Laying Down The Law...

I swear all the things I put in my blog entries are true. I know some of the things I post sound insane and couldn't have possibly happened but it does. My husband swears I am a magnet for all thing weird(what's that say about his weird ass, huh?) Still working at the cosmetology school and I must say things have either calmed or I've become accustomed to the chaos. Occasionally though I still have a gem of a day so grab some popcorn and prepare to say what the fuck at least twice. Fridays are always a busy day for us at the salon and this particular Friday was flowing smoothly, bump free...yippee. Up walks a client who just finished getting a head full of foils. Her hair looks great, she's smiling, days sunny, birds chirping Mr. Freaking Rogers is smiling down from above. I smile happily at the client and tell her she owes me $30(yeah we're that cheap, call now!) She begins to root through her purse and mumbles she can't find her check book. I hear her and explain that we don't take checks, cash and cards only. She gives me a deer in headlights look and says wow, I don't have either can I go to the bank and run it back up here? OK so at this point you're thinking surely our smart receptionist isn't going to let this girl go, right? You are wrong. See this has happened before, probably 10 times a week this happens. I let them go to the bank and back they come money in hand,yay! I was totally not worried about this little bitch(oops, anger issues)because her cousin is a student in OUR program. So off she goes with her cousin to eat lunch and make a bank run. Hour goes by and I still haven't seen her so I call her cousin, who is a student(who shall remain nameless)and tell her I need my money stat call the bitch(damn, still anger there). So she calls her and this little girl tells her she's already home and doesn't want to get back out...WTF?? I tell our student make your cousin call me and she does and she's got an attitude with me from jump and informs me she isn't coming back to pay me today she's at home and doesn't feel like getting back out and it's just too far for her to drive....WTF?? So I say as controlled as possible, you will bring me my money today or I'll file a police report against you..the choice is yours. She flips her lid completely calling me rude and how dare I speak to her that way and blah, blah, blah, she wants to talk to my boss and on and on. I let her go for a moment and then cut her off and explain to her that what she did was called stealing. If she went into a restaurant and ate $30 worth of food and walked out without paying it would be illegal because they are a business just like we are and that is called stealing. She just kept saying how inconvenient it was for her to drive all the way back. Are you fucking kidding me?? So I told her have my money here by 4:30 or you can go to jail and have some hard bitch named Bertha giving you forced fellatio at Metro...she showed up at 4:27 to pay. I was torn on the one hand I was glad I had my money...on the other hand I was upset for Bertha who is no doubt lonely and would love to have a little highlighted blond to occupy her bunk....Out Of Work Estheticians Unite!!!

Confessions of an Unpaid Daycare Worker....

Yes my friends, I'm still answering phones, and booking appointments. Do I miss esthetics? Sure, I do. Do I miss not making any money? Surely I don't. My current position is full of new crazy things on a daily basis. I never lack for a good funny story to entertain my working esthy friends. Lets take for example my most recent dilemma at the salon...follow me if you will...Growing up I don't ever recall my mother handing me a $20 and dropping me at the salon for hours on end. Up until I was old enough to drive myself my mom drove me, parked the car and sat in the shop and waited until the hairdresser made a hot mess out of my hair; I cried and we left(yeah,yeah,like you've never cried at the salon). At the place I'm at now it's nothing for a mom or dad to drop off a 7 year old in the parking lot and leave them with strangers for 3 to 4 hours. The first time it happened I was a bit shocked when this tee tiny girl quietly asked if she could use my phone to call her mom to pick her up. I blinked stupidly several times and said sure. Up pulls mom honks horn and off runs tee tiny little girl,struggling with our super heavy door out into the parking lot to be whisked away. At this point I started to take notice of all the kids that were just left in my care for an entire afternoon of hair maintenance As any of my friends will tell you I am not a babysitter, kids annoy me mostly. I talk to them like adults and I cuss...I mean I cuss a lot, more than most, and I don't censure myself for the little tike brigade. Don't get me wrong I have a kid, but he's just like me. Smart, sarcastic, and blunt to the point of being painful, and I love him for it. Now other kids I just don't mesh well with them. Not that the parents would know any of this because they never come in the salon....Please step back while I pull up my soap box...I mean I look sweet and nice and respectable but what the hell do they know?? I could be Chester the Molester and here they are dropping the fruit of their loins off with me and LEAVING..what the fuck are these people thinking. Do they never turn on America's Most Wanted or watch the damn Lifetime network? Do we need to bring back after school specials featuring Joe from The Facts of Life to remind them not everyone is OK to leave your kids with? Recently we had an 'incident' involving an 11 year old and chemicals(sounds bad but boy is her hair super straight now) and had to post a notice that any child under driving age would have to have an adult present for the duration of their service. You would not believe the pissed off moms I've got waiting in my reception area now. When I stop them as they make their mad dash out the door to go shopping or hit up Starbucks and explain to them they are going to have to pull up a chair and wait it out the head bobbing and eye rolling begins. I've had moms stop an appointment mid shampoo because they were on their lunch break and was dropping the kid off until they got off work FOUR HOURS later. We are a salon, not a daycare, not a parents day out center, not a YMCA kid drop, or a daycamp. Is it a cultural difference perhaps. I know I've mentioned it before but about 90% of our clients are African-American and granted their hair services tend to take longer but still who the hell in this day and age feels comfortable dropping off kids with strangers? Hell you can't even drop your kids at Sunday school now without wondering if one of the holy rollers are being inapprioate with Junior. So why in the world would you drop your kid off at a flipping salon for HOURS with 60 strangers of dubbish religion and race? Then have the audacity to yell at me about how I'm inconviencing you and your plans. Next time you drop your kids with me I'm going to make sure they have their brows waxed completely off and their hair colored a wonderful shade of pea green..guess what you can't bitch because you signed a consent form...Receptionist/Out of Work Estheticians Unite!!

