I think it's pretty fair to say that most people hate small talk. But when you're an apprentice at VS, it's what you have to do. My three months isn't finished yet, so I haven't started my training to become a stylist. The apprentices are the backbone to the salon, and we do all the little things, like wash hair.
Now there are so many different types of people who come in and out of our salon.
There are those normal people who aren't so chatty, because they seem to know that all it is, is just a shampoo, and maybe they'd feel a little abrupt if they were to start a real conversation within the span of seven minutes. (Although really, I have had a few "good" conversations with a few people within that span of time.)
Then we get those people who feel obliged to say something to you, anything to you, whether this means talking about themselves, the weather, etc. Although really, they're just being polite, I think I prefer the former. Sometimes, they'll just continually ask you questions to keep you talking, as if any silence was too much for them to bear. (BLAH BLAH BLAH)
And of course, there are my favorite types. From my experience, these are the older slightly eccentric types who are just plain crazy. But in a good way of course. This one time, I had this older lady (mid to late 60s?) who was obviously a fashionista back in her day. She was scanning all the fashion magazines, and she just had that look about her. She was this little grandma with this huge hump on her back. Her hair was messy, matted to her head from days of unwashing, dyed ash blond with one-inch grey roots peeking out. She'd painted her face with the most awful black eye liner (which she probably should have used a mirror to do, although from what I could see, had not), with bright orange lipstick. The other apprentice didn't want to wash her hair, so I did. She turned out to be way more interesting than any of the other people I'd spent my seven minutes with. She didn't ask me anything she'd probably forget in two minutes later, and we just had a talk about random things.
I don't know why I remembered her over so many other people, even the nice ones. I guess it just goes to show you that it's the crazies you remember, not the nice polite ones. Isn't it always the case?
