Speaker 0:00

Yello, this is Rambles and Shambles with Ana. Today I'm chatting with Courtney. She is a legendary hairdresser. She's heard half my life updates and questionable decisions I've made. So now it feels only fair that I get to turn the chair around and ask her some questions. When you picture little Courtney, where are you and what are you usually doing? Oh God.

Speaker 1 0:21

Little Courtney is more often than not probably causing trouble. I was the youngest of three with two older brothers. So pretty much like anything they were doing, I wanted to be a part of. Even if it meant laying underneath a beanbag while they were wrestling on top of it, I was involved so I was happy. Were you forced under the beanbag or was that? Define force. I feel like participation was encouraged. I mean, I was involved so I was happy. But I probably didn't want to remain under the beanbag. No, I definitely got payback in my own Barbie makeup kit ways when they were forced to be involved. No, I was I was probably out and about in a like some kind of cubby house turning mud or sand into food or just talking absolute nonsense to anybody, anything that would listen. So I'm in the best kind of career for it, because it's literally what I do all day. I'm probably just out there causing all kinds of mischief in Mayhem.

Speaker 1:19

If your family had to pick one story that explains you as a kid, what story would they tell?

Speaker 1 1:25

Oh, there's so many. Feel free to elaborate. You don't have to stop at one. Um oh god. I can't even remember how old I was when it happened. But the one that I feel like comes up a lot is me attempting to pat a cow, but not realizing that the fence between me and the cow was electric. So it got shot back by an electric fence. Wow. There was that. I ran myself over with a quad bike once. How do you manage that? You flip over the handlebars and then it just keeps rolling. So as much as I loathe to admit it now as like an adult, I was a drama queen as a child. I tried to run away on multiple occasions with like little luggage pieces and going, I would announce that I was leaving. I'd make it like a block down and I'd go like, oh, I'm bored. Go back home.

Speaker 2:10

Were you always creative social chatty? Or was that something that came later?

Speaker 1 2:15

Um, I was always creative. Like I always loved making stuff. I was a big drawer as a kid. I loved colouring in. I loved doing anything arty and painting. The couple of years where I was an older child, so like eight to eleven, where I was like convinced I was gonna be an artist. I was like, I'm gonna be a painter, I'm gonna be a drawer. And then it was like, oh now, I'm gonna be on a radio show, I'm gonna be a sh like a talk show host. I was like, I need to do something like that. And then you get to high school and they're like, that's not realistic. You're not doing that. And I'm like, sick, cool, cool. Crush my dreams. Don't worry. This is great to hear as a 13, 14-year-old, is that my dreams, get rid of them, you're gonna do something else. And I'm like, okay, amazing. I was always really chatty as a kid, but I was also really shy as a person who is on the spectrum. Like, we went through a couple of years into my early teens where it was kind of like, why are you acting the way that you are? Like, you've got some days you're super bubbly and then you're really loud and then you're really shy and you won't talk to anybody. And I'm like, huh, don't know. Just happens. But I was a late diagnosis, so I wasn't diagnosed until I was 15. That was all like, oh. The checks out. That's why you're that way. And we're like, okay, you know, this is cool. We can, we can work with this. We can use this to our advantage. Yeah, I was always like some kind of artsy or playing around with coloured pencils or shoving makeup on my brother's face and calling it gorgeous and beautiful, making my dad put like butterfly clips in his hair and going, like, look at my masterpiece. We had paintings around the house that I'd made from when I was young, young, like maybe five or six, and they were still around the house till probably a couple of years ago where I was like, hey, can we can we not have those on display anymore? Like, I feel like we can we can put those away and replace them with other stuff. Apparently that wasn't right thing to say to my mother, but that's fine.

Speaker 4:04

Were you a bit of a rule follower or were you breaking the rules a bit cheeky? What were you like in that primary school before you got to high school puberty life?

