Rant and Resolve – Real Talk for Real Business Problems
Welcome to the new and improved Rant and Resolve podcast, where business frustrations meet fast fixes.
Hosted by Cathy, a sales and marketing pro with over 35 years of experience, each episode brings you something fresh: a straight-up rant about a common problem entrepreneurs, agencies, marketers, and course creators are dealing with… followed by a clear resolve to help fix it.
These aren’t just rants; they’re real-world insights from our Fast Track course series, which is designed to help you sell and market smarter.
✅ Short, sharp, and packed with value 🎁 Free downloads and tools at LearnForFreeFast.com
Whether it’s email engagement, client onboarding, or content chaos, if it’s messing with your business, we’re calling it out and showing you what to do instead.
We’ve also archived our original interview episodes, so they are still here if you’re looking for founder stories. But this brand-new format is all about fast, practical fixes for the challenges you face right now.
In today's episode, we're gonna be talking about the happy job ad. Coming up next.
Cathy:
Happy January 15th. Everybody, it is Friday. I'm gonna brag. We're halfway through the month. We've made it this far right.
Crystal:
Right.
Cathy:
Now, how's your week been crystal? It's been awesome. Of course, you know, I have happy times all the time, because I am a happy person. So I'm excited to talk about our topic today. But my week has been amazing. Lots of things that we've been able to roll out for a lot of our Webxly clients. So I'm pretty excited about that. heard some good news from one of my customers. They started getting automatic responses from SEO that we've been doing for Webxly they were found through Google. He was so excited. I know so I had to throw that mention out for the week because I am just really super happy for him. And I just can't wait till we're doing some more cool stuff for him. So I'm super excited about this week's topic. I am ecstatic because I can't wait for my turn. But this week's topic is about a salon that had to remove a job ad for saying the word happy stylist because it was discriminatory against unhappy people. And I know Crystal, you're gonna tell us a little bit about this, but I cannot wait to talk about this. Today's rant is too funny.
Crystal:
I mean, Cathy, this one is what we call an East Texas a knee slapper. slap my knee and call me crazy, because this is so ridiculous. I have never heard of anything in my life like this. So let me just go ahead and get straight to this. Because I mean, I don't even know like the world's gone mad. So basically, in some of you guys may have seen this on the news. Fox News wrote an article about that, Cathy, will drop the link for you guys to go and look at this article. But I'm just gonna go ahead and just tell it to you straight up. this part time qualified hairdresser. At AJ's unisex hair salon and Stroud, England. Her name is Alison Burch.
Cathy:
She's the owner, She'sthe owner. Yeah, I'm sorry. She's the owner. Yes. and she was looking for a part time qualified hairdresser. And keep in mind guys first of all her it says AJ is unisex hair salon. So clearly she's diverse, super cool chick from what I can tell. She puts an advertisement out to hire at part time qualified hairdresser. And the ad says and I quote,"This is a busy friendly small salon. So only happy friendly style stylists need apply." Okay, well, I don't know about you guys. But when I go to the hair salon, I want to happy stylists. But wait for it. I just can't even with this. So apparently, she says that she received a call from her local Job Center informing her they could not run her ad because the word quote, "happy" is considered and I quote"discriminatory". Man, I must be offending people every day. I know, you're so happy. I think I'm gonna discriminate against that.
Crystal:
I can't even imagine. I mean, like, Oh, gosh. Okay, so my rant is this. I don't want some miserable person cutting my hair. It's just that simple, folks. You know, butter my buns and call me a biscuit. I don't even know what to do with all this. I mean, Cathy, what do you think about this? I mean, this is like insane. Like I could not even I had to read this
Cathy:
Well, I think is what's interesting is we're all very big and we're gonna talk about this. I think on my birthday issue. I can't wait to talk about you know, diversity and inclusion. But I think discrimination you're taking a little bit too far when you're talking about an emotion. Okay, that's a that's a feeling. Okay? The definition of discrimination. And I'm looking at it right here dictionary, whatever it says the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex, not anywhere in this definition. Does it talk about emotion? And I'm sorry, as a business owner, I think you kind of want some more of the crystals in the world that happy you you asked her how her week is, and you don't hear, but good things. I mean, that's the kind of person the people you want to surround yourself with, I would think.
