Well I'm home from Job B and on my way to job A. Yes that seems backwards but Job A is the salon since it is full-time, and Job B is when I do the occasional work day at the shop.
I think it's a good thing doing the occasional day at the shop. It allows me to swear my face off and get it out of my system until I go back there, seeing as how I cannot swear at the salon. I'm sure those who know me would know how difficult that would be for me! Although, surprisingly, I have a very easy time not swearing when I'm in the salon... but the second I step away from the professional side/clients I turn right back into a potty mouth. I don't even mean to do it, it just happens. It's really weird.
So... We had a staff meeting on Wednesday night to figure out kinda where everyone was at with the salon and how it works. Basically, I am not allowed to do anyone's hair on work time. If I have clients I have to bring them in on my own time and I have to charge what I charged at the school (which is minimal if any of you remember. Seriously, 10 dollar haircuts/updos/blowdrys etc, 40-60 dollar colours, 50-80 dollar highlights/lowlights, 80 dollar perms etc.) I will have to charge these prices until I am done "apprenticing" and working full time on the floor as a junior stylist.
This is incredibly frustrating for me, I'm not going to lie. It's not that I mind bringing people in on my days off, but I do however mind that as I gain clientelle I will gain a lot based on my prices, so when I do go up in prices I will likely lose some of those clients. I guess it's whatever but I can tell you I'm not overly enthused for sure. It is very upsetting knowing that I am going to come in on my time off (and let me just reiterate that I do NOT get paid while I am at the salon doing clients, it is strictly on my own time) to work really hard doing the same services that a client would pay sometimes $200.00 and up for, and only charging them max $100.00 and having everything I charge them go to the salon. So basically, I'm doing hair for free. The client pays, but I don't get paid. So on those days the only compensation I would get is if I was tipped for the service, which we are taught to never ever rely on in the hair industry. It's nice when people do, but there are a lot of people that don't tip hairdressers.
A lot of this is in preparation for the career ahead of me. I realized the other day, I have forever forfeited having Saturday's off for the rest of my working life, as Saturday's are the busiest day's. I will also be constantly spending my time off working on things like competitions, photoshoots, weddings, graduations, nights out, etc. Competitions and photoshoots I pay money to do and I do them on my own time. And I mean I PAY to do them. It is 90 dollars just to enter one category in the contessas, and typically you enter two or three. Then you have to pay for makeup to be done professionally, buy the wardrobe, and pay for the photographer. This is something that I am incredibly serious about since it's what I want to do with my career because I want to compete and I want to do platform work as well as editorial work. So there will be times where I will likely spend easily 1000 bucks to enter a competition only to hope that I at the very least place as a finalist, and at best win the category.
So basically to sum it all up. I will be only allowing myself to take one day off a week. That day will be Monday. The reason? Because the salon is closed that day and no one is there. Otherwise I've decided that I will try my best to book as many clients as I can on my other day off for the week which will be every second Sunday or every second Tuesday.
I will also be taking extra courses as they come up. I've decided I am going to take a razor cutting class at Rain Hair Salon (which reminds me, hunt them down on facebook and become a fan because they are unbelievable there and they're giving away free shit [bumble&bumble products etc. They're going to give away $1000.00 worth of stuff when they hit 1000 fans so get in there!]) on June 21st. It's a 250 dollar course. It's one day, I would learn two cuts and be on with it.
So yeah... basically I am going to put in about 900% in effort and get maybe 2% back.
I've also decided that I will have to do certain things in terms of my lifestyle etc to make this a little easier on myself. This will require me likely getting rid of my car all together and moving downtown. Seeing as how I spend 2 hours a day in transit, and if I stay with On The Fringe I will be working out at UBC it seems a bit silly to keep living in Burnaby and driving every day. At least if I live downtown I won't need a vehicle at all and everywhere I will be working will always be close by because I will never work in Burnaby or any other suburb.
Sometimes I think about this and it's incredibly depressing and demotivating, but I guess the fact that I love it SO much and that it doesn't feel like work to me is somehow going to get me through this all. I swear if doing hair didn't make me as happy and stress free as it has these last 7 months then I would quit tomorrow. I would be lying if I said I didn't have days where all that goes through my head is "What the fuck am I doing? How am I going to do this, and man this is incredibly depressing!"
Goodbye life for quite some time to come. Hello 60 hour work weeks and 40 hour paycheques at minimum wage. Le sigh. I hope that this all pays off in the end. If I'm not making at least 50k a year 2-3 years from now I might just lose my shit.
I almost think I'm slightly insane when I sit down and think about the amount of effort I'm putting into this. I can only hope that my clients will appreciate the amount of work I put into this career and how seriously I take it, because really, I do this because I love it but also because I love making people feel good. Everyone loves having great hair right? haha.
My biggest goal is to hope that the effort I put in shows in the work that I do, and that my clients see that. If I can do that then I'll be booked all the time.
So for those of you who love your hairdresser, ask him/her questions. Ask them if they compete etc. And let them know how awesome you think they are, cause it seriously will make their day. Those who take this job seriously live for that sort of thing. This isn't a regular job where you do it because it pays the bills. This is a job much like why people become musicians or actors. You get shit on time and time again yet you keep doing it because you love it.
It's retarded really if I'm going to be logical about it. I'm sure 90% of people would ask me "why the fuck would you put yourself through all of that?" The other 10% are doing the same thing.
Friday, May 21, 2010
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3 comments:
Is there anything stopping you from doing hair in people's homes? It's not as convenient, but it may be cheaper for them and you could still get some money. Might have to skip the color.
Yea, I'd rather give the money to you directly then the salon. Plus, I'm lazy. Hahaha. But srsly, even if I were to come to your house, I would much rather give you all my money and not the ghetto salon!
I can cut peoples hair in peoples homes but the problem with that mom is that if my boss isn't seeing it, I won't advance as fast. The more they see me doing hair on my own time, the faster I get on the floor fulltime. So it's somewhat detrimental to my career if I keep doing hair at home...
haha thanks Danielle. You're an exception for sure for doing haircuts at home.
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