Speaker 1 4:12

I feel like I liked to toe the line. I would definitely follow the rules majority of the time, sometimes like to the T. But if I thought something could be done in a different way and it wasn't necessarily the way that I was asked, I'd probably do it that way. Yeah, I'd I if I was asked to do something and I was like told exact instructions, I was like, yeah, I can do that. That's a that's a list. I love a list. So I'd probably say I was more of a rule follower, and it wasn't until I got to high school that I was like, huh, I've got attitude.

Speaker 4:47

What were you like in high school compared to primary school when you first started in that year seven?

Speaker 1 4:51

Was that an immediate flip or did you slowly I feel like it was gradual over the course of year seven? Like it's it's that first year of high school, you're figuring out the like primary school dynamics change, and you've got to try and navigate different friendship relationships, different relationships with like your teachers and peers and parents and siblings, and all of that happens in kind of like those first couple of years. And so I definitely realized that me having different opinions from people and kind of having to make my own decisions in regards to how to do stuff kind of definitely changed me in a way that like I can I can make decisions, and sometimes those decisions have consequences, but it definitely got me to come out of my shell a little bit more and become that little bit more rebellious, if you will. I never had a rebellious period, though. I would just like to preface and say I wasn't. I was gonna say, I'm not, I never had a rebel phase, I never went through that. My mother can attest for the fact that I'm still probably like one of the most boring human beings. But in like the best kind of way. I I am so happy to go home and chill on the couch watching Great British Bake Off with a cup of tea and like some biscuits and just chill there with my tools. Yeah, like I've I've always been like an old soul, always gotten along a lot better with people a lot older than me. And I don't know if that's due to the fact that I I have two older brothers and like there's an eight-year-age gap between me and my eldest brother, or if a lot of my cousins are a lot older than me as well. It was definitely the adjustment period though of going into high school and kind of figuring out what you're doing and how to act, and then deciding whether or not you actually wanted to follow the social norm or the expected way to act.

Speaker 6:40

But yeah, I've definitely towed the line more than once. And when you say you had a late diagnosis on the spectrum, how do you think that changed your approach to schooling? Or did it not really change anything?

Speaker 1 6:53

Oh, it it it for sure changed my approach to schooling. And obviously, like there is that big thing around the minute of people are getting a lot of late diagnoses. Like people are getting diagnosed in their 30s and 40s now. Like it's it's becoming something that's more recognized, and a lot of people will say it's over-diagnosed now. I could go into the whole spiel of like you've got to look at how technology and diet and food and everything like that has affected us in the last 50, 60 years compared to the generation before that. But I feel like a lot of people don't realize that when you get that late diagnosis, which for girls, late diagnosis is anywhere between like eight to 20 something. Whereas boys are generally diagnosed before they're turning 10. I feel like for me, getting it I'm pretty sure it was the year I turned 16, where that's a big thing in itself. It's the year you get your learners permanent and you're given that little bit of a taste into what adulthood offers. And me getting the diagnosis in that year and being told that you are on the spectrum, this is what level you're at, and then this is how we can help you with it. Being told that me not understanding certain things in school, me kind of not understanding certain relationships in school as well, was normal, was a big turning point, not just for me, but I feel like for my parents as well. Like I didn't have the best time going into high school. I didn't have the best time finishing up primary school either. I've always found like that level of change pretty difficult. But I feel like being told that the way that I'm feeling was completely normal for somebody like like me, and that there are ways that you can deal with it and adjust to it, that makes it a lot less scary. And there are tactics that they can give you, and they can get people in to help you out to understand things, and you don't feel like an idiot. That was a pretty big thing for me. Because especially with a lot of the subjects at the time at school, it was you were going in and you were doing like all algebra and you're learning like bigger things in history, and you're starting to go into your VCE subjects, so specializing subjects. So, like you had computer science, you had psychology, biology, like physics and stuff like that. And I'd never been a science person. I was really fascinated by it, loved science, but I could never get it to click. And then same for math. Like I just could never get those things to click. Whereas like history and geography and arts and music and literature, all of those things I was fine with. But it was just when you tried to put numbers involved, that's where it got slightly more complicated for me. Which is really funny considering that my career is literally just math and science in a different inner shape. But you know, we get what we're given. Especially, I think it was that year I got diagnosed. We looked into getting me a tutor, and the second I got a tutor, it was like, oh wow, okay, I don't need to be freaked out about this because there's somebody, there's somebody actually helping me with it now who understands how to talk to me. And I was very, very grateful of the fact that the tutor I did have at the time, I think it was her son was on the spectrum as well. So she literally knew exactly how to talk to me because she'd she'd been through it at home. It made a massive difference getting the diagnosis and then being able to realize why and kind of get those life skills and find ways to to kind of cope with it going into adulthood. Like I'd in no way, shape or form be in the position I am today, I feel like, unless I got that diagnosis.

