I have been a little lax in updating my blog articles, because the last two and a half weeks have been spent working on the salon floor at my school. I know, exciting! Seems like just yesterday I was a man in the very beginning stages of re-education, not even sure how to turn on his hair dryer. Now I’m tending to the hair needs of the general public.

The way we like to describe it, it’s not so much a salon as it is a “classroom with windows.” The “guests” we operate on are just that: not “clients” but “guests.” Guests who are submitting themselves to be our aesthetic Guinea pigs, rather than an actual, factual retail client. Leaves a nice comfortable buffer in there for students like myself, who cannot positively guarantee you will walk out of here better off than you were when you walked in. “Hey, it’s a teaching salon! What part of ‘ten-dollar haircut’ indicates perfect results?”

Although I have to admit, I’ve been giving people their money’s worth for certain – I’m good that way. Didn’t start out that way though!

Day One, I was a nervous wreck. Oh sure we had “Model Days” before going up on floor. By “Model Day” I’m referring to a day in which we bring in a friend to demonstrate our hair abilities upon before “going up on floor.” However the one differentiating facet of model day that I should mention is that we’re working on someone we already know, doing a procedure we already planned for days in advance. That’s not the way it works on Day One. No, on Day One we work on a stranger, and we do a procedure that we have no prep time on. Client sits… I mean GUEST… GUEST sits down, and lays on you what it is they want you to do, and your job is to know it and to do it. It’s a lot to take in all of a sudden.

Now of course, most jobs have that little period of adjustment, where you’re super-nervous on Day One and then you work into it. Nothing terribly out of the ordinary, except that you’re dealing with the general public. Face to face. You’re touching the general public, that’s something that you don’t experience at most jobs. Touching the general public is scary enough, but what about if you’re touching the general public and they’re expecting a woman? You know, they come in and expect a “Lisa” or a “Sally” to greet them, and then by contrast they get a nervous-looking “Kevin” to lead them back to his chair, followed by a shampoo and then an hour or two of me running my fingers through their hair… well it’s an intimate touch. Not really a big deal though, once you’re ten minutes into the procedure everyone is pretty much over the awkwardness and we’re just doing hair.

No, what makes me a little on-edge is that we’re using our amateur hands on a person’s image. A lot goes into the emphasis we place on our appearance, and a person’s hair is near the top of the personal aesthetics food chain. If I mess up someone’s hair it’s going to impact them. It’ll impact their work life, their social life, it’ll make them uncomfortable and self-conscious and it will make them curse my name for the next three months. Suffice it to say I’ve never sent anyone home in tears because I built them a bad website! The pressure is on!

SO, on Day One I was bringing my bag of tools into the salon. New location, new schedule, surrounded by new students I didn’t yet know, I felt like a fish out of water. A big, clumsy, dorky, insecure male fish in its late-30’s… out of water. I get up to the computer system and SURPRISE! I have a client immediately. There’s no easing into this afforementioned “water” I have no alternative but to plunge headlong into it.

So the appointment program thinger states that Mizz Guest-O-Mine is coming in for a “treatment.” Hmmm, what kind of treatment? I root around in her file to discover what kind of treatment she had last time, then I hunt for one of the elusive educators who can remind me how to do that “treatment.” We have only two educators, time is pressing down on me as I wait in line to say “HELP ME I’M DROWNING!” while the client… the GUEST, sits in the front twiddling the ol’ thumbs waiting for her big awkward dorky male fish to figure out what it is he thinks he’s doing.

Yes ma’am, it’s another Fight-Or-Flight moment. I ask myself “Still want to do this for a living? It’s not too late to run away in abject terror.” No, I’m made of tougher stuff than that. I’ll stick it out.

So here’s the thing, it wasn’t just a treatment. It was a full-on color. Followed by a full on cut. Plus, of course, the original treatment. My hour-long feet-wetter has turned into an all-day mettle-tester! Well not ALL day, but it sure felt that way. I’m new at this, I’m slow, and a haircut takes me a long time in comparison to the timeframe a professional would do it in. Especially when it’s my first cut on a stranger – not a good day, actually. I was feeling like a misfit to begin with, and now with my scissors in my hand I felt foreign even to my own hands. I couldn’t make them stop shaking, and I was quite sure I was going to either cut myself or screw up the haircut… or even cut the client! Those scissors are sharp, and I felt less-so! The cut and color were a success, though. No casualties, and I came back the next day for more.

I didn’t WANT to go back, at least not at first. The first day is the worst, the second day I was completely without sleep and completely booked through the day (not even a 10-minute break), but it was still not as bad as the first day. That’s the best thing about “First Days” though: you only have to do it once.