GOT A BAD HAIRCUT TODAY!

By Mitchell Anthony

April 29, 2021

 

Is it just me or has the quality of consumer services been falling.  I’m an optimist and I always tend to hope for the best and believe in people but quite frankly I have noticed a decline in the quality of services that we have in the US economy.  As an example just yesterday I got a haircut that was less than satisfactory and when I complained I was met with an indignant service provider.  He offered no discount or apology for giving me a Patrick Mahomes haircut (FADE), who happens to be one of my idols, but not because of his haircut but because of the way he throws a football (NFL All Pro).  I asked for a fohawk haircut like Brad Pitt has but instead got something much more like a FADE!  If I hadn’t been paying attention I would’ve looked like Mr. “T” with a mohawk. 

The pandemic unfortunately cost me my regular Barber as my young gal left the business when the pandemic began.  A few months ago she sent me an Instagram post of her sunning in the backyard sipping a margarita.  Seems like she discovered the governments helicopter money program and decided that she would make more money doing nothing staying at home than working at the hair salon all day. Can we blame her??  Lots of personal service providers left their job last year as demand fell off a cliff.  They are seemingly living just fine and have no plans to return to work for the time being.  Are these people victims of the pandemic or are they beneficiaries of congress’s inability to think and make rational decisions about how to provide support without spoiling and demotivating our workforce.

The fact the matter is I got a really bad haircut, or a haircut for a 20 year old. I believe it was because we have inexperienced people stepping into our workforce. My gal’s replacement was lacking a bit in skill and not a good listener as I told her quite clearly to give me a fohawk like Brad Pitt and not a Mohawk.  Maybe it was my fault as when she began to work on my hair I got immersed in an article on Fed policy.  I can’t help but wonder if the quality and productivity of consumer service providers is suffering as a result of congress’s troubled stimulus plans?  Everyone needs motivation to be productive.

I think this is just another problem that we have in our economy today whether it’s from the pandemic or from the socialistic entitled attitude that has taken over the younger generation. You would’ve thought I would have received a discount when I spoke with the manager on the way out and it was obvious that I did not get what I requested.  What has happened to customer satisfaction? This caused me to take a peek at what was going on with consumer inflation and in particularly the prices in the health and beauty sector of our economy.  The consumer inflation rate is rising but is still very tame at about 2.5%.  However some areas are measuring higher inflation but it is not the health and beauty sector as I thought it might have been.  This sector is just recovering after experiencing some deflation in prices during 2020.  Inflation in this sector is about 2.8% compared to 2.2% for consumer service inflation. While prices may just be back to where they were before the pandemic I sadly believe value is in decline.

Oh well maybe this new look will grow on me…