Speaker 10:24

What's one thing you believe a lot of people misunderstand about the spectrum?

Speaker 1 10:28

I feel like a lot of people misunderstand kind of like how we put ourselves out there. Because first off, it is a spectrum. Like everybody is is completely different. And I can only talk from my experience. But I find that with me, because I am in a career where I'm talking majority of the day, I don't hate talking. I don't hate socializing. But I feel like a lot of people don't understand that like because of my industry, it's not necessarily every week, but sometimes I get to a weekend and I just need to turn off. Is that kind of thing where it's like you need to let the battery recharge? Because if I don't, that's when I tend to have more moments where I do tend to, like for lack of better terms, I present as being more autistic because I'll get frustrated and I can't regulate my emotions or I'll come off as really testy. And those are just little things for me is if I feel like if you ever encounter somebody and like they don't they don't want to shake your hand or they don't want to give you a hug, like they they can't make eye contact with you. Like it's just don't think that they're being rude. For me, that's just I can do most of those things on a normal day, but there are some days where it's just I just can't. And like the big thing with me is like I come from a like a big family friend group where it's like hugs are like we're very touchy-feely. And I'm like, I don't mind the hug, I don't hate them, but it's very much if I'm having a day where I don't want to hug, just don't want to hug. Stay away. Just don't touch me, please. Like, please. But it's it's become something that I feel like, yeah, I'm dealing with it a lot better than I probably have in the past. But it's it's something that I feel like is that very big misconception of sometimes we just have those off days where we just we just can't act like neurotypical. And we're not trying to be rude. We're not trying to be testy or seem impatient or seem like off, but it's just sometimes we just have off days. And it's again, like it's just not us trying to be rude, we're just we just can't. Just can't do it.

Speaker 12:36

I have a lot of friends who have children who've been diagnosed, and one of the questions a lot of them ask me, not that I have kids or know anything about this, but you know, when you're like, you're the only female in a friend group, they're like, what do I do with my child? If you could share, I guess, some examples of what some parents could do, things that might make things easier or help them with awareness or how to better manage their kids and support them better.

Speaker 1 13:01

Yeah. I mean, I'm extremely lucky that I have the parents that I have. And I'm saying this with full knowledge at the fact that they are definitely going to listen to the episode. I am actually so lucky to have the parents I have. Like they had no idea when I was growing up why I was acting the way that I was. And they would always encourage me to do things that I didn't want to do. And sometimes they would force me to do it and I really didn't like them afterwards. But I feel like the fact that I did get brought up thinking that I was neurotypical, it made it easier to become an adult that more often than not gets mistaken for neurotypical because I had those those tactics from childhood where I wasn't treated differently. I wasn't given special treatment. I wasn't like given excuses for my behavior. It was if I was doing something that wasn't socially acceptable, it was like, why are you doing that? You're being a bit dumb right now, or you're being a bit silly. Like there was no special treatment. And I'll still never forget when we did get the diagnosis. Mum probably won't even remember saying this. I'm pretty sure we were in the car and it's just stuck with me, and we were on our way home from somewhere. It might have been like a psychology appointment or something like that. Mum was like, Well, it's good that we've got the diagnosis. And I remember just kind of like, yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense. And she's like, Okay, but I just want you to remember this isn't an excuse.

Speaker 14:37

Yeah.

