Product

You'd think that learning the in's and out's of working in a spa would pretty much be easy. You'd be right actually. So it was surprising that before we opened, 2 reps from the line of product we would be selling came up and gave us a week-long training. Product. Not a product or the product, but product. It sounds more important, more weighty, almost substantial when there isn't an article preceding it. But it's not substantial, or important, so a ONE WEEK LONG training about gels and shampoo seemed excessive. I mean how could 2 women talk non-stop about face creams, cleansers, toners, moisturizers, rejuvenators and anti-aging anti-oxidants for a whole week? For those men married to women who use these things I'm sure you understand...but I was shocked. It's not that my girlfriend Sheryl is make-up phobic (she's no stranger to eye liner or and occasional lip gloss) but she tends to discuss "product" as much as the average person talks about colo-rectal cancer (which happens to be one of my favorite dining table discussions by the way). But the shock is wearing off now as I am surrounded by people (OK , I'll say it...women) who 'talk product' all the time with customers who want to know what cream or topical treatment will make them look the youngest. Here's a secret from spa boy...NONE OF THEM DO!!! People go into a facial treatment looking old and lets just be honest, they come out looking refreshed and relaxed...and OLD. It's like when someone asks you, "does this dress make me look fat?" No it doesn't...the fact that they're fat makes them look fat! But back to the training week (i.e. product brainwash session). If you take a small truth and surround it with lies and package it right, it all looks to be true. Like this...

When we got to the training area I knew who the reps were right away. Remember the Sesame Street song that was designed to help us differentiate objects from one another? "One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong..." It went through my head as I saw these women fresh in from California. Surrounded by fleece, jeans and Birkenstocks their high heels and professional casual business attire made them stand out. That wasn't the only thing standing out as breast implants are apparently also de rigueur for the female sales rep/product trainer. Their bright personalities and perfectly bleached teeth shone like the southern California sun against the contrasting drizzly Northwest day. Settling into the morning lecture with a cappuccino in hand I was thinking how this was my first day at work in about 8 months...since swinging through the trees over in Kauai running zip-line tours. This was going to be cake and I smiled as the dazzling rep started the power point presentation. It seems I was woefully mistaken and mentally unprepared. I knew I should have made that cappuccino a double as these spa pros started using words like superoxide dismutase (a powerful anti-oxidant...duh!) and Pelargonium Graveolens (or geranium for you non-spa plebes). I was starting to worry about some final exam because my unfocused mind kept wandering from thoughts of breast implants and $150 bottles of face creams to cycling Southern Thailand and meeting people in the middle of Nowhere, Cambodia. People who couldn't care less about the pH of their skin and how to tone it but could sure use that $150. Not for the first time (nor the last believe me) did I begin to wonder about me and a spa environment being a good fit. The Southern California reps were working the crowd by the third day or so and even the most die hard granola's of us were dying to moisturize and were questioning how we had made it this far in life without using daily skin balancing creams. We were all given goodie bags of sample product and every time I went to the bathroom I would secretly apply some moisturizer around my eyes and wait for the crows feet to disappear. The disappointment was visceral by the end of the week as I still looked almost 45. I wanted results, not the shiny, greasy skin with a few zits that I was seeing in the mirror. I was supposed to be excited about selling this snake oil to women and play on their fears of not being desirable anymore. Instead I was getting anxious that I was in some kind of cult as all the heads in the room were bobbing up and down with every new declaration of how this line of product could rejuvenate the skin...while that line of product could restore the skin...and this cream balances while that one restores. Meaningless adjectives sounding real. Making claims that can never be proven nor disproven as they were all subjective. My internal bullshit meter was red-lining as the unsubstantiated claims kept coming. Things like, "We all know our bones are made of minerals so we came up with a line of mineral salts that when taken in a bath have beneficial results for the entire body. But remember these are not to be used on children under 6 years old or pregnant women." WHAT?! These smelly salt baths sounded more dangerous than a years prescription of oxycontin and the room full of massage therapists were yellow-highlighting the words pregnant and 6 years old. I was imagining hypercalcemia and thumb sized kidney stones from one bath too many and cracked up. We could have used those salts to rim our margarita glasses and given it to a 6 year old with no deleterious results yet these gals are telling us not to take a bath in it??? At that point (actually it was a lot earlier... somewhere on the first morning of training) I tuned out and tried to relive the glory days of sitting in a urine soaked latrine on a boat in the Mekong River.

SPA...Salus Per Aqua (health by water). How did going to natural hot springs for relaxation and health benefits get hijacked by people who sell fake relaxation via laboratory created scents (cut grass/ white pepper) and who play fake music (liquid mind VII) that could have been generated by (and has the soul of) a computer program? And who are these people who come in so afraid of the natural progression of aging or of death that they spend $400, without batting a fake eyelash, on 'product' designed to keep them younger looking? But the real question is why am I working in an environment I have no interest in, assisting people for whom I have no respect? That's it. I'm quitting. As of today. You are the first to hear of it. I just made up my mind that life is too short and I'm done. TAKE THIS JOB AND SPRITZ IT!! Well off to work to tell my boss...wish me luck.