#venting
This letter comes from a WA salon owner who's dealing with the shifting goal posts and hardships that the Governor and his administration have inflicted on small businesses in WA. I'm going to leave the author anonymous for now--because she's still deciding exactly how she's going to proceed with the letter. But she follows this page and may choose to chime in.
Anyway...it's a GREAT letter. Here goes:
I am writing on behalf of many Salon/Spa Owners as well as stylists in our beautiful State of Washington. For an already VERY regulated industry, I feel that we are being over-regulated.
To say It outright, these guidelines need to be revised and reasonable.
As with restaurants and spas, many salon owners likely did not wake up one day with a wild idea to do something and open a business simply for the fun of it. As any business owner knows, we don’t do it for the glory, and to be completely honest, definitely not the money. This is an expensive, challenging endeavor. An endeavor that we are thrilled to take on because of the freedoms it allows us and the opportunities we can create for others. However, for one of the most autonomous industries, I am seeing it being stripped of more freedoms than many others.
I am a leader and mentor to many young women. I play by the rules and always have, but I can no longer coach them into taking this “new normal” lying down.
FINANCIALLY, this plan is not feasible. Let’s begin with some rough numbers, shall we? I am paying .60 cents for masks for my clients. If I see seven clients in a day and need to change those out twice, this is $8.40. If I have five stylists working in a day, this makes it out to be $42.00/day. Now that we will have to be splitting shifts, we will be working six days a week to try our best to pay for our overhead. This is now $252.00 per week. $1008.00 per month. That is MORE than my monthly loan payment was when I first opened my salon company. Lest we forget, this is only masks. Not gloves, which will go exponentially faster with the outrageous guidelines we are to follow. Many of my esthetician peers are looking at disposable sheets. These are roughly $1.00/piece. Can you imagine throwing away ONE DOLLAR every hour for 8 hours? (Now, anyone in my industry knows it will be 10-11 hours to make up for all the lost time, but you understand my point.)
Now let me give you some insight on what our days look like. Coloring hair involves downtime. Roughly thirty minutes per guest. During this time, we could easily be servicing other clients, which normally we would be doing. This maximizes the efficiency of our time and our salon space. This means we could see up to three clients at any given time. What a beautiful thing to be able to control my income and teach others to do so as well. Unfortunately, our new reality has ended this. In what world does it make sense to operate with astronomical new costs, while in the most LITERAL sense, throwing away money? Not to mention how tragic this is for our environment.
While these guidelines were designed to cut “Phase 2” eligible businesses by 50%, we personally are actually cut 83%, functioning at 1/6 what our business model requires. Few if any businesses will survive a 50% cut, and you've ordered us to take 83%. Out of loyalty to our customers, many of us will reopen, but debts could very shortly ruin us and force many to close. Permanently.
Many ask, “Can’t this cost be passed down to your clients?” Yes, yes it could. And it will have to be. But please imagine what that conversation will consist of. Many of our guests are hurting for money, as many are. To remind them that it is for their safety? Well as a client, I personally would be furious. “You didn’t care about my well being before?” “You didn’t know how to sanitize properly prior to this?”
Speaking of sanitation, did you know that the majority of our state board testing is sanitation? The rest briefly touches on some technical skill here and there. We were made for this. We are LICENSED for this in the most literal sense. We are no strangers to sanitary environments and we are used to having inspectors come in to our salon companies to check that we are in compliance. That being said, many of the PPE and sanitizers our leaders are mandating that we have on hand are scarcely available to us anymore. I had to acquire my PPE through a plumber. Many of my peers have been purchasing hand sanitizer off of OfferUp or Craigslist. Barbicide wipes are now being reserved for medical professionals. I am fine with that, except for the fact that we are being asked to do something so specific and use products that we physically cannot get our hands on.
EMOTIONALLY, this is wreaking havoc. We are wives. Mothers. Caretakers. Chemists. Business majors. Mathematicians. This is our PURPOSE. Do you know that roughly 20% of our industry is leaving, and leaving for good after this? 20% of self-motivated men and women. All because our rights to choose for ourselves have been taken.
Salon and spa owners are the leaders of our companies. For the first time, we don’t have the answers to the questions that our team members are asking. The dates and regulations continue to change and, bottom line? The state is making us lose credibility in many ways while taking away opportunities to provide livelihoods.
I have to put myself and my team on a six-day work week schedule to comply with occupancy. I am no longer able to provide income for my front-end coordinator, who has been by my side since day one, as she is one more person on the premises, but she is not technically producing revenue. (Mind you, she is also unable to access Unemployment Benefits.) This work/life balance is one I have NEVER, and would never want to coach to. But it seems I am left with no choice.
“Phase 2” encompasses many DIFFERENT businesses. These broad guidelines will NOT work for every business in the service industry. They won’t even work for the many different technician types in the same industry.
Some facts: Did you know that in a room too humid, lash extensions won’t be retained? Humidity from masks will mimic this. Did you know that many retail products sitting on a shelf for too long will go rancid? I had my entire inventory in my garage for months. That is money down the drain. Say we do try to perform these services and sell these products. How much trust will that instill in our clients? We are already scared, stressed and will be certainly overworked once we are allowed to go back to work. If we are trying to make due with what sub-par standards we have just to make it work, we probably aren’t in a great headspace to lose clients over things we can’t fully explain to them. All because we are too busy trying to catch up to regain what we’ve lost while spending money on unreasonable guidelines instead of doing what we know best.
Some of the rules imposed on us do make sense -- the costly personal protective gear for instance. But the unworkable loss of business your other rules force on us will probably mean some locations will be forced to ignore your rules, or close. At least give us rules that are realistic. This will result in higher rates of compliance, inflict less suffering on people struggling financially and be more sustainable. I will oblige. I will wear your mask. I will get rid of my decorative rugs to comply with your guidelines. But please, be reasonable. I am tired of watching my peers suffer, and possibly go under indefinitely.
I, as many others, entered this industry to thrive. NOT to simply survive. I carry liability insurance; I should be the one to determine the risk I take on. I should be the one deciding how to weigh my risk versus reward, all while protecting my guests, as I have for the last decade. I know my industry.
I am 29 years old. I am a woman. I ran a profitable company. I am incredibly proud of this. I contribute to our community. My staff contributes to our community. Our service is not just physical, more often than not we are lifelines for domestic violence victims, young men and women who need advocates or even just providing a little relief from peoples’ stressful day-to-day lives. I am not alone in this losing battle.
I am speaking on behalf of my entire state and industry when I ask, PLEASE give us our freedom and industry back. The balance must be set, We need to live. It’s time we get back to work. We are important. We are essential. We are every County. We are Washington State.
Free table & 4 chairs!
Happy Halloween!!!
#amen
Ramesh SharmaPositive Quotes
December 1 at 8:48 PM ·
