After the decision was made that Ashli and I were going to enter the world of working women by means of head lice, we felt empowered, we felt brave, and we felt all sassy. Arrogantly we thought we were business women because we had an idea for a business. Now my college degree had absolutely nothing to do with business, nor did Ashli’s, but honestly, and this is no joke, we thought, “How hard can this be?”. Looking back, I’m sure that statement has been said by many a brave and foolish soul.
Now to be fair to ourselves, we did get all the books about business ownership. Books about how to have a successful small business, books about positive thinking, books about accounting, blah, blah, blah. We made little checklists that we stuck to about as closely as a middle aged man to his wife at a beer festival.
Number 1: Fill out a 10-99. Well that just sounds confusing, lets worry about that later. Next.
Number 2: Write a business plan. I’m sure we could Google that and find one already written and just cut and paste. Next.
Number 3: Decide ownership of the business, assign job duties, etc. Huh, well we’re friends and we won’t fight, we will always agree on stuff because WE. ARE. WOMEN.
We ran student council fundraisers in school. I mean really, didn’t that qualify us to run this, too? We were not stupid, we were just completely unprepared for what it really meant to own and run a successful business.
So one day I’m perusing the isles of Dillard’s when my phone rings, proudly announcing the arrival of our very first client. I can remember fumbling through the conversation, quickly trying to remember all I knew about lice, and all that Ashli and I had learned from others in the business. There I was standing next to woman’s intimates listening to a man tell me about his lice ordeal, needing comfort from me. I swear to this day I don’t know how that man didn’t hang up on me, with the thought that somehow he had been set up by his friends in a practical joke. “Yeah Joe, call this place. These two chicks will come out to your house and get rid of your lice.” But he held on to that phone call and I held on tho the rack of 36C’s, and in the end he let us come to his home and help his family get rid of their lice.
We came over to the house that evening carrying our supplies in a paper Gap bag, and wearing no sort of uniform whatsoever. We still had not nailed down a combing technique, we had no good lighting, and our paperwork was primitive. How in the world we freed them of head lice I will never know. I know one thing, we looked like idiots, and never could we have imagined how much work we had cut out for us, and how far we had to go. How really, reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaly far we had to go. I suppose that was good though, because we would have walked away right them. Yep, just loaded up our ripped paper bags and gone back home.
This post is dedicated to that first beautiful family. I don’t know if it’s because they were as perfect as we remember them to be, or if it’s because of something else, but they will always be the first people that let us learn how to correctly treat our clients. It’s not a joke when they call, searching for someone to end the madness. They trust you and depend on you, and we knew right then, we had to straighten our acts up if this was going to work. Thank you for letting us stumble and laugh at ourselves but also for making us take ourselves and our lice treatments seriously.
We thank this family for letting two women embark on a journey that has changed their lives.
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One Response to Head Lice Treatments; Can We Make This Work?
Your story was really informative, tnhaks!