Speaker 1 14:38

And it that's something that I've I've kind of kept with me going further into adulthood now. I'm like, what, 12 years after the diagnosis now? But it's that thought of I never wanted to use it as an excuse because a lot of the times people who do get diagnosed earlier, they'll find it out. And then I've noticed it does become a bit of an excuse for people and how they behave. I'm just glad that I, as brutal as it sounds, I was never given the opportunity to do that because my parents knew that I could be better and they pushed me to be better. And again, I don't think I would be in the position I'm in now, working the job I am now, without them doing that. So if there is any tip I can give for any parent living with a younger neurodivergent child, or any people going with neurodivergent friends or family or relatives, and I cannot preach it enough, please never use it as an excuse. Because the second it gets turned into an excuse is when people start believing that it is overdiagnosed and that there is no special treatment needed. You don't need the help in schools, you don't need kids to learn how to be regulated because it's their they're autistic. Like that's that's when it becomes an excuse, is you can't you can't acknowledge the fact that they're they're just a child. It's oh no, they're an autistic child. So yeah, there's one like one tip I can give it's just please never use it as an excuse. I love that.

Speaker 16:13

Yeah. When you were in high school, what subjects actually held your attention?

Speaker 1 16:18

I was I was a big food tech girl. Hated writing essays, but I loved English. Always been a big reader growing up, loved my book series, was a big Harry Potter kid. Well, I'm still it's I feel like you don't you don't ever lose Harry Potter. If that was one of the first books that I ever got read to me and never read on my own. So shout out to my eldest brother Lee for getting into that first. I was a really big history kid as well. And I loved learning new things about other places. And then now that I'm an adult, like then I've been to some of those places. I'm like, this is amazing. Those were probably the core subjects. And then I definitely got into psychology as well when we did that. I did because I left school during year 11 to pursue hairdressing, but I definitely enjoyed my my first experience with that was in year 11 at the start before I decided to finish up. But I got my unit one pass, so I'll take that. I've got some some VC passing marks, so have to claim what I can. But I was extremely lucky at the fact that my school that I went to had a really cool arts teacher. We went to the Andy Warhol and I Weiwe exhibition at the NGV in Melbourne. I think it was during year 10. We were walking around one of the galleries, and I think that was probably the moment I knew that I wasn't ever gonna be in a desk job. I knew that I needed to do something creative, and at that point, I just didn't know what. I just knew I needed to do something.

Speaker 17:53

So I know that you love cooking and food tech. How did you get into hairdressing and not becoming the next great British break-off? So I I just imagine you was a pastry chef. I mean, it's creating really nice possible.

Speaker 1 18:10

Five-year-old Courtney had big dreams. We found it again recently, but I was apparently writing a cookbook when I was like five or six.

Speaker 18:16

Wow.

Speaker 1 18:18

No, the I believe the top recipe was vanilla ice cream with banana honey and freshly shaven chocolate. That was the that was the top creation. When we had the ingredients listed out, there were no quantities and there were no like instructions. Just like my mum as well, there was no quantities and no instructions, but just just a name and ingredients and a and a book full of heart. That was about it. I definitely probably would have loved to go into some kind of baking career or something or other. Like I still bake a fair bit at home. And when I was in high school, my mum and a family friend of ours, they had a cake business. And so it was like I would I would jump in there as creative supervisor, is what I like to I like to refer to myself as in this situation. In reality, there are a couple of pictures of me and my pajamas up and icing cakes at probably seven in the morning on a Saturday where I look less than happy to be there. I don't know, I just didn't didn't click. And then my aunt, actually on my dad's side, so he's got an older brother and his wife was a hairdresser. She started when she was 15 or 16 working in Melbourne. She's now in her 70s now and absolutely like rocking life. She's doing calisthenics all the time, traveling the world. But I remember going to her house during school holidays. This was probably from like when my brothers were in school. And then after I started school, we'd still go and it was just so that we weren't all three in the house at the same time trying to kill each other. Um, yeah, it was like we'd all get sent to different corners of Victoria to spend time with various families and friends. But I would go and stay with her every now and then for a week or a weekend and hang out with her. She used to own a salon, and I remember going in and like sweeping up hair every now and then and like just going in and seeing where she worked. I remember going and hanging out there and just sitting there and watching her do her thing. And then dad would bring us and get our hair cut with her. And I remember one time in particular, I was quite young. She asked if I wanted I wanted colour in my hair. And I was like, Yeah, I want colour in my hair. That sounds great. And dad didn't think anything of it, so he's gone, yeah, why not? And so I've I've come home from that appointment with my aunt with bright pink streaks in my hair. And mum mum was none too happy about that. I can imagine. But dad, dad and I uh conveniently forgot the piece of information that my aunt said that it would rinse out. Okay. And that it was literally like just this muck paste that you put on the hair and it washes out like after a shampoo. And so that that got him into a little bit of trouble then, but it's it gives a good story now. I feel like I kind of owe my career a little bit to to my aunt because she kind of was the one to plant the seed, and like I think back on it now, and I did really enjoy like playing around with other people's hair and playing around with my own hair. And my mum was always very creative with her hair when I was growing up. She's had every colour under the sun, like every haircut. She's been red, orange, black, white, pink, purple, multiple colours at once. She's had the skunk stripes, she's had long hair. And so I think she was probably the most excited when I actually got into hairdressing because she's like, This is amazing. I'm never gonna have to pay for my hair again. She she's probably always been my biggest supporter, but I probably in fact, yeah, no, if I had to pinpoint it, I definitely own a career to both my mum and my aunt. Mum was the one who actually got me my first job.