Crystal:
So I mean, I just don't know. I mean, how do you tell somebody like, hey, I want to go to that salon, because they have people that aren't happy? I mean,
Cathy:
yeah,, That woman was a Beep Beep Beep. And I think I can't wait to go back. She has a lot of asterisks. I mean, I don't know like, this one just cracks me up to no end. Like it really does. I just I can't even like it's kind of left me flabbergasted. It says right here that she, she claimed that the Job Center told her that the advertisement may make people may make some people feel they cannot apply. If they do not consider themselves to be a happy person. Well, hold on. If that's the case, that's not who she's hiring. So you kind of skip over that job. If you're not a happy person don't apply for a happy job. Also Cathy, I'd like to point this out. Like, okay, so this is just the craziest topic. But, you know, let's just rewind for just a quick moment. Every business owner has the right to choose who they employ. Right, Every business has the right to choose an employee and their employees. Now, obviously, not discriminatory, you know, with sex, age, race, and all those things. But in addition, there is an employee handbook for most business owners and most businesses. And you know, like, if you want to go and get a job, you know, working at Subway, go for it, do you, boo, go make that sandwich and do the best of your job that you can possibly do. subway has a certain way that they want you to learn to make those sandwiches you go make those sandwiches, but there's an employee handbook Yeah, and they are good sandwiches to
Crystal:
I know
Cathy:
And they are hard working franchise owners.
Crystal:
Yeah. And they have a handbook that they expect their employees to do, like wash your hands, greet customers with a smile, oh, wait, if you're gonna smile, you might be too happy. I mean, like,
Cathy:
it does say, as a second noun, it does say recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another. So they're kind of taking it to literally a literal, emotional, I just, I don't know that I agree with this one, I'm gonna have to say my resolve is I think any business owner, you want that person to be customer service oriented, solving problems, happy, make people feel good, when they come into your store, when they go to your website, or when they do whatever. You're, you're there to solve a problem. And think about it. I don't know about you. But when I go to the hairdresser, I go with a lot of therapy, they listen to me talk for like, the whole hour, they're doing my hair. I mean, if they're still smiling after they've done my hair, you know what, I think that made it you know,
Crystal:
especially because you are so logical and methodical that you basically tell them how to do their job. I just go sit in the chair and want to put on my bluetooth, and watch some Netflix. That's not my one hour to chill.
Cathy:
Yeah, but if that dress, hairdresser, that salon owner wants to hire somebody happy to do your hair, they want half they want the vibe to be happy. So I mean, I agree with you. I think this is just ridiculous. And if this is what our world is coming to, as far as discrimination goes, I just I don't understand it. Not in the business world, I can understand if you're going to the grocery store, and somebody next to you is skipping and seeing it and they're just happy buying groceries and you're just a grumpy person. You don't have to be around them. Right? You could just go go to the next I'll move on. To me, I think especially in these days and times and everything that we're going through here, as a nation as a country. I just think you know, this is just way too far.This is just crazy.
Crystal:
I mean, the world needs more happy people. Like why can't we just all get along
Cathy:
You know, what's crazy is this. This article was published in September of 2020. Okay, in the middle of a pandemic in the middle of a pandemic, You can' blame her for wanting happ people.
Crystal:
I've just never, in my whole world of living. I have never heard somebody say, you know, I just can't wait to be around that unhappy person.
Cathy:
But anyway, I'm gonna say shout out to ajs unisex hair salon in Stroud, you go girl, hire who you want that that's that's just ridiculous and, and why in the world a newspaper wouldn't want to be taking your ad money?
Crystal:
I guess they're not happy.
Cathy:
I guess they don't want your money. Because that's just a silly, silly, silly thing. And that's, that's really that's all I've got to say about that one
Crystal:
I know I Well, apparently they feel upset because they're always upset. I mean, they don't like happy. So I mean, I don't know,
Cathy:
I think the bottom, the bottom line on the resolve on this one really is like, you know, discrimination is about diversity, just respecting other people, not discriminating them against them. Because of their race, age, sex differences, right? This is about emotion, you can't tell an unhappy person to be happy, you can't tell a happy person to be unhappy. It just doesn't work that way. And if we start changing our rules and guidelines, and who the people we want to hire, it's kind of like, go to this salon, they have all unhappy stylists. I'd probably just want to go to see if they'd even listen to me during my my style cut, you know,
Crystal:
oh my Geez. like, it's just crazy to me. But you know, Hey, guys, I just want to say like, you know, if you have any rants that you want to submit to us, you can always go to www.rantandresove.com hit the submit button. We love to see some of your submissions.
Cathy:
Yeah it's a big, big rant button.
Crystal:
I just want to say thank you guys so much for joining us on another episode of Rant and Resolve, where we help bring both consumers and business owners together to help create the ultimate buying and selling experience. Yes. So why don't you join us next week when we get to talk about why won't you call me back?
Cathy:
Oh, I can't wait for that one.
Crystal:
Yes, that'll be fun. Awesome. Well, thanks again for joining us. We'll talk to you next week.