Change is good....

So I'm thinking I should change the name of my blog.. Now I'm sure you, dear reader, are thinking why oh why would she mess with perfection(ok maybe you aren't thinking that) but whenever I search for my happy little blog using Google or Bing or Ask or whatever it always brings up some crazy myspace page that I'm sure is full of porn(I'm scared to click on it,damn spy ware!) Not that I'm against porn mind you(just Japanese porn it's just ugly), but if I give someone the name of my blog and it pulls up freckled porn stars, or people with freckles who like porn stars..it doesn't set a good precedence. Here's that conversation..ME'so did you have a chance to check out my blog?'YOU 'uhmmm...yeah it was uhmm..well it was enlightening' ME 'hmm, well I guess for people unfamiliar with my little world it could be enlightening' YOU 'uhmm, yeah never knew you had it in you..oh, damn I mean I knew you had it at one time, damn I mean I didn't know you liked, damn I gotta go'...Yeah, hence the name change. I'm thinking it should probably reflect more of what I'm about(bitch's blog is already taken,I checked) and not some cutesy little name that can be used by various fetish groups. Granted I'm not longer in esthetics, though I still do occasionally wax, peel, and facial..I don't do any of it on a regular basis. So should I change the concept altogether? You know just come on here and talk shit whenever I want about whatever I want rather than spa/hair/salon postings? Kind of like what I'm doing now, rambling on and on about zip,zilch, Nada?? Any who, I need a new name, any ideas? Something absurdly brilliant to suit my intellect and sparkling personality(OK you can stop laughing now). Yep, it's time for a name change...I'm tired of being mistaken for a hyper pigmented porn star....

The Front Line..err Desk....

As a receptionist you are the front line between the outside world and the spa/salon world. In my new position I make appointments, assign clients, inventory, smooth ruffled feathers, apologize when we screw up, and answer tons of questions that I knew nothing about only a month ago. Some of those questions still surprise even me. Lets take for example a call I took a few days ago from a young woman who was concerned that our students weren't qualified to work on her hair. I answer the phone and she explains to me that she has an appointment for the next day, but her concern is that our students can't work on African-American hair. Now you might be saying to yourself that this is a legitimate concern, but the school I work at is made up primarily of African-American students. I've actually been asked this same question a number of times by a number of women so I've come up with a pat answer...Well mam, our student body is around 99% African-American so that will not be an issue....So I trot out my standard answer and her reply was..'OK, but can they work on African-American hair'? Huh? I mean I might not be the smartest person in the world but I'm pretty sure if they can do their own African-American hair, they are quite capable of doing yours. So instead of being a smart ass which was my first instinct I explained to the woman that 90% of our clients were in fact African Americans. From this point I expected to hear relief in her voice and end the phone call....uhmm no, not quite. 'You're not getting what I'm saying', she says, 'I need a person who specializes in African-American hair can I talk to someone else?' WTF??, are you kidding me?? At this point my already frayed patience snaps(it's been a rough week ladies and gentleman)and I tell her that no she can't talk to anyone else and the student we have her with is wonderful and is she going to keep the appointment or not. She finally tells me she's not going to argue with me and yes she will be at appointment. I hang up the phone shaking my head. I had students up at the desk who were laughing from just hearing my side of the conversation so when I told them the whole conversation they suggested I give her to one of the 10 white students we have for shits and giggles...I didn't though I was tempted. So my whole point in relating this story is to please think before you speak. If you are coming into a salon with an attitude you are pissing off the one person(that would be the front line..me)who can make you regret it for a good month or however long it takes to regrow your hair. You are being a bitch to the one person who can put you with a student/stylist who will turn your hair green or make it fall out so why would you even think of crossing us?? That's the equivalent of being a bitch to the girl who's going to be applying hot wax to your crotch. Trust me we can make the experience as painful as possible. So think about it before you start snapping off ignorant questions and bitchy attitude to the front line.....Receptionist/OutOfWork Estheticians Unite!!

I Don't Feel Tardy......

