After a tip from hispanophone colleagues in California, I started going to their hairdresser: it was Monday only, $5 or $10 instead of $30, and that was because the girls only took 5 or 10 minutes instead of 45. That was when I learned that the traditional barbershop package consisted of, say $10 worth of haircutting and $20 worth of rag chewing.

> barbers tend to go into that business because they like talking to people.

There's someone on staff at my local grocery who once told me she likes working the register because of the human contact, so whenever she's there and there isn't already a line I head for the register instead of the self-checks.