Just Over a Week In

Hey!

So I've completed just over a week at the hairdressers now, and I know it's early days but I gotta say I really am enjoying myself.

Everyone is so friendly, I feel like I've joined such a welcoming and genuinely lovely team. I'm finding my feet well and am definitely feeling myself become more and more comfortable being there; which is good as sometimes that transition from being scared and new to feeling like the workplace is normal can be a long process.

I've done a fair bit of shampooing now and I feel like I'm really getting to grips with it. I have a good routine now and I've had a considerable amount of good reviews and compliments which is really reassuring! I shampooed a woman who - by the sounds of it at least - is quite fussy the other day, and she was nothing but lovely about it and even went so far as to say I was brilliant (!).

Something I didn't anticipate was that I would get some tips. I don't know why I didn't realise it before, but it's definitely a perk to the job; particularly considering apprentice wage is rather dismal. So far I have £8 in tips, which I'm proud of considering I've done 7 days of work, and for most of that time I've been a near total beginner to shampooing.

Next monday the 18th we have some training, which I'm looking forward to. There's one other beginner to me, and there's 2 apprentice who have been there much longer than me. So the 2 older apprentices will be learning some cutting techniques, while me and my beginner buddy will be learning to blow dry. This is really exciting to me as I wasn't expecting to be learning anything like this until I start college - which won't be till September!

I'm planning on trying to nail blow drying as soon as I can. Like, as in, before I start college. If I can get my blow drying technique down to a point by the time I start officially doing my NVQ I believe I'll be in with a good head start. The quicker I can finish this apprenticeship and qualify, the better to me. I'm 20 years old and I wanna be properly working as soon as I can. I'm not expecting any miracles of course; I know it'll take at least about 18 months, but if I can get it done in that time I'll be more than pleased.

At the moment I'm definitely looking at doing some extensions courses at some point. I don't know if it'll be worth doing it before I qualify or not yet, but I know for sure I want to do weaves as a part of my career. It's something that interests me and I believe I could be good at it. Particularly if I start doing them early on in my career.

Anyways that's it for now,

 - Alice