Monday, April 09, 2007

Dee & Kim's Nails in Post

You may, or may not have noticed the mention of one of H Street's nail salons hiding in yesterday's Sunday Source. In case you missed it, Dee & Kim's Nails (526 H Street, yes, that is the address I tried to attribute to With These Hands last week) was mentioned in the piece Find Beauty at a Bargain. The author was very pleased with her eyebrow wax, even if she had less flattering things to say about the staff's friendliness and the place's cleanliness.

8 comments:

Don't Be Silent DC said...

What does she mean "unfriendly"? Or is this another thinly veiled "Black people have attitudes" comment?

Anonymous said...

you have good question and i have good answer. unfriendly it means not friendly.

you are welcome.

Anonymous said...

Most (if not all) of the nail shops on H Street are owned/run by Asians. So I think this is clearly a case of a thinly veiled "Asian people have bad attitudes" comment.

Anonymous said...

i think it means that the folks in the shop didn't greet her with an enormous smile, ask her how she's doing, what they could do for her, etc.

u know, the typical cheesiness you get in some places.

i don't think it was a race issue.

Anonymous said...

I'd say it's the same *unfriendly* that we often get in DC. It's not a color thing. It's a DC thing.

I routinely have out of town friends tell me DC is stunningly unfriendly in the customer service fields. And it's not an urban thing. Friends from NYC routinely tell me that NYC retail experiences are far and away more professional and friendly than most DC retail experiences.

It's more than just no friendly greeting. It's more like no greeting at all, and the very distinct feeling that the person on the other side of the counter or such is really just hoping you'll leave. It's you as a customer having to make the first, second, and third attempts at interaction.

I think it dates back to when DC businesses had a captive audience, in that if you were doing business in DC it was because you had to. So customer service attitudes reflected this.

I know nothing of this particular salon, so I'm not passing judgement specifically. My comment is a generalization of my ten year experience in DC as compared to other US cities.

I think the Hill in particular is home to a lot of this attitude in many of our retail and service establishments.

Anonymous said...

I recently went into this nail shop and quickly left out. The woman who wanted to do my nails was eating with her hands, and then tried to just start doing my nails, without washing her hands or anything. Needless to say, I told her how unsanitary that was and left!

Anonymous said...

Hello Everyone,

I have been a customer with Dee & Kim's Nails since 2002, not only are they friendly but MEME does a wonderful job on my eyebrows and nails.

Unknown said...

Dear So called Bloggers,

I strongly disagree with your criticism. The writer speaks of the staff being unfriendly but then again what is unfriendly? the fact that they didnt ask you about your day? If the staff there werent friendly, their customers wouldnt come back to the same personnel for the past few years. Also to the fact that some of the staff doesnt speak english that well so that makes it harder for them to communicate with the customer. Lastly the most seasoned nail technician, Kim, has trained every single owner and technician on the entire H Street strip. So do not write a review and add your so called two cents but write a review on something that you've experienced not see for one day and come to conclusions! If you continue to do so, you should be a critic because you're judgmental