Special hate post

Things I hate:

My job
The majority of people who work at my job
My new cubicle
Wearing a suit
Staff meetings
Adding value
Partnering for excellence
Bending over and taking it from corporate assholes

Not to break with the Miserable at Work theme I’ve got going here, but I also want to add that I hate my new haircut, for which I blame Siobhan. Siobhan used to cut my hair and we had a good thing going until she up and left for London, where people apparently have better hair.

Mind you, it wasn’t always so good between us. When I said, “Love is a battlefield” I didn’t mean that I wanted to look exactly like Pat Benatar in mid shimmy attack. And when I told her “I love rock n’ roll,” that did not mean that I wanted bear a startling resemblance to Joan Jett. Despite some initial differences in the direction we wanted to take my hair, we reached an understanding and developed a hairstyle that did not make my mother exclaim “You’re wearing a wig!”

Now I am stuck with Chuck, and things are very grim. Chuck likes to cut my bangs too short, which makes me look like a retarded five-year-old. It took me three months to grow my bangs - and my IQ - back to a respectable level, and I was not about to have it happen again. Before my appointment, Fauxhawk senses my aversion to confrontation, and tries a bit of coaching to prepare me.

“Now what are we going to say to Chuck when he starts cutting your bangs?” he says.
“Chuck, please do not make them too short.”
“And what are we going to say if he tries to cut off too much of your hair?”
“Chuck, I am trying to grow my mullet.”
“Good girl.”

When I see Chuck, he is chirpy as ever. He has just seen a documentary, and says it provided him with no end of hair inspiration.

“That’s great,” I say. “What was the documentary about?”
“Louisiana coal-mining strikes in the 70s.”

Holy Mother of God – Chuck is channeling Cher and Meryl Streep in Silkwood, lesbian haircuts and all, and there is no way to stop him.

Later, I call Fauxhawk as I walk the streets of New York in a state of shock.

“So did you tell him the things we talked about?”
“Yes.”
“And what happened?”
“He made me look like a Louisiana coal miner from the 1970s.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true.”

I am a Coal Miner’s Daughter. Move over, Loretta Lynn.


Photograph from Bad Hair, James Innes-Smith and Henrietta Web.