Episode #2: Toxic Salon Environment with a Side of Legislation

We've all been there, working in a toxic salon environment. You know the one - where the drama is never-ending, and it seems like every day is a battle.  

It's hard to focus on your work when you're constantly dealing with drama and negativity from your co-workers. Not to mention, this type of environment can be really stressful. 

In Episode 2 of The Chair-apist, I interview Darcy from Emerson Salon. We discuss the toxic salon paradigm or toxicity within the salon environment. We also discuss current and proposed legislation affecting the hair and beauty industry and what you can do to get involved. This is a must-listen for anyone in the hair and beauty industry! 

Transcript

Cameron 
Hello Darcy!  

Darcy 
Hello! 

Cameron 
And I am so lucky to have nailed down Darcy Harrison from Emerson Salon and she also is kind of a big deal to all of us hair stylists.  

Darcy 
OK, if you say so. 

Cameron 
We really wanted to get on here and just talk about the toxic salon paradigm or toxicity within the salon environment for you know, however you need to understand it. 

Cameron 
It is super important that we cover this issue because obviously it's been happening for many years, and since you've been doing here since you were 12, Darcy, how long have you been doing hair for? 

Darcy 
Oh, you’re sweet darling. Um, it's been nearly 20 years, but I started when I was 25. So yeah, do math. Please don't... 

Yeah, I think a lot of us in the personal services industry has have excuse me had interesting co-worker relationships or relationships with employers or people that we work beside as fellow booth renters or even with clients. And I don't think we support our newbies in that construct when they're in school.  

There's so many things that we don't learn in school that. We just sort of have to pick up. And this is survival 101. 

Cameron 
Yeah, and just like thrown on the floor, right? Go and interact with people and cut their hair and make them beautiful and color them and interact with other people who might be cycling at the same time as you. Or maybe it's a totally different star sign as you. 

Darcy 
Right, Oh my God, ridiculous. Yeah, and again. 

Cameron 
You know too woo woo. 

Darcy 
Well, no. 

I can do some woo woo stuff, don't you worry.  

But I think it starts with just the industry we are perceived as a quote, un-quote luxury and or superficial industry. 

You know, especially with hair and makeup and esthetician work, it can be focused very much on looks and that can be just inherently very toxic because if we've seen any of the studies over the last few years about Instagram and how treating everything as if everything is perfect all the time is not realistic and isn't authentic and is not going to be cultivating people’s sort of inner world. It also ignores the fact that you know, just because someone is looking good with their hair and their makeup, and their clothes doesn't mean they're a good person. 

Cameron 
Isn't that the truth? 

Darcy 
You know, and that's really hard because you have to figure out what your own personal values are. And also, it's about boundaries with other people boundaries with the client boundaries with your coworkers, your boss, whatever, and what I've discovered, and I can only speak to what has worked for me when I have felt, not that I have been in, but when you feel even if you're not quote un-quote in a toxic environment, but you're feeling a toxic situation at the time and you're trying to figure out how to handle it, you can't control other people, and you can only meet people where they're at. Which is a very hard lesson to implement because people can be really triggering or upsetting, or they could be on an opposite political value system than you. Or they could be in a different place in their personal emotional journey. 

Cameron 
Isn't that the truth. And that's the thing. As you know, working with so many different salons, I've been so lucky to work with so many salons and different people and come into salons like when educating.  I got to come in and that's how I met you originally. It's interesting to see people’s dynamics and you are so right when you talk about meeting people where they're at because a lot of times it's about. What is going on with us that's making us want to have confrontation with those people? 

Darcy 
Right 

Cameron 
We bring it back to let's make this a good experience, change the perspective on things, whether it's a guest or it's your coworker. 

Darcy 
Yeah,  

Cameron 
Or boss you know and and just turn it around into something positive because I think right now is we really need that more than ever. 

Darcy 
Yeah, and I think it's obviously easy to skew towards. 

Excuse my French bitching, ranting and raving about things that were upset about. Annoyed about you know what it layered on top of just normal, everyday life, stresses, family, friends, children, whatever and it's really excuse me, hard to find. My thing that I try to implement with myself is to not be reactionary to everything because I can be sassy, don't you worry I will tell you what. 

