One afternoon in October of 1987, on my first day of work at a real job, Sarah the receptionist went home in a flood of tears. It was nothing to do with me, thank God.
Apparently, there had been a mishap at a hairdressing salon during her lunch hour; either her hair color was now a displeasing shade or her permanent wave was too frizzy or perhaps not frizzy enough. The exact circumstances surrounding her distress were not explained to anyone, especially new members of staff like myself. Suffice it to say that Sarah could no longer answer the phone with such a disastrous hairstyle. An executive assistant sporting a low-maintenance pixie-cut took her place for the rest of the day.
As this was my first day of work, I callowly assumed all this commotion to be standard procedure in any place of business. Hence, should I require time off, I could simply bribe some complicit barber to give me a ridiculously lopsided pompadour. 'Go home and let that mess grow out,' I imagined my boss saying, 'and we'll see you back here in a month or so.'
But, alas, when I actually did get my hair highlighted in a foolish-looking eighties fashion, my boss forced me to remain at work suffering the taunts and mockery of my more conventionally coiffed colleagues. How I wished I'd settled for a simple military buzz cut instead of trying to be the office David Bowie. I took to wearing a baseball cap at my desk to deflect the wisecracks.
Nor was I granted a leave of absence when I detected my first bald patch a few years later. By then, of course, I fully understood that Sarah going home because of an upsetting experience at the salon was the exception rather than the rule. Our workplace was no nurturing cradle of compassion when it came to matters of personal embarrassment. In fact, it was a dark, Satanic mill where the best you could expect was graphic images of your humiliation pinned to the company noticeboard for weeks.
I saw Sarah again recently at my local pharmacy. She was buying a box of tissues and a bottle of hair dye. I had no doubt the two items were related: the tissues a precaution should the new hair color prove unattractive once again. And would she call-in sick to wherever she worked these days if that was the case? The leopard cannot change its spots despite the woman unwisely deciding to change her hair color yet again.
My own basket contained a month's supply of rejuvenating scalp tonic and a jar of Bay Rhum beard oil. I'm pretty sure Sarah squinted at me but couldn't put a name to the furry face beneath the gleaming pate. At any rate, she left the store without saying hello.