Hello from the other side! I know it's been awhile since I posted, but I've had nothing to post that would titillate the senses so I've kept mum...and to be honest I still don't have anything to post, but I'm going to anyway. So you might be asking yourselves what has our favorite blogger been up to for months? OK so you might not have been asking yourselves that but occasionally I need my ego stroked so...stroke, stroke, dammit! Since last we spoke I've taken a job in the old 9-5 grind at a cosmetology school watching the system churn out hairstylist. It's actually nice to still be in a spa-esque environment and believe it or not I still get to do some waxing and answer skin care questions. I'm just not getting paid for my services and exciting news(for me at least)my boss has approached me with the option of getting my instructors license in the near future. At first I thought this would be a good thing to pursue. Then days later I started thinking do I really want to do this? I mean I love esthetics,(anyone who's taken the time to learn how to spell it loves it)but can I take on the responsibility of turning skincare newbies into job getting, skin saving, kick ass estheticians?? The answer of course was Hell Yeah! Wouldn't that be a hoot!? Me, in charge of malleable, impressionable minds. Nashville would be overrun with smart ass, wisecracking estheticians....ahhh my vision of a beautiful world at last(insert maniacal laughter here, with gleeful hand rubbing) But back to my current job, the reason I hesitate to teach. I see the sheer hell some of these supposed adults put their instructors through and I'm unsure if I could put up that sort of treatment without a., cursing like a sailor b.,beating the shit out of a student c., cursing like a sailor...d., did I mention cursing like a sailor already? As the receptionist I hear all the gossip, see all the bad hair, see all the ripped skin(wax should never bubble before being applied to the skin ladies). I see how hard the instructors work to make class interesting and how hard students work to not learn a thing. So I have to ask myself do I want to go through the grueling agony of retaking my state boards just to teach a bunch of ungrateful kids/adults how to pop pimples and wax crotches??? I think the answer is yes, I think I do....Out of Work Estheticians/Receptionist Unite!!

The Curtain Closes......

Into everyones life a little rain must fall, alas in mine, it's come a torrential downpour with further showers predicted. What's with all the melancholy and gloom you might ask. Well, this is officially my last week in the spa industry. That's right ladies..I'm packing it in, calling it quits, punching my time card, throwing in the towel, leaving on a midnight train to Georgia..err...well you get what I'm saying, I'm taking a job in the real world! No more scary crotch waxing(yeah, women with strings I'm talking to you), allergic reactions, and felons pissing in my floor. Now why would I want to leave all this glamour you might be asking yourself. To be honest I don't, but circumstances(code for money)have dictated that I need to find a steady paycheck until the end of time or until I get tired of eating....whichever comes first. I wrestled with the idea of leaving the field or just getting a part time waitressing job on my off days, but I discovered that I liked my off days being, well, the days I had off. I knew that if I picked up another job I'd start to resent my esthetics job and trust me ladies you don't want a pissed of esthy anywhere near your crotch with piping hot wax. So I put on my big girl panties and accepted a job in the real 9-5 world. So you might be asking yourself who the hell would hire this slightly irreverent smart ass to man their front desk? Someone with class, style and a sense of adventure! Stay tuned ladies, I'm sure I'll have stories with which to entertain you....Estheticians Unite!!(If I had a dollar for everyone time I typed untie instead of unite...I wouldn't need another job)

Take It To A Professional Ladies.....

Has there ever been a time in your life when you thought hm mm...I think I'll scour my face with a Brillo pad, then wipe it off with bleach, then dunk my face in acid and follow that with a soothing dip in alcohol....twice a day? No? Well me neither but I'm always amazed at the craziness I run across on some of the message boards I frequent. Lets take for instance one young woman who wanted said board to critique her daily routine which she posted for our viewing pleasure. In the AM she washed with prescription strength salicylic cleanser, toned with a glycolic toner, applied a vitamin c serum all over, along with a retin-a cream, all topped off with a glycolic moisturizer. In the PM she did the same routine except she added some manual exfoliation and twice a week(yes twice a week)she did a TCA peel that she ordered on line. Her question was 'why does my skin always felt so tight and dry'? WTF?!? How about I just hold you down and dip you in battery acid and get rid of your entire face quickly instead of the slow steady decline you're subjecting it to. What are people thinking? I admit that before I became an esthetician I was a product whore. I'd try anything and everything as long as it was in a pretty package and told me I'd be beautiful post treatment. But even I wouldn't have been ballsy enough to do an at home TCA peel. I've posted advice on some of the boards and since they know I'm an esthetician I always get the remarks about how I'm trying to promote my profession. No smart ass, I trying to promote commonsense, something that the Internet seems to suck out of people at an alarming rate. I look at it like this; I wouldn't post on a board asking how to repair my car brakes because I know nothing about brakes and more than likely the person who answers my question doesn't know anything about brakes. They went and googled 'how to repair your own car brakes' and they are posting what they've read from someone else who read it from someone else who posted it because they thought it would be funny to post a sarcastic snarky blog on how to not fix your own brakes and somehow when it was spellchecked the not got taken out of the title(improper grammar is a bitch) and now millions of people are home repairing their brakes the incorrect way. You ever see a guy run a red light with a slightly confused look on his face, he repaired his brakes himself and if you look in the passenger seat and see his wife you'll notice her face is a dry, flaky mess because she tried to DIY her face with the equivalent of battery acid. Somethings just need to be left to the professionals... Estheticians Unite!!