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!!

You Have The Right To Remain Silent......

Well ladies before I start regaling you with this tale of woe and a ho; may I suggest you get comfortable, grab a drink, maybe get a snack because this is a long one, but so worth the read...I swear. First though, I'm going to give you a little background on our drama filled day. Thursday we had a lady come in get a brow wax from me and about $150 in product from the store. She wrote two checks and then went next door got her hair did(keeping it hood) and wrote another check. Friday the manager from the posh salon next door came over to tell us the checks were going to bounce because the account had been flagged for fraud and was actually closed. Of course the boss was upset but we figured what can you do, we'll never see the woman again. Well, it seems our intrepid thief was rather ballsy. On Saturday she called our place and scheduled a brazilian...with me. Our owner went next door to tell the salon owner and she wanted us to take the appointment so she could call the police to come get the thief when she showed up. So we all agreed when she came in for her appointment the cops would burst in like gangbangers and take her down...book 'em Danno!.... OK, now let me tell you how it really went down. She shows up for her appointment an hour late and stumbles in the door almost taking out an entire table of purses. I grab her at the door act like nothings wrong and take her back to my room where she proceeds to cry for 10 minutes because her girlfriend has left her for another woman. This whole time I'm waiting to hear my boss knock on the door and tell me I have an emergency so the police can...book 'em Danno! Right? I mean how long can it take? The police are next door after all. So to stall I give her paperwork to fill out and tell her I'll give her a few minutes to pull herself together. I walk out and my boss informs me I have to stall her longer because they aren't ready...what the hell??? Back in I go to find she's filled out her paperwork and is still crying over her girlfriend. I should also mention she is totally loopy, blotto, cracked out, stoned, whatever you want to call it. She can barely string two words together. Hell, she can barely sit up straight. I walk back out of the room with her papers and my boss again tells me you've gotta stall her longer....what the hell??? I don't get paid enough I'm telling you. Back in the room I go and find her completely naked from top to bottom, lying on my bed with a tiny wee towel draped over her crotch. She's a lot of woman, probably around 6 foot and about 250 so that towel was working overtime to cover anything. Great...did I mention I didn't get paid enough? So I tell her to put on her shirt since we're not waxing any of that and start trying to figure out how to draw this out without actually waxing. After 10 minutes of naked small talk I have to do something so I pull the towel back enough to expose her thigh and lay down a strip of wax and rip it off. I do the same strip of skin for 15 minutes cuz no way am I going to do all that work for nothing. Finally, thank you little baby Jesus, my boss knocks and out the room I go explaining I have a family emergency and we'll have to reschedule. She slurringly tells me no problem and I hide in the back until she leaves. It takes her fifteen minutes to make it out of my room(Oh yeah,we'll get back to that one) I hear the door tracker ding so out of my hiding place I spring to watch her stumble out and the police finally converge on her all swat like....book em Danno! Yay, drama over I go back to my room to straighten up the mess. I walk in look over to where my personal stuff is and see that my purse is gone. Lets just say I have moments in my life when I'm not quite capable of controlling the words that come out of my mouth..ie this is one of those times. I turn around storm out into the middle of the store and yell..loudly...that fucking bitch stole my purse! OK, did I mention I work in a Merle Norman and you can't throw a rock in there without hitting a 60 year old lady so guess who heard my nasty potty mouth? Out I storm in my three inch heels across the parking lot and yell...loudly(damn why am I loud at the worst times)...that fucking bitch stole my purse! OK to hurry this along we'll skip over the most of it and I'll tell you I got my purse back with everything in it so no harm done. Back into the store I go, purse in hand, through the gauntlet of little old ladies to go clean up my room. Of course the ladies loved all the drama, they'll probably be telling the story for a good month. I march back in my room and turn to the other side of the room and HOLY SHIT...are you ready for it? She had pissed in my floor, on my rug, and on the curtains. I honestly didn't know the human bladder could hold that much fluid.(15 minutes of pissing that's why it took her so long in my room) There was so much on the floor I thought she'd spilled one of my bottles but the smell and color gave it away. So I go charging back out into the store yelling...loudly(yeah, I need to work on that)..that bitch pissed in my floor. The little old ladies are fired up and one of them walks over to me and says that bitch pissed on your floor?! Just to hear those words come out of a sweet looking little old lady made the whole damn thing worth it. I'm telling you I don't get paid enough...book em Danno! Estheticians Unite!!

I'm Gonna Wash That Spa Right Out Of My Hair...