But also trying to find is this appropriate time to say something? Do I need to think about it a little bit longer and the other thing is owning your own shit and again just speaking for myself, I've been through numerous bouts of therapy and the most...I highly recommend. 

It doesn't mean that I'm nuts y'all just means that I'm taking care of me. 

Cameron 
And that's on another episode of the sharpest on taking care of yourself. Along with boundaries so... Trust me, I got a therapist too. 

Darcy 
Girl! Right and you know what, even if it's if you don't have a trained professional, talking to someone who is outside of the situation objective, you know, maybe they'll be a little bit biased towards your perspective, but recognizing that, but I just finding pause, finding silence, giving the chance to proc myself a chance to process and you know, I've talked about it with my therapist more times numerous times. 

What do you think the situation is actually about is it about this person, no? Who do you think it's about? She triggered my mom button. 

Cameron 
Like you know. I call that putting it in the shopping cart, so you put it in the shopping cart you think do I really need to deal with this and take it home or do I want to leave it in the shopping cart? 

Darcy 
Yeah, and the other thing is. This is a professional environment and so you really have to use discernment to be like is this worth my time? Is this affecting my money and it can become pretty clear. Is it really just my experience and I'm just not happy with this happening repetitively over time with this person or that person or that clique, or whatever it is, and just trying to boil it down because we can get lost in the sea of, she said he said. I did, I did. That you said that you know back and forth. And really, if it's not affecting my money, do I need to be putting energy into it? 

And if it's affecting my happiness, what can I do for myself to make myself feel better? Because, again, I cannot force someone to be a different person, and you can't force lessons on people. They're going to learn however, what time frame they were to learn, and I have seen this over and over again over the years and not just in hair. My background in theater. hahaha 

Cameron 
Those artists, yeah, we're sassy. 

Darcy 
Well, it's you know, as much as I still have theater in my soul, I call myself a reform theater brat because it's not part of my existence now, but it's still part of my identity and being part of my identity means that I cultivated for a long time, and let's follow that impulse. 

Let's express what we're going to express. And conflict. Is quote un-quote, OK? But I had to realize I don't have to steer into the conflict. I can lean into it and try and bounce off of it and see or whatever it is, but it's really not a good idea to be like, hey, that looks like a whole lot of chaos, and I should just take a nice big left turn into it. 

Cameron 
Well, I was just going to say it actually relates a little bit to you moderating the group, which we're about to talk about. 

Darcy 
Oh well, let's be clear. I'm not allowed to moderate the group. 

Cameron 
Well, you know when you throw your little like OK you guys let's we're all playing fair here. 

Darcy 
Yeah, let's be honest, I would probably give too much permission to my reactionary side if I was moderating that page. 

Cameron 
Now, alright, so we're going to move into that. 

You are the one who founded Cosmetologists of Washington United. 

Darcy 
Not by myself. I never want to take full credit, yeah so. 

Cameron 
So, a group of people. 

Darcy 
So, it was created organically in 2019 when we were fighting the attempted booth rental ban for cosmetologists and it was a very organic social media brouhaha because we got word at the beginning of session in January 2019, hey, there's this bill. It's trying to ban both rentals or we're like what? And like everyone went into a panic. 

Cameron 
How many people were at the? I think there was the most people in Olympia that we've ever seen on any yeah any bill. 

Darcy 
Yeah, in Olympia the I talked to one of the security officers because they we overflowed the hearing rooms. They we overflowed the overflow rooms. I went on a wild goose chase, being led by Representative Riccelli trying to find a place to watch the hearings. 

Cameron 
Oh, we got ushered into like 3 different rooms because. 

Darcy 
I could go on for days how annoyed and I'm pissed off I was that day but for numerous reasons, that wasn't just the bill right. 

But yes. 

Cameron 
Great, that goes along with our toxic paradigm because honestly, this break we're bringing everybody together. 

Darcy 
Right, and that's the thing is like, I think what we're trying to do now in this. In this short legislative session that we're having in January to March of 2022 is we don't want to always be ironically defensive and reactionary.  We want to be part of proactive, constructive adjustments to things that affect our careers, whether it's regulatory stuff or, you know, dealing with B&O or whatever, and then the thing is in the beginning. 

