The Job Where I Just Didn’t Cut It

In response to First Job/ Best Job/ You Can’t Fire Me/ I Quit

So I have a confession to make.  I went to cosmetology school.  For anyone unfamiliar, that is where you learn to do hair, nails and makeup.  You know the song “Beauty School Drop Out”?  Well, that’s kind of describing me, except I graduated beauty school, I just couldn’t hack it in the real world.

Now before I go any further, I gotta stick up for all of hairdressers, nail techs and makeup artists who have graduated from cosmetology school and now have flourishing careers.  It ain’t easy.  In the state of North Carolina, for example (and this is true to some extent or another in most states, I do believe), the training course for an Emergency Medical Technician is a 200 hour, 12 week class. The BLET for police officer training is a 620 hour, 16 week class.  The cosmetology program for aspiring hairdressers/nail techs/makeup artists is a 1500 hour, 4 semester program.  

It’s not an easy, quick money maker.  Contrary to some opinion I have heard, it is not a easy option for those who have given up on doing anything else. You have to have passion, drive, commitment and the ability to clock in on time (if you clocked in 5.5 minutes after the hour, they docked you fifteen minutes and if you got docked so many fifteen minutes, you will have to pay for a whole other semester to finish your 1500 hours.  There isn’t that much leeway in the course)

So what was my problem? It wasn’t color, I love color.  I had the color down great.  I can recite a color chart, what needed to be blended to combat various color problems (like making sure that ashy blonde doesn’t turn the hair a green tinge), and got really good using both foils and paper for highlights.  In fact, if I lived in an area where I could just focus on color as my specialty, I may have actually done well. But my problem was cutting.

I could do all the basic cuts.  I mean I had to, otherwise I wouldn’t have passed the state boards.  But trendy hair cuts are rarely the basics you learn in school.  They are combinations, with different techniques, some of which you would have gotten penalized for trying in school (cutting dry hair, for example). But I simply lacked the proper passion to learn.  That isn’t to say I didn’t try — believe me I did! But I could not get to click in my head.  Cutting hair just wasn’t my bag.

So for the first time in my life, I committed a major amount of my time and money (not to mention having to wear white scrubs every day for four semesters — hideous!), only to fail in the end.  But that’s okay, I now have a great pair of shears that I use on my Shih Tzu regularly.  Gotta keep the hair out of her eyes!