Last weekend, I treated myself to a manicure (which was lovely!) and an event happened that I haven’t been able to shake. Here’s what transpired: we were about halfway through this luxury and a guy walked into the salon with his son (unusual, but there it is). The owner, who was tending to my post-pandemic hands and cuticles (it wasn’t pretty!), asked - as they do when anyone comes in- “Hello! How can we help you?” The guy said, “I’ll need 7 mani/pedis for a party. Can you do it in an hour?” The owner looked around her Saturday busy salon - all 5 of the nail technicians were busy with clients and would be for the next 2 hours. So she said to the guy (paraphrasing a bit) “Can you come back in 2 hours? We’ll have to stagger your party, but we can fit them all in then?” The guy, clearly annoyed, said to his son, “Let’s go!” The boy said “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you taking the appointments?” The (Dad?) said it was much too long to wait, they’d find somewhere else, and probably wouldn’t be back!. For a party of 7, requested an hour in advance!
SO. A lot to unpack here…..For sure, we will be studying the ramifications of 2020 for decades sociologically, psychologically, educationally, and historically, not to mention the vast effects on businesses, particularly small businesses, the historical impacts of our year (plus of quarantine), and how we’ll manage to come out of it and bounce forward in our new normal. No question.
This seemingly innocuous exchange made me feel terribly sad: sad for the owner, as she is trying desperately to build back clientele, recruit nail technicians to come to work, most of whom have all but vaporized, and she’s having a hell of a time finding new ones to service her once thriving business. Incidentally, she wouldn’t have blinked an eye at the request for 7 mani/pedis in an hour. I’ve actually seen her manage a similar situation pre-pandemic: she just picks up the phone and calls in techs to satisfy the ebb and flow of her business. This lost business, and the potential for losing future business because this guy was annoyed, hurt me on her behalf.
What I haven’t been able to shake is how illustrative this interaction is of so many topics we have covered conceptually over the past 10 months or so: our evolving expectation of immediate gratification, empathy, kindness and respect for other humans, clear communication, our new normal and the attention economy, all of which play into this 5 minute exchange. Are we rushing so quickly back to “normal life” that we’re forgetting what we’ve all been through during the last 16 months? That we’re not remembering that it’s going to take time (oh yeah, another topic we’ve covered frequently) for us all to find our rhythm in life again? That perhaps, especially in the service industry and in this time of unprecedented labor deficit for service workers, our seemingly urgent needs might not be satisfied at this moment as they may have been pre-pandemic? That our favorite haunts of old might be struggling to come back to full service capacity? That the very same might need a little grace? That we might be able to show some consideration for these businesses and plan ahead, make reservations in advance of an hour and try not to channel our inner Veruca Salt’s oft repeated line in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: “I want it NOW”! Absolutely not trying to throw shade on this guy. Who knows? His extended family may have showed up unexpectedly and he might have been looking for a way to entertain them, or, I dunno, maybe his pickup basketball team may have lost a bet he needed to satisfy, or he was looking for something to do for the parents at his kids birthday party, we’ll never know. But the illustration and manifestation of FIG topics was just too rich to ignore.
The disappointment on this salon owner’s face having to turn down business still bothers me. I, for one, intend to really try to be mindful of my needs and what hoops others may need to jump through to satisfy these wishes and to recognize that it’s going to take a lot of effort, intentionality, and motivation for us to live life as we once did.
Until next time…..