Speaker 21:47

So people around you understood that hairdressing was a real career? You didn't really have that. We know how some people say, Oh, hairdressing uh I mean, a hundred percent everyone around me did.

Speaker 1 21:58

I feel like if anything, I was The one who kind of felt like I was letting everybody down a little bit. Because especially like my mum works in accounting and HR and payroll, and my dad's in project management. So they're both very businessy people. And then like my two older brothers as well, like my eldest brother's an accountant, and he went to uni and changed degrees a couple of times, but he was always in something quite businessy. And he is the reason me and my old other brother got into the school that we did for high school because he was just the smartest of the bunch. And so we got in because of the sibling rule, and I'm not gonna complain about that. Yeah, like my other brother was always really intelligent as well. Like still they both still are smart as a whip. So I kind of had all of these people around me who were so good at at the numbers side of life that I'm I don't know, a part of me felt like I was I was letting them down by not finishing school and graduating. And at the time I thought I was kind of taking the cop out of of going into a trade. Cause I feel like it still holds a bit of a stigma around trades in the industry. Oh you like it's oh you're just a tradey. Like, yeah, they're just they're just trades. Like it's not, it's not a real career. It's not like you went to university for it. But in saying that, like I've been working full-time since I was 17. I've been in the industry, it'll be 10 years this year. I've worked in multiple salons. I did get a diploma. It's not a like it's a certificate, but it's it's not nothing. I put in work for it. I had to do tests and I had to do exams and I I've got knowledge behind it. It's it's so much more than what people think it is, I feel like. Yeah, it took me a long time to kind of get it into my head that me going into this career wasn't letting anybody down. Like it was, it was just me taking a different path to everyone else.

Speaker 23:55

Yeah.

