Salon Receptionist Hell by Betony Toht I got the idea to work in a hair salon while I was on a walk with my friend Gabe. I had just graduated from college and wanted a nice, easy summer job. I figured at a salon, I would be able to sit around and read magazines, maybe tell some old ladies they looked nice. Driving to the airport later that day, I passed a salon with a 'Help Wanted' sign in the window and figured it was fate. The building was gray with lavender neon signs, a rounded facade: art deco by way of the 80's. Inside, the salon stretched back, mirrors reflecting twenty gray vinyl chairs. I was afraid to turn the corner for fear of walking into my own reflection. I got the job within minutes. The salon is named 'Kay Leonard's Hair Salon and Spa.' I assumed "Kay" was a fiction or at least dead. In fact, she was a round older woman with short hair and a distracted gaze. Kay was a legend in the 70's and 80's. She studied with Vidal Sassoon, and led workshops all over the world. In those days she had a purple Mohawk which she would decorate with plastic flames. Her old pictures line the back rooms of the salon. Kay, youthful in a bandana and cowboy hat, scissors poised as if floating on manicured fingernails. Kay, mentioned in the New York papers alongside Andy Warhol, her models never having any trouble getting into Studio 54. These days Kay has a set clientele of older ladies. She does a lot of wigs and shampoo hair sets. Her clients don't like to wait and we weren't supposed to let them. My first week, a leather-skinned older woman stood in the center of the salon in her bra, orange dye still skunk-striping her hair. I tended to remember Kay's clients more by their jewelry than by their names. One woman wore massive plastic earrings and even huger diamond rings. She would chirp out criticisms of other clients as if they couldn't hear her, "Ooooh, he says he needs to get paid!" she laughed gleefully above a man yelling into his cellphone. One day she paused over a beaded 50's sweater I was wearing, "Where did you get that?" I told her I bought it at a garage sale and she backed away without even saying goodbye. We earned the Spa portion of our title by providing a service called body wrapping ('Lose 10-20 inches!'). A person would be wrapped up in Ace bandages soaked in herbs, and, duly mummified, he or she exercised in a steamy little room in the basement. I was never very good at answering questions about this service. One woman's voice was skeptical, "Well, isn't it just water weight? I mean don't you just gain it right back?" "Oh no," I read from the prescribed script, "The wraps detoxify your body. It's toxic waste you're losing!" The wrapping was done by two manicurists and the girl who washed the towels. They always feared male clients, "This one guy came in in boxer shorts and his thing popped right out of the bandages. I could hardly look as he did the exercises!" One man brought in his mail-order bride for a body wrap and then left her there for three hours. She spent two hours sitting in our reception area, still damp from exertion. I was trained by a girl named Amy. She would bust into work ten minutes late wearing red crushed velvet platform shoes, white capri pants, and a wrap-around midriff shirt with tassels. Amy worked three jobs to put herself through school. Her hands were wrinkled from working the beer vat at a local bar, "This guy came in the other day and took me for a ride in his Lamborghini. He likes Cher and I look like Cher, and now he wants to take me to Paris." "Oh, go," said Jess, orange-haired in pink vinyl, "You'll never regret going to Paris." "I'm not sure what he wants in exchange for my plane fare." "Oh, go, it's not prostitution if you know the guy." Amy's goal in life is to became a judge, "People always say I should be a lawyer because I'm good at getting what I want." "Ask them if they want coffee, tea, or purified water," Amy instructed. I myself made the coffee in the morning, sometimes even taking the time to rinse out the rings of burnt coffee from the night before. The purified water came from a tap in the back room. "I'm working on a sort of exam for the new recruits," I overheard Amy saying one day, "Just the basics they should know, our address, names of the stylists, the six different types of tea we offer, things like that." I could usually come up with two or three tea names, if pressed. "Don't give them a choice," was fellow receptionist Angela's advice, "Then you can just give them whatever." In the mornings I worked alone, juggling phone calls to an AM soundtrack of pan flute-tootlings and Celtic synthesizers. Kay said the music made her feel calm, but it just made me want to be dead. A woman came in one morning brandishing a box of hair dye from the grocery store, "Can I speak to a hair stylist please?" I yanked Zachary from the break room. "Okay, see I have these wounds on my head, and the only thing that doesn't irritate them is this Nutrisse hair dye," she parted her hair to reveal a reddened scalp. "Did we color your hair here, Ma'am?" "No, I tried coloring my hair last night, but this rash gets so irritated." Zachary gingerly touched her scalp, "Have you been under a lot of stress lately?" "Yes, I got a divorce and then my scalp started bleeding." "Maybe you should get some counseling before you try and dye your hair again." After she left he turned to me, "Nutrisse! She's got nerve!" "When Kay says jump, you jump," Amy said. Amy would leave the receptionists dry erase notes in the back room, "Receptionists should bring their own coffee mugs. Don't forget to smile! If Riley calls, call the lawyer." Kay employed subtler training methods. One afternoon, she asked Angela and I to follow her to the