AT WORK IN NC: : Angeli Prutz, manager, Sport Clips, Carlsbad

Angeli Prutz finds it more enjoyable to cut men's hair

By North County Times | Friday, November 7, 2008 3:09 PM PST ∞

I'm 38 and I'm the manager here at Sport Clips. I've been with the company for two years and I've been cutting hair for 17 years.

I started styling my grandmother's hair when I was 8. I guess I had a knack for working with hair and it appealed to me. My granddad would go out for the afternoon and I'd fix grandma's hair ---- not cut it, but style it. She'd sit and play solitaire on Saturdays while I did it. Then granddad would come home and they'd go out to the American Legion.

I grew up in L.A. and Orange counties. I did junior college and some retail jobs, but they didn't really go anywhere. My mom encouraged me to go to beauty school because she was the admissions director of a school in Orange County.

I like working here at Sport Clips. I like to focus on cutting men's hair and I don't like working with chemicals, as you do when you style perms. I once got a really bad case of dermatitis working with chemicals, when I was 20. And men tell me they don't like sitting in a salon that smells of chemicals. Also, just focusing on cutting makes it easy to manage my time. That's another thing about this place ---- people can just make an appointment 20 minutes before they come in, or just walk in. We don't let them set appointments any further ahead than that.

Men wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and say, "Oh my God, I need a haircut," whereas women tend to set their appointments weeks ahead, around events that have to do with relationships, such as weddings or seeing the ex or something like that.

So men can get a haircut and maybe the MVP treatment ---- massage, shampoo and steam towel. The steam towel goes over their face while we're shampooing them.

It's really relaxing.

I watch a lot of ESPN while I work. I never used to like sports much, but I do now.

As far as the economy goes, men won't give up getting haircuts. Men look at getting a haircut like they think of putting gas in their car; it's a necessity. Sometimes women cut their family's hair to save money, but they only do that once and then they come to me to fix it. They usually start with the kids.

People are tipping a bit less to save money. They may come in a bit less often and maybe they're less inclined to pick up professional hair products; they'd rather than getting them at Costco.

Someone in my line of work, in management, makes about $50,000, depending on the area and store. A lot of my money goes back into my house, on gardening and maintenance.

I'd like to see where the opportunities go with this company. I know they're planning on rapid growth in Southern California.

I'm single. I like to spend time with my dogs and take them to the Del Mar dog beach. I have two shepherd mixes named Bella and Pete. I also spend a lot of time with my extended family, and I like to go to dinner or take in live music with friends.

One of the things that I don't like as well about working in the hair salon business in general is that you end up working a lot of evenings and weekends, and not taking off Christmas week, for example, because you have to be available to your clients. But I'm used to it. That just comes from choosing this career.