Yeah, we were really, really upset because we felt like commissioned salons were targeting us and the truth of the matter is, it wasn't about that at all. 

There's a lot of other underlying political things that happen. But the point of what I'm saying is uniting together between people that are self-employed and people that have employees. If we don't band together, we can consistently throw shade or ammunition back and forth about, well, you, you were horrible to me when I worked for you, or you stole my client. 

Cameron 
Listen how many clients have we passed along? 

Because we're like I'm so sorry we're so booked. 

Darcy 
Here's another person, yes, exactly. And so it's just - I think it's just important that we try and remind people that we're Cosmetologists of Washington United is not just an association for the self-employed. It's for everybody. And part of that paradigm is being able to for me to go in and just again speaking for myself, going in and saying, listen, you can be mad at this politician, you can be mad at Department of Licensing, but let's remember that we're all on the same team and we're all dealing with the same level of BS and frustrations, and we are more powerful together than apart.  

And the same thing of even if you're in a booth rental salon, you know if you're sitting on your butt and someone is running behind. It's no skin off your teeth, be like hey why don't I shampoo your client for you right? It's those little things, and although there's no dollar in it for you, what if you're going to need help in the future? 

Whether you're an employee or whether you're self-employed. It takes a village. 

Cameron 
Oh my gosh, does it ever? In fact, I had to send out a group text on my girlfriends when I had a blowout bar during the pandemic. 

Darcy 
Yeah, oh gosh. 

Cameron 
OK, none of my people are coming in today. 

Everybody canceled on me, either COVID or they got their shot or whatever is happening. And I had two of my awesome ex-coworkers come to the table and say don't even pay us. 

Darcy 
Yeah, yeah. 

Cameron 
We'll work for a full day doing blowouts. And then I paid them, but I was blown away.  

Darcy 
Yeah, the stories that I heard over and over and over again of like no it's OK. I told the owner that should you know, it's OK if whatever it is that people did like, people really kind of teamed up.  

You know, of course, at a certain point, we were really frustrated with all the back and forth with the different updates of the guidelines. And there were times when everyone was just like I'm just so sick of this and I don't want another update. And I don't want to have to reschedule a bunch of clients, and I think we really have shown our true grit. The last few. 

Cameron 
Oh, for sure. 

Darcy 
I don't think that we needed to because I know that everyone in our industry is just ready. But I think I mean the biggest accomplishment that we made during the pandemic is that we were able to get everyone on this, or at least mostly everyone on the same page. 

We were able to cut through all the noise and say listen, these are the guidelines. 

This is what we're doing, and the byproduct was we didn't have a lot of outbreaks associated with our industry, which actually helps us in the future. That's like, listen how serious we are about our industry that we took care of everyone so well.  That we did better than construction. 

They're working outside half the time, and we touch people multiple people a day. 

Cameron 
Not bad. 

Darcy 
Yes, so that goes. I mean if not to throw shade on Construction per se. 

Cameron 
No, but it says a lot, I mean, we're certified in sanitation, girl.The fact that we have the extra skills I just talked about this actually with Trey from Style Sharp and he was like you guys are experts and sanitation. 

I was like yes, yes, we are.  

Darcy 
And if we weren’t before we are now. 

I know people are like oh I should have been doing this before so like, yeah, you should have. 

Cameron 
Yeah, and people just coming together in droves. Like I'm serious. 

Like I said shout out to my girl Karina, Lillian Grin and Susan Greenside who came to my aid when it was. 

Like I have clients and it's just me. Help! You know? So, I mean it's huge when you can say we did so much together and we all have our separate salons, but we're all one, essentially. 

Darcy 
Yeah, so, and that's why it's so great because, you know, I cannot say enough how wonderful it is to work with people that listen again. 

As my former life as a theater brat who used to do lots of nonprofit work and marketing and producing on my own Getting people to respect and listen to you is hard. It is really hard, and this goes towards all of the efforts of people in leadership at cosmetologists of Washington United is that we are all just a hodgepodge of people thrown together and we're all across a spectrum of political persuasion and opinion and whatever. 

But we always look at the greater good, and I think the Cosmetology Industry because of the focus on viral control and the amount of energy we put into furthering our education and continuously learning, means that a lot of us are equipped to pivot, maybe not on a dime, but pretty well. Because we have kind of like. ok, this is I'm going to approach it. I'm going to problem solve. I want to do this. I'm gonna do that. 

We're very practical people and when it comes to fighting legislation, as long as it's common sense to people and it's not gobbledygook and they understand the perspective that you're talking about, they're going to be with you, now mind you, we have people that are like, but I want this bill because blah blah blah blah blah and then I have to be the Debbie Downer and be like yes, that is all well and good. So, I like to say, however, because people get triggered. 

However, yes, yes, however you're supposed to say and, and I'd like to see you do that better next time. 

And I was just speaking with you off recording, but it's the same thing with the politicians. I was up last night until 12:30. And from like 9:00 o'clock to 12:30 I was listening to the debate on the House Floor on a bill trying to create a paradigm where it's legal for L&I to make its own rules around ergonomics and musculoskeletal injuries. Which we all know, or we are very hard in our bodies and our careers, especially hair stylists and yeah, that'd be great. But when you make a bill, you should have some scientific data, so information on how much you know it's going to cost businesses. Think about the timing of when you're introducing a bill and flash forward, I thought. 

Cameron 
Valentine's Day, they're like nobody is going to. Pay attention. 

Darcy 
No, well, my whole point was, you know, we thought they were going to try and do it on Super Bowl Sunday. Like it was originally slated to go on Super Bowl Sunday, but they all wanted to go to the game. They wanted to see the game, so they ended up literally right as the game was starting, but then they left it until the middle of the night on Valentine's night. 

So, I woke up to like, oh, gotcha. Ok, maybe it hasn't passed. Woke up, there's they debated all night wow and to hear the legislators now, mind you, they're giving up all night if you can forensically and calmly debate on the merits of bills back and forth in the middle of the night when you're exhausted and not lose your patience or temper. I mean, kudos to those Legislators. The Republicans really tried really hard last night, and they we did get a few Democrats over to say no about the bill, but it still passed, so Next up we're going to try and battle 1837 in Senate committee. And aren't we so lucky it'll be in Karen Kaiser's committee? 

Cameron 
Oh, lucky us. 

Darcy 
And yeah, Cameron knows - Karen Kaiser was the one who introduced the ban on booth rental for cosmetologists. And it wasn't just us that was mad at her. There were other legislators, other legislators in her caucus, other tons of lobbyists were like, yeah, that was not a smart move. 

So, I was like, oh, she is just dying to see us all over again at her committee, unless she'll chicken out, we'll see, but... 

Cameron 
At least we know who we're dealing with. Right? 

Darcy 
Yeah, no. We, you know the way that I deal with Karen is just, you know, so sweet, bless your heart yeah, we know where you get. Your hair done, 

Cameron 
Yes, we do we do, yeah, but we would never do. 

Darcy 
Yes, won't mention them here. 

Cameron 
Anything to hurt that relationship? 

So, my question then next is if a stylist or somebody who is involved in the industry wants to get involved. How would they do that? 

Darcy 
So, there's a number of ways we are an all-volunteer organization at the moment, and we are still waiting for our IRS 501C6 non-profit application to - cross our fingers - be approved so donations can be taxed. Excuse me can be tax deductible. But we have, we call them member advocates because we want people to be engaged and involved and active with whatever it is that we're doing. And so, we consider anyone that's enrolled with us as a member as an advocate of the industry and their organization in Washington state. So that's $79 a year. There's lots of perk's: swag from Salon Services - hot tool discount and exclusive more for condensed, I'll just put it that way Facebook group.  

And then we, if you cannot afford to do $79 a year, which mind you is the trade expense so can be deducted by your CPA on your tax return. So, it's the donations that currently aren't taxed up. 