back section of the salon, asking "Now, what is wrong here?" We looked around. Angela finally shrugged and pointed to a sort of mirrored ottoman that was filled with silk flowers, "What, that thing?" "No," Kay motioned to the speaker, from which Destiny's Child was rasping over raw bass, "The music is too loud." One afternoon, a tall dark-haired boy came in for a haircut with Zachary. Zachary and I made "cute boy" laser eyes at each other as he led him back to his chair. A few minutes later, he hustled me into the break room. He grabbed for Band-Aids with one hand, "I was making these dramatic gestures, and I speared myself in the hand with the scissors. I had to take off before he saw the blood...so, he says he has a girlfriend, but he called her a fashionista! No straight boy says fashionista!" I pick up Band-Aids from the floor. The boy tells Zachary that it is the best haircut he has ever gotten. He promises to come back in three weeks. Zachary checks his schedule every day from then on, "I want to wear my studded Diesel jeans the next time he comes in." In the mornings I worked alone, juggling phone calls to an AM soundtrack of pan flute-tootlings and Celtic synthesizers. Kay said the music made her feel calm, but it just made me want to be dead. Another day, a couple deliverymen walked in with seltzer for the machine. I dialed down to the business office and asked them to send up a check. As they waited, the two men leaned over the front of the reception desk, the case of cans between them. One man had a wet-looking rash puckering his face. He spoke, "Hey does Wendy still work here? I used to play softball with her, she's a lot of fun." "Oh sure, we all love Wendy." The men, now out of conversation topics, leaned in further. The phone rang. "Hi, what kinds of waxing do you offer?" said the caller. "Well, we have a full range of both facial and body waxing." Skin Rash began to pick his teeth while his sidekick, Handsome Boy, leered knowingly. "What kinds of body waxing? "Uh, bikini, leg, arms, and back." The men were now mere inches from my face. "Hey, what do you know about the Brazilian bikini wax? Does anyone there do that?" "Okay, well Brazilian is a very bare wax, it also includes the, uh, back portion of the body. We do have one person that does those." I mumbled into the receiver. The manager arrived with the check, just as I began fearing a contact skin rash. Postscript: After three months at the salon, I was fired just as abruptly as I was hired with, "This just isn't working out." Zachary told me the gossip was that Angela (who was also let go) and I had been, "talking shit about Kay." Although I plead guilty as charged on that account, the fact remains that I was due to receive benefits the week I was fired. Still, as negatively as it ended, when I walked out of there, I must say, my hair looked great. |
Salon Receptionist Hell |
Salon Receptionist Hell by Betony Toht I got the idea to work in a hair salon while I was on a walk with my friend Gabe. I had just graduated from college and wanted a nice, easy summer job. I figured at a salon, I would be able to sit around and read magazines, maybe tell some old ladies they looked nice. Driving to the airport later that day, I passed a salon with a 'Help Wanted' sign in the window and figured it was fate. The building was gray with lavender neon signs, a rounded facade: art deco by way of the 80's. Inside, the salon stretched back, mirrors reflecting twenty gray vinyl chairs. I was afraid to turn the corner for fear of walking into my own reflection. I got the job within minutes. The salon is named 'Kay Leonard's Hair Salon and Spa.' I assumed "Kay" was a fiction or at least dead. In fact, she was a round older woman with short hair and a distracted gaze. Kay was a legend in the 70's and 80's. She studied with Vidal Sassoon, and led workshops all over the world. In those days she had a purple Mohawk which she would decorate with plastic flames. Her old pictures line the back rooms of the salon. Kay, youthful in a bandana and cowboy hat, scissors poised as if floating on manicured fingernails. Kay, mentioned in the New York papers alongside Andy Warhol, her models never having any trouble getting into Studio 54. These days Kay has a set clientele of older ladies. She does a lot of wigs and shampoo hair sets. Her clients don't like to wait and we weren't supposed to let them. My first week, a leather-skinned older woman stood in the center of the salon in her bra, orange dye still skunk-striping her hair. I tended to remember Kay's clients more by their jewelry than by their names. One woman wore massive plastic earrings and even huger diamond rings. She would chirp out criticisms of other clients as if they couldn't hear her, "Ooooh, he says he needs to get paid!" she laughed gleefully above a man yelling into his cellphone. One day she paused over a beaded 50's sweater I was wearing, "Where did you get that?" I told her I bought it at a garage sale and she backed away without even saying goodbye. We earned the Spa portion of our title by providing a service called body wrapping ('Lose 10-20 inches!'). A person would be wrapped up in Ace bandages soaked in herbs, and, duly mummified, he or she exercised in a steamy little room in the basement. I was never very good at answering questions about this service. One woman's voice was skeptical, "Well, isn't it just water weight? I mean don't you just gain it right back?" "Oh no," I read from the prescribed script, "The wraps detoxify your body. It's toxic waste you're losing!" The wrapping was done by two manicurists and the girl who washed the towels. They always feared male clients, "This one guy came in in boxer shorts and his thing popped right out of