Speaker 1 23:56

What do you remember about starting your apprenticeship? I remember being really scared that I was making a bad decision. But I also remember the first six months were probably the hardest because it's a very physically and emotionally taxing job. You're on your feet all day and you're cleaning and you'll you're interacting with people. And like the the first salon I worked at was a two-story building. So it was we had both stores with sat like both floors were salon sections. And so you were running up and downstairs all day, and then it was you were going out to try and get a break over lunch, and so you'd just walk, and then you'd come back into the salon, and then you'd be doing it all over again. But starting my apprenticeship, it was kind of like both a relief and the hardest thing I've ever done. Because yeah, like I remember going home on certain days and just crying. I was just exhausted and I didn't know what else to do, and so I just cried. And if I wasn't crying, I was passed out on the couch by 6:30 on a on a Saturday afternoon when I finished work at four. And then I've I remember feeling a little bit isolated as well from my friends because they were all still in high school. And then I was 18, they were all doing year 12, and they were all going out on the weekends, and I was at home because I'd worked a Saturday from eight o'clock in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon, and then they were going, Do you want to go out? And I'm like, I'm tired. Yeah, she's a work personality. The last thing I want to do. And then you also get the the different weekends to everybody else. Of majority of the hair industry follows this. You work the Saturday, then you've got the Sunday off, and then you've got the Monday off. But the only day that you technically have off with everyone else is the Sunday. You can still do stuff on the Saturday night, but you don't feel like you've had a day off. It's it's the equivalent of I feel like the the average worker going out after work on a Friday. Like you have to really commit to going out after work on a Friday. And it could it was quite isolating for me and my friends, I feel like. And then they got to uni and it was a completely different ball game again. So but the first couple of years of of hairdressing were on a on and off rough. Yeah, like it's it's an interesting industry to get into, especially when you've you've just come out of high school because it's there are definitely some similar things happening in the hair industry than there is in high school. But it's it's uh it's an industry thing. I feel like that's it's one of those things where it's like unless you're in the industry, you kind of don't understand how certain things work. It was it was a good, a good transition and it was a good learning curve.

Speaker 26:29

Yeah, I can't imagine a lot of 17-year-olds wouldn't have the discipline to get up on time, get to work, you're treated essentially like an adult because you are now working. I think that would have been really hard.

Speaker 1 26:41

A lot of apprentices in the hair industry, and this still stands today, start anywhere between the ages of 15 to like 18. And that's the average. Some people start their apprentices, apprentices in their early 20s, other people won't hire somebody unless they're under the age of 18. It's it's a very mixed bag, but I was lucky enough that when I did my apprenticeship, pretty much every salon I worked at, because I I had three salons where I did my apprenticeship. I had different issues with the first couple and then ended up at a salon in Melbourne that I will forever be grateful for the boss of that salon, and I will live forever talk them up. They were the most amazing boss. I'll forever be grateful for that. But I was very grateful also for the fact that every salon I worked at, the apprentices were always my age. In fact, I think I was the oldest at the first one. The apprentice that we had under me was a year or two younger at the time. Yeah, the salons after that, it was like pretty much every apprentice that was hired on was my age, which was around like that 19, 20 year old. So we were considered an old apprentice almost. But it's definitely an interesting kind of group to be in when you're younger. And a lot of the times a lot of people are older than you in the industry, not necessarily by like decades, but like say you start your apprenticeship and you're 18, 19, everybody that's working with you will be like 25 plus. So it's it's not a lot of difference, but it's enough of the difference to realize that they've got a lot more life experience than you do, especially with work involved. And so it's you kind of you feel the need to up your game and kind of get that discipline and make sure that you're there early and you kind of make it out that like you've got something to prove. You definitely probably do have something to prove for the first couple of years through your apprenticeship. So it's a good thing to do.

Speaker 28:33

And you mentioned that you had some bad experiences and then you found a really good boss. What did that salon do that was so great that you wish everywhere did?

Speaker 1 28:42

This salon in particular, they almost had everybody on the same like playing field. It was a salon who had tiered pricing systems. So it was you had your director, you had your masters, and then you had your specialists, your seniors, your senior emergings, and then your emergings. And so, like the pricing system was different, but was always on top of team bonding, was very encouraging of like every Friday or Saturday after work, stay back, have a drink, he'd pay for it. Like we were a salon that served wine and coffee and beers and like spritzers, and so we had everything in hand. And he'd be like, take a bottle out of the fridge, anything that's open, you can drink it. And we would just stay back and we would bond, and it would just be us talking about work and life and like people that we have coming in, coming up, and like nothing ever negative, but we would just be talking about anything and everything all over the shop. And then he was also really big on education. And that's one thing that I feel like people both do not enough and too much of because I feel like too much of it is is exactly that. It's too much, especially now where you've got TikTok and Instagram, your big leaders on how people want their hair to look because they'll see something online. And sometimes that thing is AI generated and you have to explain that to somebody and they don't get it, and it can be really complicated, but it's very much he would do it so that you would have all of these education opportunities, but it wasn't you going to somebody else to be educated. It wasn't somebody from outside of the company coming in. It was he himself would go worldwide to educate, and he's still the exact same human being, completely unfiltered, in the best way possible. Like he doesn't care what questions you have, he'll answer them and he'll answer them bluntly. But he would get people, educate them, get them to go out and do the education, and then bring it back and customize it for how the salon worked.

