Beauty Salons

We must do an average of 200 shampoos a week. A little shampoo, a little conditioner, a little scalp massage, customers love it. A few weeks ago, a woman got up after her shampoo and slipped on a wet spot on the floor—feet flew right out from under her and she hit her head on the tile. Exactly one week later, we heard from her lawyer.

Manufacturers of beauty products and hair dyes love to tout how gentle and natural their products are, but in reality, they are tubes of chemicals. We had a woman come in recently for color, turns out she was allergic to the product and ended up with some serious burns. Since my stylist didn’t follow the directions to the letter—and test on a small area first—we’re liable.

I never thought too much about cyber security, I mean it’s not like we’re storing state secrets or anything. But we are storing our customers’ credit card numbers. Suffice it to say, when we got hacked last year, we were not prepared. We had to upgrade our system, notify our customers and hardest of all, try to make it up to them.

Stacy, our best nail artist, is really something. People travel from 30 minutes away just to have her do their nails. But I guess you’d call her a victim of her own success. With her schedule so full she developed carpal tunnel syndrome. Even with extra breaks and physical therapy it got so bad she needed surgery.

I had this barber who was really good. With hair. With people it was another story. He was sort of a jerk. I run a premium shop. Men like to come in, have a craft beer or scotch and maybe talk some sports. Got to the point that the regulars weren’t just avoiding him, they were avoiding his shifts. I had to let him go. Meanwhile he hires a lawyer and claims “wrongful termination?”

A customer had an appointment for a color, trim and blow out. Shows up with her dog. We don’t allow dogs, but since she was already here I made a one-time exception. Everything was fine until the dog started playing with a roller on the floor. My other stylist didn’t see him. He got underfoot and she tripped, stumbled and burnt her hand pretty badly on a curling iron.

About 6 months ago we had a break in. They got into the safe and took all our cash—not that there was much to take. They also took a couple thousand dollars worth of equipment. The craziest part was, they tried to steal an entire backwash system—but it got stuck in the doorway.

It was the first big storm after we moved into our new location. The drain in the parking lot got clogged. Actually, blocked by a plastic tarp that blew over. The water flooded under our door and kept coming. By the time I came in the floors were buckled, the bottom 6 inches of the walls were soggy and the furniture in the waiting area was ruined.

When the water main broke we thought we were lucky. Located uphill from the flood, our shop escaped unscathed. When we turned the faucet on and nothing came out we figured the town had shut the water off. So, we closed early. By the next day, the entire floor was ruined. The sink had been left on and the drain was clogged. It overflowed. For 21 hours.