Well, you can get on the free Facebook group. It's also public, and the reason why that group is public is when we do have legislative action alerts, or we're educating on a live video, we can have those posts shared out to different groups or to people personal pages. And we need things to spread like wildfire like they did in 2019, and hair stylists, if anything. Are little social media events and whether we're sharing our little pictures of our work or we're deciding to get on there and rant and rave about please help me oppose this bill and that is a really good way for anyone who cannot financially invest in the organization that they can stay engaged in what we’re doing. 

Cameron 
Well, you can count me in as a member this year so. 

Darcy 
Yay Oh my God, I'm so excited. Well, I was very excited like because it takes time to build an organization and it's not a A to B. It's A- A.1, A.2.28 point 3 maybe to be maybe a maybe a detour. 

Cameron 
Yeah, well. And for anybody else who's listening in other states, there are other organizations like this, but I will say yours is quite unique because we just are fielding all the bills that are happening and feeling. 

Darcy 
Well, I think part of it is that you know the infrastructure for the Washington Legislature when we're trying to deal with legislative session there they do a fantastic job of doing a lot of things online that other legislatures do not do. I mean, I've looked at other legislatures and been like man, we have it so lucky we have them streaming. They were streaming the house, floor and Senate committees and things like that before COVID to a certain degree, not to the same degree now, but we're very lucky that we can do a lot of what we need to do online. And I mean, of course I would love to get everyone down to Olympia when it's safe-est. But we've been able to use the online stuff, and it's been a godsend so. 

That's awesome. Well, gosh, I so appreciate you talking about all this. This very important information and it is important for us to all come together and unite. No, no pun intended, but. But I do I. 

Cameron 
I have a few more questions for you, ok? And one of them I'm gonna let you think 'cause I got to pump Trey a little bit here, but the craziest thing that's ever happened to you and. 

Darcy 
Is it still on or just ever? 

Cameron 
You know it. Let's do in the salon because it's pretty relevant. So think about that for a second. 

I'm just I'm just going to say that Style Sharp Shears, they are awesome for sharpening our shears and it's been a game changer for me and my salon because business has been with him so informative and so seamless, and he comes on site like an Angel. Oh, and sharpens all my shears and then flies away. 

He's amazing. That’s Style Sharp. 

Darcy 
Trey is wonderful. He just came in came to sharpen my shears and we had a good long Kiki so yeah. 

Cameron 
He is good. He's good. I like him. 

Darcy 
Yeah. Ok, so craziest thing that happened to my salon. I’ll try and make this as quick of a story as possible. Now our previous location was on East Pike Street on Capitol Hill in Seattle, which has its characters, so it was pretty normal that people with mental health issues or addiction issues or just homeless, and that's no judge, no shade coming into the salon or standing outside the window and staring for 10 minutes awkwardly while I'm doing hair. 

So, this is this is context to what I'm about to tell you. So, in the previous ownership of Emerson Salon, we were both renters at the same time as before Lancer and I took over before I took over fully recently. And we had a booth renter who was our colleague and she had finished a client and went quickly to the store to go grab something. And the store is only like a block away and she had the station that was closest to the door, and she had left her phone on her station, and it was a busy Saturday, but I just happened to not be busy at the time and we didn't have a receptionist because we’re all booth renters and three young people came in and hey, how's it going? 

What can I do for you today. And they were like, oh, we're just looking around checking it out. It's like are you looking for a haircut today? They're like, yeah, looking around looking around how much? 

Is it looking around looking around? Like what is this weird vibe to myself, right? And I'm telling them well, it depends on the person blah blah blah and they start kind of walking around like you know how it's like someone coming into your home, yeah, and you're like I'm not giving you a tour right now and where are you going? 

Cameron 
And your space is very, very intimate. You know, it's like you come in and you're kind of like I mean it's open, but you guys are there, yeah? 

Darcy 
Yeah, they had high ceilings at the time we had the the space next door, so it was actually much wider at the time. 

Yeah, and they were sort of like walking around in the space and like they tried to look behind the curtain. I was like hi, no you can't go back there. 

And then someone just like really just walked upstairs. And there was no stylists upstairs working. 

Cameron 
No is that’s where your office is up there?? 