Speaker 30:45

Yeah.

Speaker 1 30:46

And then it was like you were also given the opportunity to, if you wanted to, because he had salons like up and down the east coast of Australia, you could go to any of the salons. You could talk to anybody, you could shadow, you could come up for a week, come up for a weekend, and majority of the time he would offer to assist with that, like whether it be paying for your flights or helping you out with accommodation, organizing for your stay with somebody else, like it was a very good way of doing it because everybody became interlinked. Like it was separate, separate salons. He owned all of them, he ran all of them, he tried to make sure that he was down to every salon at least once every six to eight weeks. And he would always spend like at least a week or two in every salon. And he was just constantly on the go. But he was always so in touch with what was happening. I feel like there could definitely, definitely be more of that in the industry.

Speaker 31:40

Yeah. Or in any industry. Leaders who care about education of their people, keeping them engaged, sharing knowledge, providing opportunity. Those are all the things anyone wants. Yeah. You know, that's what keeps you.

Speaker 1 31:53

And I feel like there's definitely an attempt to it. It's just something that I feel like isn't done enough, though. There definitely needs to be more care for like how your staff are, not necessarily just training them, but like how they actually are. Their well-being. Yeah.

Speaker 32:10

Yeah. I guess a lot of people open up to hairdressers when you hear a lot of those stories. Sometimes I'm sure you've heard everything. How do you go home and not carry that as well?

Speaker 1 32:21

Um, I am somebody who and I've again, I feel like this definitely shows the fact that I am on the spectrum. If I've had a bad day, or if I've had like somebody tell me something awful to them, I just need to sit in silence. I need to acknowledge that it's happened and I need to try and move past it. Whether that trying to move past it is me driving home in complete silence with absolutely nothing on the radio, whether it's me blasting Noah Khan at like 25 on the stereo, like driving down the Port Arlington freeway. It just really depends on the day. But I I try not to think too hard about what everybody else has told me. Because one, they've told me that in confidence for them to get it off their chest, but they'll will also tell it to me, probably thinking that I'm not thinking about it. So I t I try and absorb things enough that I'll remember to check in next time, but not enough that I am absorbing it into my own kind of headspace. Because you do hear a lot. And like I've I've gone through a lot with a lot of different clients. Like I've gone through pregnancy loss, I've gone through like child loss, partner loss, I've been through cancer diagnoses with people, and it's a lot to absorb. And it's sometimes you'll meet somebody once and they'll tell you their entire life story, and then you'll never see them again. And then sometimes you'll have the same person come in every week for a blow dry and they'll tell you nothing. And so I am there to be whatever that person needs. Whether they want to tell me more, whether they want to tell me less, I'm happy for whatever. But I'm very much, if somebody wants to tell me something, I'm more than happy for me to like for them to tell me because I'll remember to check up on them next time and I'll be empathetic, but I I'm not going to absorb something that's not mine to absorb. I feel like it in the end, it's very much that kind of thing of, yeah, like I try not to to take on other people's emotions more than I need to because it kind of makes it harder to deal with your own. I feel like I I I deal pretty well with it. Like there are definitely some hard days. You just need to kind of let things go if they're if they're not yours to hold on to. But yeah, more than happy to be that helping, helping hand or the open ear to anyone who needs it. What do you think people underestimate about hairdressers a lot? I mean, other than the stigma that like a lot of the times we are in the industry because we're not smart, which is something I've heard more often than once. I feel like a lot of people, and this is cheesy as anything, they underestimate how resilient we are. Because again, it is that thing of like we're constantly hearing bad news, we're constantly hearing good news, we're constantly dealing with other people's emotions. And I feel like a lot of people also don't realize how much we genuinely care. And again, I can only talk from my own experience, but if I've ever done somebody's hair and it hasn't been done the way they wanted it done, they it hasn't come out the way that they wanted it. I will, if I find out about that and they decide they don't want me to fix it, they want to go somewhere else. I will think about that for weeks. I will lose sleep over it. I'll try not to, but I can almost guarantee you I will. It's like the one thing I try to say is if I ever do something that somebody doesn't like, come tell me. Come let me try to fix it. That, or if you don't want me to fix it, come let somebody else I work with try to fix it so that I can I can see that you're happy with it. Don't like, don't think you're gonna hurt my feelings. You're gonna hurt my feelings more by not coming back in or not letting me try to talk to you about it than you will by just completely leaving. Yeah. I feel like a lot of people don't realize how much we actually think about things that we've done. I also feel like a lot of people don't realize that we are a lot tougher than we look when it comes to that kind of stuff. It's an interesting thing to think about.

Speaker 36:20

It's a hard question. Yeah, that's why I didn't get my hair cut by anyone else, even while I was overseas. I had to meet you in London to get it cut.

Speaker 1 36:27

That was a fun experience. You got your scissors. I love it. Why not? I'll bring my scissors to another country for no reason other than to cut your hair.

Speaker 36:37

That's great. I love it. I love it. How has the job helped with your confidence? Or has it helped with your confidence?

Speaker 1 36:44

It's definitely helped me learn to be more confident. I feel like you can't be specifically in the beauty industry without either being or learning to be confident. It is that kind of thing where you have to be able to believe in yourself because if somebody notices that you don't, or if you're not confident, they're gonna be able to see that in two seconds flat. And I can guarantee you that because it's happened to me before. I was a little bit more mousy when I first got into it. I wasn't confident talking to clients. So I would generally just like sneak around the salon trying to be quiet, trying to do stuff without getting in people's ways. When I started doing clients, I was trying to interact with them, but I wasn't trying to annoy them. So more often than not, I'd ask them one or two questions and then we'd just sit in awkward silence because I didn't know what what else to do, because I didn't know how to interact with them without feeling like I was annoying them because you don't want somebody talking to you for three hours, surely. Surely not. I don't know, I don't mind it. But yeah, no, I'm like every time you come in, we're just talking the entire point.

Speaker 37:50

I actually just come and talk to you. I don't even need my hair cut.

Speaker 1 37:52

That's funny. Um, I had to I had to learn to be more confident in myself. Like I even when you move salons, it's that whole thing of it feels like you're moving schools. And so you have to learn the dynamic first, and then you have to slowly try and like get yourself in there. You have to figure out how to improve yourself as well, both like outside and inside of work. Find out what makes you confident. Like with me, it's wearing like a pair of shoes that'll make me a little bit taller. Because I'm quite short, as you would know.

Speaker 38:23

Can confirm.

Speaker 1 38:24

Yeah. But like I wear my platform Doc Martens and it just it's like it gives me a little bit of extra stomp in my step. And that just makes me feel that little bit more confident. When I go to work, it's you're putting on the face of okay, this is the person I am now. You do kind of get that like badass B feeling of like, okay, no, like I'm feeling myself. I can do this, I can cut hair. This is great. And thank God for that. I know. But yeah, it's like you've gotta, you've gotta find what makes you feel confident. Probably what got me through majority of my career was being able to learn how to find that confidence.

Speaker 38:59

You know, your career built your confidence.

Speaker 1 39:01

Oh god, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 39:02

No, Lord knows it wasn't me. For someone young who feels like people don't fully take them seriously yet, what would you want them to know?

Speaker 1 39:11

Just persevere. It's gonna be hard. But if you're being mistaken for a child, you're probably doing something childish. You just need to learn from it. So ask questions. But if you don't do that and if you're stubborn and you just keep pushing through and trying to find it on your own, you're never gonna, you're never gonna move on, like move on. You're just gonna be stuck in the same spot. Thank you so much for your time today.

Speaker 39:36

I've really, really enjoyed our conversation. I shall now shake your hand, say goodbye, and uh go to my hair. Amazing.