Wednesday, September 27, 2006

(Do) whatever you want

Today I had a meeting with a customer in the afternoon and my hair was looking pretty darn wierd. Plus I might have a blind date this weekend so I decided to go and get my hair cut in the morning.

So I go to my regular place which is a chain, Great Clips. At Great Clips they keep data about your hair cut on the computer so they can do it the same all the time. And for a while I had been getting decent cuts. Now and then I'd get a really bad one but then one of them would fix it and I'd ge one I liked. But each time they would add something they did to my profile on the computer and my hair cuts got worse, and worse, and worse over time until I looked like I should join the German army in WWII!

So today I went in just hoping I'd get someone who can make me at least look somewhat normal. There weren't any customers in there when I went in and there were only two girls working. The girl who took me looked like Charlotte (Kristin Davis) on the HBO series Sex and the City. A very lovely woman. Katie was her name. She walked up to the computer and read my profile of how to cut my hair. I could see her expression changing as she read this like, WTF? I could tell she read it over and over. I'm thinking, "oh crap". Finally she punched a button on the keyboard, looked at me and said "don?".

"What are we going to do today?" she asked, as I sat in her chair. "Well what WE have been doing isn't working, so why don't YOU do whatever you want." I told her that I noticed that she wasn't making sense out of my profile. We agreed to remove my profile instructions and start over. And I got a decent hair cut.

I'd show it to you,.. but just imagine Brad Pitt. :)

I think over time my profile had mophed into a conflicting mess just like my hair. I learned something from this. Perhaps the customer shouldn't tell the the pros what to do. Just let people do their jobs.

It might have just been Katie however. She was special.

4 comments:

Diane Lowe said...

I've always had a hard time finding a good stylist. I really liked the stylist I had in Butte (it only took me 3 years to find her), but alas she didn't move to California with me.

I think the general idea of keeping a customer profile is probably fairly intelligent, for example if you know that your hair doesn't react well to a certain chemical, it makes sense to keep that information somewhere. Unfortunately it sounds like Great Clips doesn't really use their profiling system the way it was intended.

So, have fun on your blind date and hopefully Katie will stay with Great Clips long enough for her to cut your hair a couple more times!

don said...

I think the changes to my profile might work now, we will see. I think with every thing there are really good people at it and not so good. I know that people in that industry go in and out of chains. Chains provide a steady income for them. But sometimes if they move out they can do better. It just depends on the market. But they all work hard and stand on their feet all day and I tip well if I get a good cut or not.

I haven't heard back from my friend who wants to hook me up on the blind date so I'm heading to the lake this weekend. He must have gone hunting. The weather will be really nice and I want to spend some quality time on my boat. It might be my last chance to cruise. That is really a pleasure for me. It will be cold soon and I'll have to winterize my boat. So Romance will have to wait.

It is so beautiful out on the lake at night up there Diane. There are a million stars in the sky as you must know from living in Butte.

Diane Lowe said...

I've also noticed that people (at least good people) in the cosmetology industry also will try to pull their client base with them when they move. When my stylist switched salons she was working at, she sent me a note letting me know where her new place of employment was.

Well, have fun on the lake! I go to sleep too early that I don't miss the stars much, but subconsciously I know they can't be seen from where I'm at anymore. It's really sad. On the flip side, I've seen some gorgeous cityscapes on the beach, and I don't think I'll ever tire of looking at the sea.

don said...

Yes, I need to go to the ocean as I'm not that far away. I have friends in Seattle that want me to come over and I need to. It is cool that you are so close to a beach. Not to mention all of the other things the city has to offer.