Something I have noticed over the years, is the value of grooming. It does vary by setting. When one is digging ditches, its importance is low. However, when one may need to appear in court, say to fight a traffic violation, its value increases exponentially.
However, something I have encountered personally, is the effect of good hair when shopping. Most of my life I have had short hair. In fact, from when I began Secondary School in grade nine at Scott Park in Hamilton through to grade twelve, my hair kept getting shorter to the point that when I began grade thirteen (yes, grade 13 existed in Ontario, I was in the second last year of that stream), I had a flat-top. For those who do not know what a flat-top is, it is a brush cut, but with the top and sides squared off.
Since then, until about four or five years ago, I had maintained that flat-top with the usual forays into long pony-tail hair. While I had that flat-top though, my treatment in stores was normally exceptional. The problem with a flat-top is that after three weeks it starts to become unruly. Great amounts of gel and hairspray are required to keep it from looking like a mushroom is growing out of the top of your head.
In those first three weeks though, I looked pretty sharp. I eventually noticed that when I was in a store just after a haircut, I would be approached by several staff with offers of service and idle conversation. I also noticed that while grocery shopping, produce clerks and butchers would offer to locate what I was looking for if I was just standing there looking at the displays of goods. Fellow customers would strike up conversations with me, especially women who appeared ten years or more senior to me.
Perhaps I looked helpless and desperate. However, I think not. As my hair grew taller and another haircut was becoming necessary, these unsolicited offers of help and random conversations would decrease and eventually cease. The other interesting part to this, it did not matter what I was wearing. From tattered and dirty work dress, to shorts and sandals, to bulky winter attire, when my hair was fresh and neat, I was treated like gold. I never did experiment in a bathrobe a la "The Big Lebowski", but I bet it would be the same.
Once I realised the pattern, I had my hair cut more frequently and did my more important shopping shortly after my haircuts to facilitate a higher level of service. Unfortunately, due to work schedules and to where I ended moving to (there were no decent barbers), getting to a good barber began to take on the parameters of an epic journey. I discarded the flat-top and began to shave my head as a means of convenience and frugality.
For several years, my friend John would shave my head every four to six weeks as I was too apprehensive to do it myself. Unfortunately, this meant I looked like a bottle brush most of the time. Well, needless to say, the quality of service I previously received, ceased. Then one day, going on seven or eight weeks without a haircut, I looked like a demented shrub. Well, my wife, the wife, had bought me a pair of hair clippers for Father's Day. So, I steeled myself and tried cutting my hair, it took me a long time and several acrobatic tricks with two mirrors, but I did it. It was awful. The wife cleaned it up and it was okay. So, for some time, that is how it went, I would cut and she would fix.
Over time, I got better. It now takes ten or fifteen minutes, no mirrors, and I look and feel great. Now, when I am shopping just after a cut, I do receive very good service, especially when I am wearing what would be termed rugged attire. It is not the same as when I had the flat top, but it is still pretty darned good. And those women who are my seniors by a decade still strike up conversations with me to the wife's amusement.
So, if you are house shopping, looking for a new car, or just want the best melon in the produce section: get a trim, put on you best plaid shirt, work pants, and denim jacket and get ready to hear from those lovely ladies. blbbl
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