Amanda’s Story

Piercers Amanda

My name is Amanda, and I am currently the General Manager of Almost Famous Body Piercing. My journey with Almost Famous began back in April 2009. I was living in Fargo and attending college across the river at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN. I began working for Almost Famous at the end of my sophomore year of college so I would be able to move off campus and live full time in the Fargo-Moorhead area.

I was hired as a full time clerk, which means that I worked at the front counter selling jewelry, assisting customers with paperwork and jewelry selections for their new piercings and keeping the store front clean and organized.

After working for just a few weeks, the manager approached me and asked if I would like to learn how to pierce. As I am the type of person that loves to learn anything and everything, I absolutely said yes!

So for the whole summer between my sophomore and junior years of college, I trained under the manager and put in as many hours as I could to complete my training before classes started again in the fall. I completed that goal, and so when classes began again in the fall, I was working as a part time piercer while I attended school.

In May 2011, I graduated from Concordia College with a Bachelor’s Degree in Global Studies with a concentration in Russian and Scandinavian Studies. I continued to work for Almost Famous while I tried to decide how to best utilize my degree.

After about a year of searching, I was approached by the President of Almost Famous and asked if I would like to learn how to be a Piercing Instructor for the company, and of course, my answer was yes. At about the same time, it was announced that our 405 Central Ave location in NE Minneapolis would be opening, and I also expressed interest in moving to help open the store.

I had already seen both our Crossroads Center, St. Cloud, and Mall of America, Bloomington, MN, locations open, and there was always so much excitement during these times that I finally decided that I didn’t want to just sit around waiting for an opportunity to come to me, I had to make it happen.

My decision to move started my upward growth within the company because when the new location had opened, I was offered and accepted the position of manager.

Shortly after the 405 Central location opened, I worked with the President to help develop a Quality Control program. This program ensures through periodic monitoring of our piercers and supervisors that all policies and procedures are being followed to ensure that our piercers and clients are both in the safest and cleanest environment and performing and receiving the highest quality of piercings.

I worked with all of the existing locations, staff and management at the time utilizing this program to set an even higher standard of work and performance within the company. I now currently oversee all of the Almost Famous locations as the General Manager, providing support for my teams in all locations and ensuring the highest quality of work from all staff.