An interesting set of conundrums for Bill at the Barber Shop
One of our employees called Bill was telling us about an interesting event that occurred whilst visiting a barber shop that led to many conundrums.
Typical barber shop - place of many conundrums? image courtesy clintonbarber.com
This was his second visit to this particular shop. As he was entering the barber shop a little boy of about seven beat him to the door and inside there was the same barber who cut his hair over a month ago and gave Bill the hi-five. Meanwhile the kid approached two ladies sitting down and seemed to know them and then went to the barber’s chair to sit down to have his haircut. Bill thought he would wait, plus there were three other barbers there and they seemed to be finishing off haircuts to the customers there.
Bill sort of pointed to the kid while looking at the barber as though he was going to get the hair-cut first and proceeded to sit down on a bench facing the barber. After about 5-10 mins. one of the barbers about 2 seats down had finished and Bill thought there was a chance that he would have his turn now. It turns out that this barber didn’t even exchange eye contact with Bill and went to the back of the shop. Bill’s first conundrum was whether there was some kind of mistake and whether the man had just gone to the back for a break. Bill waited and the man came back and just sat with his other barber friend. Bill’s second conundrum - the barber must have assumed that Bill wanted a haircut with the barber that greeted him with a hi-five. Bill also concluded that various customers liked to have their haircut by selected barbers and he would not want to offend anyone by taking the customer away. So Bill didn’t say anything and made the decision to wait.
About 15 mins. elapses and two women with a kid walk into the shop and asks the barber whether he would cut the child’s hair. The barber looks at Bill and speaks in Spanish, Bill replies that he doesn’t understand Spanish and the barber asks whether Bill was going to get the haircut. Bill simply nodded without thinking and the barber says that it would be after Bill but he turned around and saw a free barber and asked him whether he could cut the kid’s hair. Some of our astute readers might have picked up the cue of what was happening here but Bill was unaware of what was going on as he already felt that he ‘belonged’ to this barber. So the new kid gets his haircut by one of the free barber. Here is another conundrum - maybe Bill should have spoken out and asked why they were getting a haircut after him but Bill assumed that he needs to honor the barbers code of conduct. After all, he didn’t know any better.
After about 30 mins in where Bill was becoming increasingly impatient as the barber seemed to be taking so much time, two guys walk into the shop. They seemed to know the barber that was supposedly going to cut Bill’s hair and asked about getting a haircut for his friend he was with. He (Bill’s barber) called out to another free barber and asked whether he could cut his hair. Around this time the woman who seemed to be related to the kid that was having his haircut came and sat near Bill. The conundrum started to sink into Bill and he looked at his clock and made a decision that if the barber went beyond another 5 mins. he would simply walk out of the shop. His frustration was that not that the other people were getting his haircut but the barber seemed to take a lot of time over this kid. It was nearing 40 mins. when Bill was about to walk out of the shop but luckily the barber just finished.
So a very interesting conversation ensued as the kid got of the salon chair and the barber pointed to Bill to sit down. As he was doing so the ‘mother’ of the kid was having a conversation in Spanish. Bill got the jist of this conversation when the barber seemed to imply that Bill was with the mother and the kid and she swung her head and the barber gave a big sigh in surprise and patted Bill on the head. Bill knew that this was a mistake on the part of the barber to assume that Bill had come into the shop with the kid. Bill now wondered how the barber was going to behave but the barber did not provide an apology or say anything about the matter. Bill finally got his haircut and measured on his watch how long the barber took to cut his hair compared to the previous kid that he did. Bill’s time was 28 mins compared to the kid before him which took 45 mins. Maybe the barber wanted to speed things up knowing that Bill had waited patiently all this time.
The readers may want to get involved in this episode of conundrums. There were many possibilities and both parties maybe to blame for Bill not getting his haircut in a timely manner. Maybe the waiting game was not a big deal in the culture that the barber grew up in. What would you do and why?
Tags: barber shop, conundrum, misunderstanding