the bandages. I could hardly look as he did the exercises!" One man brought in his mail-order bride for a body wrap and then left her there for three hours. She spent two hours sitting in our reception area, still damp from exertion. I was trained by a girl named Amy. She would bust into work ten minutes late wearing red crushed velvet platform shoes, white capri pants, and a wrap-around midriff shirt with tassels. Amy worked three jobs to put herself through school. Her hands were wrinkled from working the beer vat at a local bar, "This guy came in the other day and took me for a ride in his Lamborghini. He likes Cher and I look like Cher, and now he wants to take me to Paris." "Oh, go," said Jess, orange-haired in pink vinyl, "You'll never regret going to Paris." "I'm not sure what he wants in exchange for my plane fare." "Oh, go, it's not prostitution if you know the guy." Amy's goal in life is to became a judge, "People always say I should be a lawyer because I'm good at getting what I want." "Ask them if they want coffee, tea, or purified water," Amy instructed. I myself made the coffee in the morning, sometimes even taking the time to rinse out the rings of burnt coffee from the night before. The purified water came from a tap in the back room. "I'm working on a sort of exam for the new recruits," I overheard Amy saying one day, "Just the basics they should know, our address, names of the stylists, the six different types of tea we offer, things like that." I could usually come up with two or three tea names, if pressed. "Don't give them a choice," was fellow receptionist Angela's advice, "Then you can just give them whatever." In the mornings I worked alone, juggling phone calls to an AM soundtrack of pan flute-tootlings and Celtic synthesizers. Kay said the music made her feel calm, but it just made me want to be dead. A woman came in one morning brandishing a box of hair dye from the grocery store, "Can I speak to a hair stylist please?" I yanked Zachary from the break room. "Okay, see I have these wounds on my head, and the only thing that doesn't irritate them is this Nutrisse hair dye," she parted her hair to reveal a reddened scalp. "Did we color your hair here, Ma'am?" "No, I tried coloring my hair last night, but this rash gets so irritated." Zachary gingerly touched her scalp, "Have you been under a lot of stress lately?" "Yes, I got a divorce and then my scalp started bleeding." "Maybe you should get some counseling before you try and dye your hair again." After she left he turned to me, "Nutrisse! She's got nerve!" "When Kay says jump, you jump," Amy said. Amy would leave the receptionists dry erase notes in the back room, "Receptionists should bring their own coffee mugs. Don't forget to smile! If Riley calls, call the lawyer." Kay employed subtler training methods. One afternoon, she asked Angela and I to follow her to the back section of the salon, asking "Now, what is wrong here?" We looked around. Angela finally shrugged and pointed to a sort of mirrored ottoman that was filled with silk flowers, "What, that thing?" "No," Kay motioned to the speaker, from which Destiny's Child was rasping over raw bass, "The music is too loud." One afternoon, a tall dark-haired boy came in for a haircut with Zachary. Zachary and I made "cute boy" laser eyes at each other as he led him back to his chair. A few minutes later, he hustled me into the break room. He grabbed for Band-Aids with one hand, "I was making these dramatic gestures, and I speared myself in the hand with the scissors. I had to take off before he saw the blood...so, he says he has a girlfriend, but he called her a fashionista! No straight boy says fashionista!" I pick up Band-Aids from the floor. The boy tells Zachary that it is the best haircut he has ever gotten. He promises to come back in three weeks. Zachary checks his schedule every day from then on, "I want to wear my studded Diesel jeans the next time he comes in." In the mornings I worked alone, juggling phone calls to an AM soundtrack of pan flute-tootlings and Celtic synthesizers. Kay said the music made her feel calm, but it just made me want to be dead. Another day, a couple deliverymen walked in with seltzer for the machine. I dialed down to the business office and asked them to send up a check. As they waited, the two men leaned over the front of the reception desk, the case of cans between them. One man had a wet-looking rash puckering his face. He spoke, "Hey does Wendy still work here? I used to play softball with her, she's a lot of fun." "Oh sure, we all love Wendy." The men, now out of conversation topics, leaned in further. The phone rang. "Hi, what kinds of waxing do you offer?" said the caller. "Well, we have a full range of both facial and body waxing." Skin Rash began to pick his teeth while his sidekick, Handsome Boy, leered knowingly. "What kinds of body waxing? "Uh, bikini, leg, arms, and back." The men were now mere inches from my face. "Hey, what do you know about the Brazilian bikini wax? Does anyone there do that?" "Okay, well Brazilian is a very bare wax, it also includes the, uh, back portion of the body. We do have one person that does those." I mumbled into the receiver. The manager arrived with the check, just as I began fearing a contact skin rash. Postscript: After three months at the salon, I was fired just as abruptly as I was hired with, "This just isn't working out." Zachary told me the gossip was that Angela (who was also let go) and I had been, "talking shit about Kay." Although I plead guilty as charged on that account, the fact remains that I was due to receive benefits the week I was fired. Still, as negatively as it ended, when I walked out of there, I must say, my hair looked great. |
