The hair industry has a lot to offer, it’s creative, passionate, and centered around making people feel beautiful. However, as with any industry, it has it’s dark spots. Today I’m going to let you know the story of my apprenticeship, and how the entire program has harmed many hair professionals.
I’d like to start off by mentioning that not everyone has a negative experience during their apprenticeship, but overall it’s shockingly common to have had a rough time going through the program.
Alright, let us picture the scene. The year is 2016 and I’m a fresh-faced and hopeful student taking the Algonquin College hairstyling program. I had always been a tad more ambitious than most in my class, and because of this I wanted to begin my apprenticeship right away. In school, they taught us that your apprenticeship is the process of taking your school skills and turning them into salon skills. They painted a picture of mentorship, learning, and opportunities. However, that is not the experience I had.
After completing my first day as an apprentice at a local salon, the receptionist approached me at the end of the shift and expressed how impressed she was. “Wow” she said, “the boss makes almost every apprentice cry by the end of their first day, good job!”. Startled, I hadn’t realized that not crying was something to be thankful for.
While I had made it out of the first week without a tear, my streak hadn’t lasted much longer than that. I was so grateful to have an apprenticeship opportunity that I decided I needed to push through and pay my dues. And that very sentence is where the problem in our industry lies.
Like myself, so many young stylists-in-the-making are convinced that we should be so grateful for an apprenticeship opportunity that we shouldn’t question how we are treated. I lasted nine months at that salon before moving on to another in hopes of something better. The next experience was even worse than the first. Apprentices tend to be treated as lackeys, instead of being given opportunities to observe and learn, they are busied with cleaning, errands, meaningless tasks, and grunt work. While it is important to assist and help as an apprentice, when that becomes your only role, you don’t actually gain any mentoring.
It wasn’t until my third salon until I found somewhere with a good balance between apprenticeship and assistant duties. The hair industry as a whole needs to reevaluate their relationship with apprentices and refocus on education instead of grueling busy-work. I can’t wait until I have the opportunity to properly mentor a younger stylist and show them that the industry cares about them.
Algonquin College Social Media Certificate Program 