Quimby
Miranda’s mom, Helen, had spent the last 12 years working at Optinex, a high tech research firm servicing defense contractors and foreign governments. She worked in the finance department and had a good sense of how things worked. With that, she was keenly aware of opportunities across the whole organization.
Every summer, a posting or two would open up in the client relations Vice-President’s office where a student would be brought on. This, in theory, was to help out so staff could take their vacations. Students would work with the VP’s chief of staff to keep things in order. The students would be an attractive, competent face for government officials and defense contractors wanting to tap into Optinex’s technologies. In recent years, the hires had been female science and engineering bachelors and masters students. They would welcome clients to the facilities, attend meetings and lunches, and keep track of clients’ potential requirements.
Optinex was located in a remote business park on the outskirts of the city, only reachable by car. And these positions were only open late June to early September. This was the peak summer vacation season when key government relations advisors took thejr holidays. Even though students were to be paid $1250 a week, it was early May, and Helen was told there were no prospects on the horizon. For the client relations department, summer vacations were in jeopardy. The lack of work in May and June and the long drive had made these opportunities less attractive to college students who finish studies in April.
Helen had thought for years that Miranda would be great for this role. This would have to wait, however, until she was in university. HR and management discussions made it clear that although they favored “well groomed” interpersonal vibrant youth, a certain level of maturity was required. These students would be the face in front of foreign officials, often with military backgrounds. Many of these countries were not the most progressive when it came to the role of women and girls. In prior years, she had been part of meetings where the idea of hiring high school students was rejected, because many of the college students that were hired needed to be coached into how to moderate their appearance to look older.
Helen thought carefully about the circumstances the Client relations department faced this summer and thought this could be the summer that Miranda should join. She talked to a couple of close friends in HR about this. Without disclosing her age but hinting she didn’t meet the expectation that she was a college student, her friends said that as long as she nailed the mature presentation, this should fly.
Miranda was 17, finishing grade 11 and had no job lined up yet. It was early May and she had no plans other than hanging out with her friends and taking shifts doing summer camps with young kids, something she just tolerated. Miranda was a slightly bigger girl, with an attractive face, and thick brown hair down to her elbows. She had great marks and was planning to pursue a STEM degree. Miranda was very reliable, charming, but sometimes a little unmotivated.
In previous summers, Helen had mentioned that in the future she would try to get her one of these gigs in the VP’s office. But to Miranda that all sounded abstract, except for the generous pay.
The idea of starting this summer sounded great, but she didn’t appreciate what this would all mean yet. Helen was still trying to figure out how to nail the “mature” look for Miranda. Some appropriate suits would definitely help, with jackets that looked like Helen could wear, but show a sensible amount of cleavage to impress clients.
Her hair could be something easy enough to change, but what would be a good look? Lobs are “in”, are definitely more conservative, but she would still risk looking too young for the VP and the hiring managers. A pixie would definitely do more to help, but that seemed like a huge ask for Miranda. Even if she were to go as short as a pixie, there’s still no guarantee that she’d get the job. Over lunch one day, Helen and her HR friends looked at some fashion checking out trends in hairstyles. Helen’s friends pointed out that some photos of models with pixie cuts with faded sides. They all felt that the fade changed the age appearance of the models to make them look older.
With that, she helped Miranda fix up her resume to carefully describe her previous work experiences and her fantastic STEM grades. Helen booked Miranda an appointment with her hair stylist. Then Helen had the HR department send the resume to the hiring managers. The VP’s Chief of Staff booked an interview with Miranda the following week.
THE HAIR APPOINTMENT
Helen had mentioned to Miranda about the need to adopt a more mature appearance, including a significant haircut for the interview. After an early dinner, the evening before the interview, Helen drove Miranda to her stylist for the appointment. As Miranda sat in the chair Helen told the stylist about what she wanted for her.
“Miranda has a job interview at my firm tomorrow. She absolutely has to portray a mature experience and to do that, we think she’s going to need short hair. And if she’s going to lose a lot of hair, she should do what’s needed to guarantee this. I’m thinking a pixie with scalpy sides is the safest way to do that. ”
This was news to Miranda, who was expecting some sort of bob or lob, at most. The stylist agreed that there is a certain logic to Helen’s idea. The stylist said her plan would be to keep as much bulk and length on top, and then clipper the sides until scalp appeared, then fade it down slightly.
