a much more stressful place than it was even three years ago.
Corporate Massage Day was proclaimed by Mayor Murphy and rewarded with almost $4,000 in in-kind contributions and $1,077 to a toy fund at Children's Hospital, through the Grant-A-Wish Foundation. Event organizers said about 125 people came, though some of them included hotel personnel and media.
Hughes says he's become a fan of massage and uses it to reduce stress: "I get one once a week. As you can imagine, the hotel business is a stressful one."
The plan was conceived and brought to life in two months, which was not nearly enough time, said Angela Corvello, Back to Life's sales director: "I'll start planning next year's event tomorrow. We're setting a goal of $10,000."
Tammy Luffy was pinching and squeezing the tight neck of George DiLao, a 46-year-old drug-store consultant, when DiLao confessed something to Luffy and she passed it on:
"This is this man's first massage," she said, gently slapping his back. "And how often do you change the oil in your car?"
"I know, I know," he said.
"Most people can't take their car to the mechanic without spending $60, but they think a massage is a luxury," she said, her small, delicate face awash in incredulity. "We don't grow up being taught to be good to our bodies."
Some people find out for the first time how sore they are when they get their first massage, but DiLao has long known about the rocks in his neck. From under the face cradle of the massage chair -- a seat you straddle, settling your knees onto pads -- he eked out sounds of relief. When Luffy finished his massage with a series of side-handed slaps up and down the back, he sighed and said, "Wonderful.
"I've been talking to people about alternative ways to heal," he said. "I can't believe I haven't done this myself."
As a former pharmacist, he now believes "we take too many drugs. Presented with my back pain, what would a physician do? Prescribe an anti-inflammatory or a muscle relaxer." For roughly a dollar an hour, massage therapy suits some people better. "I want to get your card," he tells Luffy.
During one wave of down time, between real clients, Amy Zang happily assaulted the little monsters under this reporter's neck and back. Zang was no match for what put them there, but she was my personal goddess for 15 minutes.
Dale McCullough said people have called him the g-word, which is why he believes he has found his niche in massage therapy instead of retail and as a bicycle messenger: "I love it when people come off my table and say, 'Hey, I feel really good,' and I say, 'I know!"'
Four years ago, he says, his sister, who's a massage therapist, said "Dale, you've got such strong hands and you like people, why don't you go into massage therapy?"' At the time, he had become dissatisfied with the career of zooming through the city on a bicycle.
Now he is getting clients from chiropractor referrals and, in some cases, he can bill clients' insurance companies for payments.
Back to Life is a 1 1/2-year-old company that has about 20 client companies, including the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, PNC Bank, Prograph Management Systems, the Marriott and several hair salons and chiropractors. Companies that donated money for their employees' massages yesterday included Alcoa, Heinz and Federated Investors.
No one said the word disappointing over yesterday's event, but almost everyone involved said, "We're looking forward to next year."
Leslie Dunston, who works in the personnel office at Federated Investors, was one beneficiary of her company's noblesse: She showed up around noon and got a mini-massage from McCullough, after which she acted briefly like a wet noodle to illustrate her feelings, and said, "Anyone who works needs one of these."
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