So I went to the barbers at 4:30pm today (Wednesday). While everyone else queues and reads magazines on a Saturday morning, I walk in and get a hair cut straight away, highly recommend it. Its more productive of my time and I work a lot of hours per week. So everyones happy.
Anyway…back to the what does a techie have in common with a barber?
Well a barber gets asked to perform minor miracles with the vagueness of input and guidance. They do so without a grumble and who have a pleasant conversation during the cut. That is excellent service.
However it leads to barbers being asked to do all sorts of hair styles…. Like a techie will tell you, people believe you can do anything technical, because well what they want is computing related and what you do is computing related so…. I suspect the same can be said of barbers.
Back to the barbers….
So a chap walks into the barbers with his Mum. I can’t see them and if I tried I am probably liable to get a rather interesting hair style in the process, but couldn’t help over hear. The Mum has presented a picture and wants his hair style to be like the one in the picture. The barber considers and says… you need a hair styler at a Saloon, I am a barber and I can’t do this.
I liked his honesty, it saved problems. He probably could of done it with his years of experience, but it was 4:30pm, a child hair cut costs 6 or 8 pounds here, which is different to a saloon. So he was referring to someone who could assist and was their area of expertise, no shame. He knows his job better no doubt than people at saloons and vice versa.
He was polite, helpful and referred.The mum wasn’t happy. The barber repeated it was extremely complex and not possible here.
There is a lot of lessons to be learned from this. I admired the barber for sticking to his area of expertise. He does a great hair cut.