Keep it Fun (The Comb Fumbler Award)

We’ve all heard that stupid phrase. “It’s called work for a reason.” A dated saying with the implication that your career is something to survive instead of something to embrace. I strongly disagree.

Do not miss out on the following message. It is crucial that you have fun when you go to work. I was introduced to the fish philosophy during my introduction into management 14 years ago, and that simple concept has stuck with me all the way into business ownership. You spend so much of your waking life working to make your living, you should try to find a profitable way to pursue passions you love working on so you can make the most of all of your waking hours.

The goal is to find more fulfillment throughout all aspects of your life. That is my background, and that sentiment is at the heart of what has transformed into one of the most loved/hated aspects of the barbershop.

It all began with simple shit-talking whenever one of us dropped a comb. You probably read that sentence and assumed that we all drop combs equally, but you would be so far from the truth. It’s definitely 2 out of the 3 resident barbers that weren’t trained on proper comb etiquette. One day, we decided there should be a penalty for dropping them, so we added 1 minute of wall sits to the end of our day for every comb that hit the floor. It was all fun and games and a great brief 1-2 minute workout until the day I dropped enough combs to hate life the entire way home. I needed a change, and I quickly found my solution at an Idaho Youth Ranch.

She started life as a women’s volleyball trophy, but after an unreasonable amount of hot glue and a handful of spare combs, the shop’s first trophy was born. Unfortunately, it only took the first car ride for her to fall off the car seat and have two of the four combs to snap off. Since she was clearly unable to hold combs adequately, much like the barbers she was mocking, I decided we should call it“The Comb Fumbler Award.”

The concept is simple enough, anyone who drops a comb at any point of the day is presented the trophy by the most recent recipient of the award. It’s a passing of the torch for people who are challenged with simple things like gravity. It’s not so much as having the shame of keeping the award of your station as it is the song and dance that goes with the hand-off that makes it such a shitty time to drop a comb. I will say this, though, it’s significantly more fun than wall sits.

After a few months of use, Chase inadvertently broke off the remaining two combs when he was moving the trophy to his station. This time, instead of them all being my combs, we all donated one of our own combs so the trophy could be restored as a team effort.

I feel it necessary to elaborate on this and clarify that when I say “donate,” I mean that Chase showed me early in the day which comb he wanted me to use, and then I forgot at the end of the day, and he was already gone, so I looked in his comb drawer and saw one that I had never seen him use. I came to the conclusion that one of two things would happen. He never uses that comb so he won’t miss it, or it might be his favorite comb and he saves it for specific haircuts………….

I’m not saying that would be funny…..but that would be funny, right?

So I accidentally grabbed his favorite comb and glued it to the trophy with a metric shit ton of hot glue. I promise that it was completely unrelated to him breaking the trophy, but at least now he gets to look at his favorite comb more often.

We’re having fun and staying busy. Come visit us and make us smile.

-Chris