This was all happening very fast for Miranda. “I’d like to keep as much length as possible” she said, almost pathetically.
“I think you’d be disappointed getting a bob, but then not getting the job because you didn’t quite convince them that you’re old enough” her mom added.
Miranda sheepishly replied that she’s not so sure, but if she was to mess this up now, this could wreck her chances of working there in future summers because she flaked out of an interview at the last minute.
With that, the stylist threw the cape over Miranda, put her hair in a pony tail and cut it off as close as possible to the back of her head. The stylist sectionned up her hair on top, grabbed the clippers and then buzzed everything underneath with the number 2 attachment. The stylist asked them what they thought of the length of the sides and the back.
Miranda was beside herself – she had never had short hair before, let alone experienced clippers. She couldn’t speak. She was just staring at herself in the mirror, hoping to keep all the hair she had left. Mentally, she was already planning how she could regrow it back the way it was as quickly as possible.
“I don’t see any scalp” Helen said, “can you go one or two blades shorter?”.
The stylist put on the 1.5 attachment and took three quick stripes most of the way up the back. “How about this?”
A little bit of faint scalp was visible. “I think that’s probably what I wanted to accomplish with this. But I’d hate for Miranda took have gone this short but leave doubts.”
Miranda was tearing up and it was clear she wasn’t in charge of this. Without asking Miranda, the stylist put on the number one attachment and reclipped the back of her head, going most of the way up.
Helen let out a gasp. “That might be shorter than I wanted for her. That’s quite a bit of scalp. I *think* this will still work for her”.
The stylist then proceeded to clipper the rest of the sides and back, going almost all the way up, leaving a slight fade along the top of the sides and the back.
The stylist then unclipped the top, got out her scissors, and took half inch pieces off, trying to leave as much length as possible. After about 4 minutes the stylist turned to them to ask what they thought.
“The contrast between the scalpy sides and big poofy top looks great, it looks edgy. But I think it takes away from the modest mature look she needs to nail.” Helen pondered.
Miranda was speechless, concentrated on staring the top of her head where hair still existed.
“What are you thinking for the top, Helen?”
“I don’t know, I’m open to your suggestions.”
“Well, I’d love to experiment with several styles for Miranda, but we close shop in less than an hour and I have another appointment. I think I have time for one more go at the top and get the sides and back cleaned up. I’m thinking I could do a super short scissor cut on top where I leave an inch, to an inch and a half. What do you think?”
“Let’s do it.” Helen reluctantly sighed.
The stylist worked quickly and aggressively cutting the top down. She took long pieces off with the scissors, leaving short bangs in front. Eventually, she took the back of the top so short the hair stood up straight. At the front half of the top of her head, the stylist took seven passes with her thinning shears. After the fifth pass, scalp was now visible on top. There was a massive pile of long and short hair on Miranda’s lap.
She then grabbed her clippers again and started fading the bottom half of the sides and the back with the 1/16 of an inch guard.
Helen herself started feeling slightly nauseated at how much scalp was showing now.
After what seemed like an eternity, the stylist finished her fading, turned off the clippers and peeled off the cape. Miranda was left with very little hair, the hair on her temples was gone, her sideburns were gone. There seemed to be just stubble along the bottom quarter of her head.
A receptionist came by to take Miranda over to the wash station, took a jellybean sized amount of shampoo and washed what was left of her hair to get the little clippings out. The receptionist was able to towel dry her hair in less than a minute.
Helen grabbed Miranda’s severed ponytail off the counter and met her at the cash where she left a generous tip.
THE INTERVIEW
The interview the next day went very well. Helen had coached Miranda. She showed her the job descriptions and gave her copies of old interview questions from the HR files. Helen also prepared her on how to answer questions on “what would you do if this or that happened” for situations that she might find on the job.
Despite still being somewhat in shock from her radical change in appearance, she was still able to ooze charm, manners, competence and confidence. In anticipation of this interview, Helen had bought her a $400 suit and spent $100 on “old lady” makeup.
Two days later, just before supper, Miranda got the call from the VP. Rebecca Sanchez, herself, offered Miranda the job for the summer. With that, she felt a little bit of relief that the haircut served its purpose and her summer was figured out. She just had to face the rest of the school year with super short hair. She would start at Optinex the day after school ends, the last week of June.
(… to be continued)