Darcy 
So, it's where it's where our laundry in color, room and break room was there were stations upstairs, but you know, if there's no one working up there. Why are you like rude? And I was like, yeah, no, you can't do that you can't go up there if you know there. We don't allow people up there and they this guy came back down and then as he came back down, you know how you're just like this is a weird vibe and then all of a sudden, I saw him come down the stairs and I saw him pick up my coworker's phone and I saw  

I'm from Rhode Island I will cut a bitch. Don't you dare mess with me. Don’t you even doubt. 

And you know how you have that sort of adrenalin? So, it's like that's not your phone, give that phone back and he's like, no, it's not, it's my phone. I was like I saw you just now pick it up off the station and he put it in his pocket, and I don't know what got into me, but I tried to like to grab his wrist to grab the phone from him and he snatched it back. I tried to grab it again, he snatched it back. 

By this time, the other friends. they're like getting the memo that we're not playing around here, and they leave, and then he goes running outside, and this is where the adrenaline blackout happens, boom. 

And what it was told to me later was that I came outside, and my other coworker had finished his client and he was talking to his client before he left. He had seen him through the window. What was going on between me and the dude. My coworker bodychecks the dude and he gets up and he runs down the street and the other people are like nowhere near. They're gone. 

Cameron 
They're out of there. 

Darcy 
There, right and so right away I was like I'm calling the police. Ok, we're gonna split up we're gonna run around the block and find them. And so I called the police, I gave the description, I said what direction he went in, I said we have people chasing him on foot and I got a call like literally 3 minutes later 'cause the precinct is only like four blocks from where our old location was and they're like, yep, we caught him, can you come and give a statement to the police? 

Darcy 
I said sure, where are you? Oh, around the corner by this business. Ok so I go up there and they had like the police car screeched into near where the business was like, literally like they probably ran. Now I see this guy and he's like 6 foot three and he's wearing like a Jean jacket vest with no shirt and short shorts on. 

Now, this is Capitol Hill. 

Cameron 
Totally normal, totally normal. 

Darcy 
Probably normal, please forgive me for what I'm about to share because it's not to be offensive. It's actually meant to exalt. It's like oh what happened? Why are you involved? Like I was the one who took him down. 

He's like I saw your coworker running. I said what's up? Did he steal something? Yeah, he's still on the phone so I went running after him. I chased him over a fence. Then he tried to run into that business, and I told and yelled at the security to get him, and they kicked him out and I was the one who held him down until. The cops got here. 

And the best part, this is offensive, but this person is part of this community, so it is a word that they have reclaimed he had fagot tattooed on his stomach. 

Cameron 
With this shortcut crop Jean, yes. 

Darcy 
Yes, and I am a very huge ally of the LGBTQ plus I work with that community a lot and the guys being held on the police car while they're like trying to figure out what's going on. 

And I was like you just got taken down by a gay dude. 

Cameron 
That's great, I love it. I mean, I, I love Capitol Hill so that just made. 

Darcy 
So, there you go. 

Cameron 
It even better that. Right, that’s amazing. Ok, and then one little known fact that people don't know about you, but you must share on here. 

Darcy 
So, I am a big fan of horror movies, especially sort of retro 70s horror movies or 70s inspired horror movies so I love Amityville horror. I like Jerry or Gento Suspiria, Dawn of the dead. The original. I also love all horror movies so I love The Conjuring and House of 1000 corpses, and I don't care how fake the Dang show is, but I will watch those paranormal reality TV shows until I die. 

Cameron 
Yeah, I believe in ghosts too, so we're cool. I mean to be honest, half the time I'm like, you know, that could just be someone in another room with the string. 

But I believe. We gotta believe there's some. There's people beyond, right. 

Darcy 
Exactly, exactly. 

Cameron 
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for taking time out of your super busy schedule to meet with me. And I'm so excited for everybody to hear your story and hey. 

Darcy 
Hey, thank you and thank you for having this kind of stuff. We shouldn't just be looking towards like national fancy dancy famous whatever people with lots and lots of money, blah blah blah blah blah like success isn't about fame or riches. It's about happiness and community. 

Absolutely so I appreciate you doing this 'cause you know, I know it's a lot of work. Just like a lot of the work with the association I do and it is appreciated. 

Cameron 
Thank you, well, we appreciate you too,  

Darcy 
Thank you.