Rita

I worked with Rita yesterday.  It was an interesting day.  I discovered the bizarre way she cuts hair (doesn't palm the shears to hold the comb, which causes her to take extra movements, wasting time, really, while cutting hair) is because she's left handed, and was taught to cut right handed, which seems to slow her down, a lot.  I might do some investigating into getting her taught to cut left handed....it may work better for her in the end!!  Yes, I realize it's none of my @@##$$! business, but, we're all about productivity, and Becky won't always be there to feed clients to us.  And that will show up, pretty fast.  I discovered I was on my 4th client when Rita took her second one....and I'm not always the fastest cutter, either.

While Rita is a very sweet, funny person, she's also a walking train wreck....she managed to convey to me that she doesn't have a bank account of any kind because she owes her previous bank for bounced checks.  Oh,boy.   ( we were talking about direct deposit)  She's also approximately 4'11 tall and about 5' wide...no lie there.  While it's certainly not my place to say much, as I'm no slenderella myself, OMG...she's a big girl.  And, I watched, oh so briefly, her hork down a fruit platter she bought yesterday.  You know, the pre-made kind with the caramel dip in the middle.  And she was scooping up that dip like she'd never seen food before.  It's no wonder she's as big as she is....sigh....makes me turned off from food, I can tell you that...

Really, I shouldn't be talking about her like that...it's not nice, and mom always said "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all", but, much like a car accident, it's just too fascinating not to watch or comment.  And yet, she's got this skinny, tiny boyfriend that she's had for 11 years and 3 kids, to boot.

Anyway....we also had two ladies come in yesterday, wanting the complete works for a haircut:  shampoo, cut, and style.  Which is 8.95 more than the haircut special that's going on right now.  They both picked out the same haircut, short in the back, long in the front.  My client had wavy hair, her client had curly, over processed hair.  So, we set to cutting.  Before I go any further, let me add that neither of these ladies chose to speak English...they were speaking Spanish.  Some of it was on purpose, because the teenagers with them spoke English and "translated", while omitting a lot.  You could tell because the youngest of the teenagers had a hard time not telling everything they were saying, which told me she was being told the whole story, but to shut up at the same time.  The end result, my client was okay with her haircut, I explained to her (because I knew she understood what I was saying) that the layers around her face would need to grow out in order for the haircut to look the way she wanted.  Her daughter, on the other hand, gave Rita a hard time.  She told Rita to go ahead and cut after Rita tried to explain the issues with the cut versus the texture of her hair.  The moment Rita was done, the client instantly didn't like the cut.  She made all the dramatic faces and started spewing in Spanish about how she didn't like it.  Becky stepped in to try to save the day, but the end result is neither of them paid for their haircuts.  The extra people they had with them were creating a lot of noise and chaos, which is a shoplifting trick...I'm betting they're quite good at that, too....

Rita was not amused when the whole thing was done.  I just looked at her and said "Don't take that stuff personally...they were looking for a free haircut".  And told Becky the same thing.  There's not a whole lot you can do when that crap happens.  Yes, we're in this business to make money, no doubt about that.  However, sometimes, you've got to cut your losses and call it a day.  And that's what we did.