As some of you know I've recently quit my first spa job to take another, in a less bitchy, catty, moody, cheating me out of clients kind of spa. It's actually amazing what working in a toxic environment does to you and what it makes you want to do to others. My husband wouldn't let me handle sharp objects for months. I'm an easygoing kind of gal and I guess that's my problem. I'm not competitive enough to lie, cheat and steal to get the appointments...now if we're talking about chocolate truffles that's a different story. I'd probably do all the above for a yummy, rich, gooey truffle....yum, but I digress. The experience at my first spa(that shall remain unnamed)was great, at first, and admittedly I learned some things. Namely how to spot when you're getting screwed out of appointments and to never sign a non-compete agreement, but beyond that I learned how to be a better waxer(I so sorry little old lady with three inch hair), microderm, and in general how to be comfortable in my skills as an esthetician. Now I've taken those lessons and moved onto a smaller place where I'm the only esthy. That's right ladies..me the head honcho, the big Kahuna, the champ, the contender, the wax goddess...I'm surprised my fingers actually allowed me to type that last one they were laughing so hard, but I digress yet again. It's a completely different clientele though it's only 4 miles away from my old place. So far it's mostly older ladies and all I'm doing is waxing. I never realized how hairy little old women are, in out of the way places. The other day I was waxing a jawline and found the longest single hair in recorded history(I'm sure of it). For whatever reason the wax didn't pick it up(The wax was scared..trust me). So I get out my handy dandy tweezermans and charge in for removal. Only to find I didn't know where it started. What? Yes, It was so long it curled and wrapped back around toward her ear so I had to uncurl it and then tweeze it. I so wanted to save that thing but I figure that would put me on the same level as Buffalo Bill(It puts the lotion on the skin!)And really who wants to be even steven with a serial killer?? It's an interesting new world for me at the moment so hopefully I'll have lots of goodies to share in the future...Estheticians Unite!!

Dangers Of The Job Hunt.....

For anyone that actually reads my blog(insert sound of crickets chirping in the silence)you may have noticed I haven't posted anything in months. Well the economy sucks, my spa sucks, and my paycheck sucks so I've decided it's time to look for greener pastures. I don't know how it is around the rest of our great USofA but in Nashville,TN spa jobs are few and far and estheticians are plentiful and thick...err or something like that. So I've been stalking Craigslist for months when lo and behold last week I found an opening and contacted the spa begging, I mean asking if they were still hiring. To my delight she answered that they were indeed still taking resumes. So in I go for the first interview, which I nailed. See mom, lying does get you ahead in the world. The next day I got a call back for a second, practical interview. For you non-esthy's out there a practical interview is basically a facial, you normally give one to either the owner or manager or an employee of the spa. I got there early to set up and was notified that the room was in use at the moment but they'd come get me when it was available. No problem, I sit back in the plush chair and crack open the Allure magazine, waiting. And waiting and waiting and did I mention waiting? Finally she shows me back to the facial room and I'm in awe of how lovely it is. The room was gorgeous but the set up was horrid, there wasn't any cotton, cotton rounds, esthetic wipes, alcohol, bowls, massage cream, brushes;basically they put me in a pretty room without anything I needed to perform a facial. Luckily, my rigorous girl scout training had taught me to always be prepared so I'd thought to bring a brush, massage cream, and three premade cotton pads or I'd been screwed. So after my initial panic I calmed down and started setting up for the facial(performed on an employee). I wheeled the stand alone steamer over to the bed and started to put water in it when I noticed it was broken...OK no steam. I hobbled the poor stand alone light over so that I could use it and noticed how rickety it was(we'll get back to that later). I found a bowl the size of a the Trevi Fountain to fill with hot water and prayed to the gods of good skin to see me through this farce. One last look around and I retrieved my client from the waiting area did my spiel and left the room for her to get undressed, upon coming back into the room I heard this horrid squeal and screech followed by spa music; again squeal and screech followed by spa music. It's the crappy little CD player they've put in the room for my use, sounds like it's throwing up music. Oh, well what can I do? I ask the client questions, give her a quick cleanse and then pull the light over to take a look at her skin. I had noticed upon initial inspection of said light it was rickety and hard to maneuver so I gently adjusted it to swing it over her face when I heard a snap and realized I was holding the top of the light about midways down but the base was still sitting on the floor. So the whole time I'm giving this girls analysis I'm trying my damnedest to put the pieces of this crappy light back together again without loosing my cool. Finally I give up and lay the damn thing in the floor...she can't see it anyway, and continue on with the facial. I dip into the Trevi fountain of a bowl and realize the water has gotten cold since I poured it oh well, gotta be out of here in an hour. One cold facial coming up. I've never used the product this spa carries so I prayed as slapped product on her face that I wasn't going to kill the poor girl and mustered through probably the worst facial I've ever given. We finished and I thanked her for coming in for a facial then went back into the room and started laughing hysterically. Don't think I'll be getting that job. I should have thrown a coin in that damn Trevi Fountain of a bowl, that way I know I'd be coming back to that room. Anyone need a slightly sarcastic esthetician looking for greener pastures...mmoooooo....Estheticians Unite!!