1812

I’ve got a required picture coming up for work so I tried to go get a professional haircut for the first time in 2 years this morning. Sign in and text messages to keep the waiting room empty lead me to believe the place in question was taking things seriously. I walked in and not a single person was wearing a mask - employee or customer. It was bizarre, like stepping back in time to 2019 or something. It took me a full 15 seconds, I think, to even register what I was seeing.

Needless to say I turned around and walked out. Not sure what I’m going to do about the haircut but screw that lunacy. And as with a lot of folks that have shown their cards during this pandemic, they’ve permanently lost a customer. If they can’t be bothered to mask during a pandemic I sincerely doubt their commitment to basic hygiene at any other time.

1813

Find another barber and call first to check if they’re masked and vaxxed.

1814

Eh, screw it, I’ll just break out the clippers again for now.

1815

Yep, depends on your tolerance for exposure. Really depends on your own situation (immunocompromised, older) and location (prevelance). Here in NYC I go to an unmasked barber because he has a sign up saying all employees are vaccinated, and of course I am too. I’m comfortable with that so long as another variant doesn’t take over that evades vaccines.

1816

Yeah, and in NY you can probably believe that when they say it. Around here I’m not sure I could.

1817

Really? Would take some serious balls to put up a sign like that and not do it.

I can see no sign at all, or a sign saying “we don’t discriminate” in the opposite direction. But straight-up lying, that’s ballsy.

1818

Why don’t you just turn yourself into a cat like that lawyer did? That was cute!

1819

I don’t think they’d put up a sign dishonestly, but I’ve yet to see a place around here that has a sign like that. I’m just wondering if a verbal answer would be reliable or not.

1820

I would accept a verbal answer, so long as they don’t give any signs of lying. No delay in the response. But again I’m not over 60 or immunocompromised and I live in an area with very low prevalence.

1821

Yeah. If it wasn’t for the kid I’d be a lot less paranoid than I probably am. That said, I am going to call around and try to find someplace, I just don’t have time to deal with it right now.

1822

Just as an aside, this isn’t reliable. The cognitive load theory is only reliable in certain settings (like having a subject do a mental puzzle during questioning in a lab.) Lying can actually reduce cognitive load, and liars can compensate or overcompensate (i.e. answer faster than honest people) especially with practice, which a retail business would have opportunity for.

As for the hair, I’m on team cut/trim at home. But my hair doesn’t take much.

1823

I don’t know if it would catch a hardened criminal, but I expect my barber would probably pause before lying to me. And if not, I’m vaccinated, not geriatric, not immunocompromised, and live in an area of very little prevalence.

1824

I think that this is a bad situation there since different people want a yes/no answer so it’s pretty natural to pause to consider the person asking the question and phrase your answer in a diplomatic way.

1825

If you’re an anti-vaxer, I don’t see why you’d care either way, really, unless the store is only admitting vaccinated people. Which is in fact the case in NYC.

1826

Great news.

1827

Clearly you aren’t aware of the woman that refused the vaccine because she was afraid her getting it would give blood clots to her (10 year old) kids.

1828

They’re around no doubt, but they can’t legally get haircuts in NYC.

1829

Right, I just meant some of these people are so batshit crazy they’re afraid of people who are vaccinated.

1830

Get your parents boosted, fellow Gen X’ers.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09/22/pfizer-booster-shot-fda-authorizes/

The CDC will likely rule tomorrow on what counts as “high risk for severe complications” for people under age 65. If this includes diabetes or obesity, as I suspect it will, it’ll cover a lot of people.

Moderna and J&J approval is likely to come in a couple of weeks.

1831

I’ve only gotten two haircuts since March 2020–one Sept 2020 when case rates had dipped and one May 2021 after I was fully vaxxed. I am a regular and my strategy was to call ahead to find out when they were the least busy (e.g. during regular work hours early in the week) and if there was a slight wait, I waited outside. I also got a drain screen for the shower to catch all the long hair I was shedding in between cuts…