For more than 3 years now, I’ve been going to the same nail salon, and seeing the same person. She’s just the best, and I’ve never been happier about how my nails look.
This summer, I vacationed in Los Angeles. By the middle of my vacation, my nails had gotten so long that I decided I needed to visit a salon. After looking on Yelp and reading some reviews, I made an appointment at a nearby salon.
Now, I know a while ago I already wrote about internet reviews and how they are not always the most accurate because people always review from an emotional place about their service, but that is a different story. So there I was, getting my pedicure, and the manicurist was being very nice. It wasn’t the best pedicure of my life, but I am not a picky person, so overall, I was happy so far.
Then she had a look at my nails, and it all went downhill. She went and on about how my manicurist is stupid and she doesn’t know how to do gel nails. She said that acrylic nails break on me because she doesn’t know how to do them properly. She kept laughing while saying all of this. Everything was so awful in her opinion. She told me she wanted me to show my new nails to my manicurist as soon as I got back to Toronto.
After all of that, when she finished, my nails were uneven, bubbled and in general not very nice. I didn’t even let her paint my nails. Before I left, I told her that I am a hairdresser who mostly does color, so my nails get black and the gel lifts from my nails because of all the chemicals I work with daily. Ultimately, she doesn’t know me, or my lifestyle, and it’s rude and unfair to bad mouth someone else’s work - someone whose work I actually like. We are all a community of professionals, let’s show it by supporting each others’ work…or at the least, improving upon it when we have a new client come to us.
Unfortunately, this happens too often in our industry. Some stylists or cosmetologists like blaming or talking bad about others. But why? I can never understand the logic of a person who thinks that making negative comments about the previous stylist will gain them the attention or trust of their new guest. I think hairdressing and cosmetology schools should include a subject on work ethics and the art of telling your client that something is wrong, without being negative about the previous master.
In the service world, our number one rule should be "Do not say anything negative about the previous master!”
I want to finish my story with something I find funny, but sad at same time. I had coworker in the past who would always make a bad comment about his clients’ hair and how the previous stylist had done something wrong. One day, I got one of his clients who wasn't booked for a haircut but asked if the stylist who cut her hair last time was available. I checked, and he was, so he came over for the consultation. I forgot to tell him that she asked for him specifically and he must have forgotten that he had been the one to cut her hair last, because guess what! He criticized the client’s haircut and said it was done wrong and he’d have to fix it! I’m not sure if this was just out of habit from talking like this every time or if he really thought his previous haircut was bad, but I did pull him aside and let him know that it was actually his haircut lol.
