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Bad Nail Salon

My boss: You need to do the pedicure in 30 minutes.

Me: I can’t do that.

My boss: That’s because you are not very good.

Me: No, its because I do quality work.

I quit soon after that.

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What’s the meanest thing your boss has said to you?

Boss: If people come in this salon and see you then they will think this is a bad salon because you’re not very pretty. Please wear make-up tomorrow.

Me: Geez lady!

I didn’t work there very long.

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Random Financial Thoughts

I listened to a guy today who said that interest rates are the cost of time. When you are willing to wait for money you get paid in interest for how long you are willing to wait. When you don’t wait for money (credit card) you pay for your lack of patience with interest (its a steep price for credit cards). 

I’m not sure how true this analogy is but it sounds right. The faster you pay off a loan or credit card the less interest you pay. The longer you wait for an investment the more interest you earn.

Anyway what do you think is a good analogy for interest?

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Coworker Horror stories: Spousal Cheating at Work

I worked in a nail salon where two of my coworkers were having an affair. One of them was married and the other had a girlfriend. During slow times when there weren’t any customers in the salon they would hook up in his car.

They would even ask off days to take care of sick family members and spend the whole time at a hotel instead. We found out about this because they didn’t try to keep it a secret at work and even talked about it with the other coworkers.

They didn’t get fired because they were really good at doing nails and had regular clients. 

Do you think that they should have been fired? What would you do? Would you tell their significant others about the cheating? Let me know.

Thanks!

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Client Horror Stories: Competition Spies (Nail Tech)

I live in southern California and the nail business is cutthroat here. I once worked at a startup salon where the owners weren’t aware of how competitive the industry was.

A woman asked for a full acrylic set and when it was over she said she didn’t like it and asked for a full gel set instead. My boss said no and she refuse to pay, so my boss took off her acrylic nails and gave her a new gel set. Afterward she said it was awful and asked for a new dip set.

Again she refuse to pay so my boss took off her gel nails and gave her a dip set. Then she asked for a regular gel manicure, which my boss gave her. She had been at the salon for over 5 hours by this point and we just wanted her to pay and leave.

After the 4th nail service my boss finally got her to explain why she thought the other services were awful when they were clearly done well. She said she worked for a nail salon down the road and was getting paid by the owner to see how we did our services so that her boss could figure out how to do them better. After that she finally paid and left.

I couldn’t believe someone would do something so pathetic and underhanded to get ahead of the competition. I’ve heard stories about shady business practices but I’d never seen one first-hand.

If a salon owner doesn’t believe in her/his business or the abilities of their employees to the point that they resort to spying on the competition then they should not be in business.

I thought that would only happen once but a few days later another lady asked for another service after getting an amazing acrylic set with nail art. My boss refused and when she refuse to pay my boss said she would report her for stealing if she didn’t pay. The lady did and we found out later that she was from a nail salon several blocks away.

Is there another business this competitive? Have competitors tried to sabotage your business? Let me know.

Thanks!

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Client Horror Stories: Screaming Babies (Nail Tech)

Please don’t bring very small children into a nail salon. 

This happened on a weekly basis at my last job. Mothers came into the salon with their baby, sometimes more than one.

I know its hard being a mom. You need a break and you can’t always get a babysitter. If you have to bring your baby into a salon please get a quick service, like a basic manicure or pedicure.

More often than not when a mom brought in her baby she would ask for services that can last up to 90 minutes (premium pedicure or full acrylic set).

I couldn’t believe these mothers lack of consideration for their child and everyone else at the salon. The baby almost always wanted to explore the salon and cried when he/she had to sit still. Everyone, including the mom, got sick of the crying and just wanted to the experience to be over. A baby cried for over an hour one time and everyone at the salon got a headache because of it.

The worst case I’ve ever seen involved three sisters coming in with a 5 year old boy and each of them wanted a full acrylic set. We only had two nail techs available to do the full sets so one of the sisters had to wait until a tech became available.

Instead of helping to entertain her nephew she chose to stay glued to her phone while he ran around causing chaos. 

This little terror dumped the bath salts on the floor, made a mess in the bathroom, and ate some of the food we were saving for a celebration in the break room. He didn’t start this bad behavior until his had been at the salon for over 4 hours waiting for his mom and aunts.

At that point I couldn’t blame the kid because he’s just a bored 5 year old. His mother and his aunts should have been taking care of him instead of being so self-absorbed. Finally, one of our other customers, who was a complete stranger and had no obligation to do so, started playing a game with him to help everyone out.

What is the most frustrating thing you’ve seen in a salon? Have you been the one frustrating everyone? Let me know.

Thanks!

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Why you shouldn’t go to cheap nail salons

I have worked in two nail salons over the course of two years and it gets much worse than just reusing files.

The employees at cheap nail salons are illegally underpaid. The owners only pay the employees commission for each service they do. They are not paid by the hour. 

On the surface that doesn’t sound so bad. If you do enough nail services you have the potential to make decent money. The hard part is doing enough nail services consistently.

During the summer salons are busy and earning enough money is easy. During the winter employees spend most of their time sitting in the salon waiting for customers for no pay. 

In addition, most employees are required to do side work, such as laundry, answering phones, cleaning, and restocking supplies. They never get paid for this work since it is not a nail service, but they are still expected to do it. 

Cheap salons are known for not properly cleaning their tools and reusing files. A lot of these salons were reported and given huge fines for this in the 90s and early 2000s. Since then enforcement of safety standards has gone down and salons are getting away with poor safety habits again. 

What do I recommend? Don’t get your nails done at a nail salons. Go to hotels or resorts for nail services instead. Hotels and resorts are more heavily regulated. They are required to pass regular safety standard checks and pay their employees an hourly wage.

What do you think? Is is worth the risk for the price you pay? Have any nail salon horror stories? Am I full of crap? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks!