Thursday, December 14, 2006

Tipping time...

I'm long overdue a visit to the hairdresser (why do I always wait until my hair is a complete mess, why do I never take up the offer of making my next appointment when I'm doing my hair... oh well...).

The pros of going to the hairdresser:
- a couple of hours on my own
- reading magazines I never normally read
- hopefully looking better when I walk out the door than when I walked in

The cons of going to the hairdresser:
- having to look myself in the mirror for a couple of hours
- having to make small talk with the American hairdresser (they are great at making conversations, but for a stonefaced Swede, this is sometimes very stressful... someone you don't know is talking to you for hours...).
- figuring out the tip...

In Sweden you don't tip your hairdresser (at least not I... maybe I should have...?) so this I find very tricky... I'm always stressed about this part... Tipping is kind of mandatory and if you like your hairdresser and want to come back you want to make sure she (or he for that matter!) is satisfied with your tipping (you don't want to risk end up looking like Sinaed O'Connor next time you come).

But how much?! I always feel I'm over doing it, not to do something wrong (and so far, I've gone back to a few and managed to look pretty ok coming out of there, so I guess I'm doing it fairly ok).

This time I'm going to research before I go there!

The answer from Google the God: The standard tip for a hairdresser is 15% according to The Original Tipping page (why haven't I checked out this page earlier!?).

Time to call for an appointment!

3 comments:

Annika said...

You're so funny..."stonefaced Swede"---Love it! I can feel like that, too. Luckily I have a great hair dresser that I like, and that i know well by now. So, the 2½ hours I spend there 4-5 times a year are not so bad for me. We're chatting away, but I prefer her chatting...I can ask questions and just sit there :-)

Otherwise I feel very Stonefaced, believe me!

Tipping...SHOOT I've always tipped 20%. And then we have the extra tipping for the holidays...Lovely.

Anonymous said...

Du har så rätt, så rätt, precis så traumatiskt är det att gå till frisören här! Dessutom har jag alltid stora problem med att prata frisyrer på engelska, kanske därför jag ofta går därifrån och undrar litet halvmissnöjd hur i all världen det blev på det här viset...15 % dricks, bra att veta!

JaCal said...

Annika - Probably 20% here too...

Ing - yup, know the feeling - blir galen när jag inte lyckas uttrycka hru jag vill ha det - har gått nästan gråtande från frisören med 10 cm för kort hår (för att jag sagt fel inches) och konstig färg och fel lugg...