Mike Rose Summery (Beth Morello)

Summery to Mike Rose’s The Mind at Work,
Chapter 2: Styling Hair

Vanessa is an at home stylist who likes to do her hair freely, not by the book. She cuts hair dry because she can see what she’s doing right away. Vanessa stated that she hates doing hair wet because she “Can’t wait to dry it and then go in and do her work…” (32). Vanessa has her own way of working which is different than Sharon’s who works at a salon. The difference between Vanessa and Sharon is how they work, Vanessa builds off of each thing she does and Sharon likes to map it out first (33).
As stated Mike Rose, “Roughly 90% of hairstylists in the United States are female” (34). Working with hair has employed many women over the years wither “from their homes; or small neighborhood shops; or specialty salons; or multiservice salons; or salons; or upscale urban, trendy, expensive ones” (34). Plus there are people who don’t have degrees and work at home. Also all of the hairdressers are not the same they all have their own way of doing hair and their own techniques. Some prefer working out of their house so they have the freedom to do what they want on their own time, while others prefer the more professional setting that makes them feel more like it’s their job not just something to do.
For an experiment, Rose took pictures of old-age hairstyles and showed them to various hairstylists. As a result, the stylists’ comments were “heavy on analysis and technique” (36). However, the nonstylists made comments on “the look of the style, made general historical observations, and generated stories to accompany the picture” (36).
To me it shows that there is never one specific type of work. Work can be anything you make it to be. Work could be the president, a CEO, a hairdresser, a cashier, or even being a student. Work is everywhere and everyone even if they’re unemployed participate in work. Each person, even if they have the same job as another, takes different approaches and come up with either similar or very different results. That is apparent in the chapter The Mind at Work, there were two women with the same job who took very different approaches but still had the same result. One of the lessons I got from Rose’s book is no to underestimate the work people do and not to down size anyone’s’ job. Work is a very complex word that had no set definition and can mean something different to each person.