You know those times when you’ve made the effort to call the hair salon beforehand and book a convenient slot.  Your day is planned with military precision, you’ve got lots to do including an hour set aside for a wash, steam and set at the hands of the salon’s best hair stylist.

You arrive on time, initially everything goes as expected: a pleasant greeting, your coat is taken, there’s the offer of a hot drink then you are led to the basin to begin the first of your treatments.  Just when your mind is drifting away with the exquisitely pleasurable scalp massage, you feel a gentle tap on your shoulder and the stylist asks, very sweetly and politely, if she could just quickly see to some other customer.  You smile back, just as sweetly, and say ‘that’s fine!’ or something similar – you’re sure she won’t be long, the other customer just needs the temperature of their hair dryer adjusted.

20 minutes later and you’re starting to get very agitated, the water has nearly dried on your hair and where’s the stylist?  She’s on the other side of the room getting herself a snack.  On top of it all, she insists on involving herself with every new person that comes into the salon.  At some point you manage to catch her eye and give her a serious look of disapproval to which she murmurs some non-committal remark “I’m coming, just a minute…”.

And then suddenly a very loud woman announces that she’s been there for the past half hour and demands that her hair be completed or she’s walking out.  The lady starts kicking up such a fuss that the salon owner orders the stylist to rush over and finish the lady’s hair – this woman arrived 15 minutes after you and with no appointment!  Meanwhile the salon owner, sensing your irritation, comes over and asks you to please be patient .

But there are many bold and forthright customers at the salon, with the result that an hour after you arrived you’ve barely started your treatments.  In the end you have no choice but to allow the salon assistant to have a practice session on your head.  After all that planning the visit to the salon has ended up taking the whole morning, you’re stressed and half the day’s activities must now be cancelled.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens?