JAIME: Welcome to Outgrowth: A Slice of Pro Beauty with your hosts Jaime Schrabeck.

ASHLEY: And Ashley Gregory. In our last episode, we spoke in general terms about guidelines for reopening salons and how beauty pros have interpreted and responded.

JAIME: Now that salons in most states have reopened, and we finally have our own state guidelines to review, we need to talk. Let’s grow together.   

ASHLEY: Well, Jaime, guidelines are meant to make the process of reopening as safe as possible, but instead, they’ve often been confusing.

JAIME: It’s been discouraging, and I can understand as other states have opened, that the beauty pros in those states have all been scrambling to read and understand these guidelines,  and I haven’t wanted to get involved too much because those aren’t my state’s guidelines. I feel it’s their responsibility to know what their state is requiring.

ASHLEY: That’s true, but now that we have the opportunity to finally talk about the specifics,  because both California and Illinois, particularly the city of Chicago, where we live respectively,  have recently released their guidelines.

JAIME: You have two sets of guidelines to deal with. You have your state guidelines for Illinois, and then your mayor, in the city of Chicago, has issued even further guidelines.

ASHLEY: The state of Illinois has moved into phase three as of last weekend, but the city of Chicago, because it is the most populous city in the state, has different guidelines that are more strict and likely won’t happen for the next few weeks.

JAIME: And in California, we just had guidelines released specific to hair salons and barbershops allowing for hair services, but the rest of the industry has been left out.

ASHLEY: I find it very interesting the way certain states are rolling these guidelines out, what services they’re including with their initial direction, and what services have to wait for further instruction. I know that there’s a lot of anxiety around what these guidelines are going to look like and how we can individually prepare our businesses for the next steps.

JAIME: Ashley, before we talk specifically about the Chicago guidelines which would apply to you because that’s where you live, let’s look at the state level guidelines,comparing California and Illinois, and let’s start with Illinois since it was issued first, and it’s the broader of the two, because the Illinois state guidelines cover personal care services and lots of different types of professionals.

ASHLEY: That’s correct. So phase three for the state of Illinois includes hair salons, braiders, barbershops, nail salons, spas, massage therapy, waxing, tattoo, tanning, cosmetology schools, hair club services, so I’m assuming that’s hair restoration, and other providers of personal care services. Essentially, what it’s boiling down to is anyone that’s touching the body in a beautification type of way.

JAIME: I think it’s interesting that in that list, all of those nouns refer to places where those services happen except for the hair braiders.

ASHLEY: And hair braiders are a relatively recent addition to the statewide guidelines, within the last few years.

JAIME: Reading through that list, I understand that another significant requirement is that those services should be limited to services that can be performed while the customer and employee are wearing a face covering over their nose and mouth.

ASHLEY: Correct. And I think that’s where we’re going to get into some of the interpretation and the language used because we get into the city of Chicago, there’s some confusion around some of the modifiers that they use and the language they use. And I think that’s getting to the core of the frustration across the country, is that these guidelines are using language that is open to interpretation. Is it a recommendation? Is it a guideline? Is it a regulation? We don’t know.

JAIME: Even using the terms customer and employee. It’s complicated because typically we refer to our clientele as clients, not customers. Not all of us are employees. In fact, many are individuals working alone, perhaps in a salon suite, and so these kinds of terms don’t really connect all that well with the way that the beauty industry in particular talks about itself.

ASHLEY: And that may be an indication of how these guidelines are being created outside of the normal beauty industry subject matter expertise. Being created by local health departments or other governmental agencies that might not know the nomenclature of our industry and our daily lives. That can lead to some concern about what these guidelines actually are, and as we talked about last week, rushing these guidelines or demanding these guidelines come to you sooner rather than later can mean that you might be saddled with something that would be hard to live with. So I do think it’s a good idea that these agencies are taking their time with this information.

JAIME: One of the agencies that certainly had influence is OSHA at a federal level, and certainly at a state level, the government wants to make sure that workers, who are employees are protected, and shifting the responsibility onto the business owner to provide for PPE and whatever else may be required. That may be one of the reasons to explain the use of the word employee, but it’s not broad enough.

ASHLEY: I agree, and I think it would be a fascinating journey to follow these guidelines from draft stage, to who was involved in creating those initial drafts, who was consulted, who was brought in, and what the process or collaboration looked like to produce this final product that’s been released.

JAIME: I will say that one of the aspects of the Illinois state guidelines that I do appreciate is that it’s called out what is uniform, what appears, I would imagine, in every guideline, no matter what industry is being addressed, and they label that as uniform guidelines.

ASHLEY: Right, and those are some of the most common sense guidelines I’ve seen as far as general health, screening, limiting travel, monitoring the health of both potential clients and employees themselves, and then the guidelines actually are broken down into the specifics for the personal care service businesses. I do appreciate that only because it gives a nod to the fact that what we do is different from any other retail establishment or some of the other personal care services like healthcare where the guidelines are so much more stringent, I would imagine. So I think Illinois is one of the states that got it right. I’m very proud to say that Illinois is the only state to meet all federal criteria for reopening, and that’s why we move to phase three as of Friday.

JAIME: Not because of a lawsuit or a protest?

ASHLEY: No. We actually hit the benchmarks that were required to move to the next phase.

JAIME: Someone set a standard and your governor sought to achieve that. Amazing.

ASHLEY: Correct, and it definitely is not due to everyone being in agreement, that’s for sure.   But the stay at home orders were issued swiftly and have been enforced. Now, that being said, with all the great work that’s being done in Illinois, I did hear while listening in on a teleconference where our state board met electronically for the first time, the general counsel for the state board did say that if a salon was found to be in violation of these guidelines, it would not mean an immediate loss of their license. They would still have to go through the due process that the board has set up and appear in a hearing before the board, et cetera. So to me, that would extrapolate out into these guidelines, not holding the weight of a law or an actual regulation from the board. I find that to be a very interesting thing. I’ve even found, too, that in Texas, we all know the salon owner who decided to work in defiance of the stay at home order, they’re still a licensed establishment. Now there may be some disciplinary action happening in the background, but nothing happened immediately. I guess you get caught in the semantics of what is a guideline, what is a recommendation, and what is a requirement.

JAIME: Nothing with regard to licensure, but certainly that salon owner you’re referencing in Texas was arrested. So local authorities can take action, as they have the authority and see fit,   but at the state level, you’re right, the revocation of a license is a serious administrative process that would require due process. And speaking of the language in these guidelines, I am finally putting to use the discourse analysis class that I took while in grad school, and I went through both the California and Illinois guidelines doing what I will refer to as a word frequency count. It’s nothing fancy. It’s just doing a word search essentially, and I’ve developed something new, Ashley, that I’m going to introduce for the first time ever on our podcast. Are you ready for it?

ASHLEY: Yes.

JAIME: I’m calling it the MORCS-CDS index. 

ASHLEY: Oh.

JAIME: I just made that up today.

ASHLEY: Oh, I was going to say, that sounds very official.

JAIME: Well, I know it does sound official. When you assign an acronym to something, it does seem to elevate it. And if you hadn’t heard of the MORCS-CDS index before, it’s because I really did just make that up today. But I think it’s a measure of just how restrictive the guidelines are. To your point earlier, are these guidelines, are they requirements, or are they merely suggestions? And at what level do they get enforced and by whom? What agency will be responsible for any of this enforcement? So let me elaborate on what I mean by the MORCS-CDS index. I essentially did a search for a number of terms that I felt would indicate how strict the guidelines would be. For Illinois, I copy and pasted those guidelines into a document and then did a word search. And these were the words that I searched for: must, only require, consider, should, clean, disinfect, sterilize, or the variation, sterile. Those were the words that I looked for, and in doing so, it did give me an indication of just how flexible, or how open to interpretation, these guidelines really are. So, for example, the word must only appeared twice. And one of the examples was “if employee must travel, employees should follow CDC considerations to protect themselves and others during trip.” That doesn’t really apply to us as beauty professionals. We’re working in our salons. We’re not traveling for work, per se. To me, that was, essentially, almost a throwaway. Only appeared only once. And it’s significant because where it does, it’s listed under minimum guidelines and customer behaviors. And the actual phrasing is “Reservation only. No walk-ins.” So Ashley, how would you interpret that phrase?

ASHLEY: As far as the reservation only, no walk-ins?

JAIME: Doesn’t that sound like a requirement?

ASHLEY: It does, and I love that you broke it down to this level, because while the Illinois guidelines, I think are visually very stunning and easy to follow, as well as the city of Chicago which just took it to a whole other level, it makes it very clear that these are the minimum standards. It’s almost challenging us to figure out how to go beyond the minimum because all of us as beauty professionals, of course, want to have a great client experience. We want to have a high level of service. But it’s when you allow interpretation that things get dangerous. So to have the word must only show up twice, and the word only show up once. I did notice that there was another modifier which was, if practical, and it refers to things like, if practical only perform facial services, on areas of the body where a client is not wearing a mask or PPE, et cetera. But saying if practical, well, if it’s not practical to perform an upper lip wax while someone’s wearing a mask, does that mean they can take it off?

JAIME: If practical is a choice. If practical is open to interpretation. 

ASHLEY: As we see more and more states start offering official reopening guidelines, we have to come back to that word of guideline. It is a recommendation. It is something where experts and agencies came together and said, we believe this is best practice, but no one is using the language that it is a regulation, a requirement, a law, et cetera.

JAIME: Unless the governor, in issuing the order that allows for salons to reopen, highlights one of these guidelines and uses the proper language to make it a requirement. That being said, let me point out that the word require alone did not appear in the Illinois guidelines. Requirements did, but I believe that was referencing the CDC or something else. The word consider only appeared once, but here I can highlight the most frequent word of my list was the word should, which we know is not a requirement. It’s a suggestion. Should appeared 42 times, Ashley, 42 times.

ASHLEY: Wow, 42 times they said, should.

JAIME: Should. When I started reading that, this was before I decided to do the cut and paste, I was willing to count. I was willing to scroll through and just count, and I thought, no way.  I’m not gonna be able to count this many. I’m going to lose count. And that’s when I decided to do the searches because, again, it ended up being much easier, but 42 times the word should appears. And then I thought, okay, this is supposed to be all about safety. Let’s go ahead and do a search for the words clean, disinfect, and sterilize, or sterile, because those are words that we use in our industry frequently. So I found that both clean and disinfect appeared 10 times, or some variation, like cleaning would be a variation, or disinfectant would be a variation of disinfect. The word sterilize did not appear once, which makes sense because we’re not creating a sterile environment.

ASHLEY: And Illinois does not require the sterilization of implements. They require disinfection and storage and a clean covered container.

JAIME: So that makes sense to me. That we’d see the words clean and disinfect repeatedly.  But I love that you had me look up the words if practical, because that’s an out.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

JAIME: It certainly is. In comparing the Illinois guidelines to your city of Chicago guidelines, There was one thing that jumped out at me that I wanted to point out to you, and I’m sure you noticed. There’s a conflict, Ashley, with the Chicago guidelines, contrasted with the state guidelines, and ironically, it starts with the phrase if practical. And that statement is “if practical implement appointment only model.”

ASHLEY: And if we are getting into the semantics, as I know many members of our profession will, saying the word if practical means if it’s not practical, you don’t have to do it. If it’s not practical for you to implement an appointment-only model and you’re still allowing walk-ins, that means you’re still going to have the issue with congregating and common areas. You’re still going to have the issue with social distancing. It’s a really slippery slope and I wish that they had not used this language because, as we have spoken about before on this podcast, if you have decided to do something a certain way, you can find tons of justification for your actions. And I believe that these two words, if practical, are going to be blamed for a lot of that justification. If this is the minimum guideline, and I can’t really think of any type of situation where an appointment-only model would not be practical, or possible, then what onus is on you to maintain documentation and record keeping for any potential contact tracing that could happen? And I wonder if that means that if you’re not implementing an appointment-only model, what burden of responsibility you have for the rest of the guidelines?

JAIME: Why the city of Chicago chose to contradict the only requirement that I can find in the state guidelines, I don’t understand. I really don’t get it. It seems very clear in the state guidelines, which I’m assuming were released first and on which the city of Chicago based their own guidelines, why they wouldn’t have taken that into account and reinforced that reservations were required. Maybe they’re conflating an appointment with not getting any information at all.

ASHLEY: Agreed. I wonder if it comes back to wanting to allow as many beauty businesses as possible to reopen in phase three, and not wanting any single one of these guidelines to keep a business from reopening. Given the fact that we’ve been out of work, the stay at home order was issued for the city of Chicago on March 21st over two months now. I can see the way these guidelines were written as a way to be as inclusive as possible. Unfortunately, using that kind of inclusive language in this instance is going to lead to a lot of interpretation, and it’s going to lead to a lot of interpretation to just reinforce what we were going to do anyway. That’s why I’d love to sit down with someone who was part of this process to really find out how much consideration was given to the words used, how much consideration was given to the definitions of things. I mean, all of us who were alive in the nineties remember, it depends on what your definition of is, is. If there’s going to be legal precedent set, if there’s going to be any additional lawsuits, or if someone were to be brought before their state board and have to defend their practices, they could potentially point to this language and say, well, if practical.

JAIME: I can understand why the state guidelines were as inclusive because we know ultimately that the authority to restrict what happens in salons even further rests with local officials as it has with the mayor of Chicago. I have not had the time to research separate Illinois counties to discover if any of those have issued guidelines that are more restrictive for their county salons. Has that come up at all in your research?

ASHLEY: I don’t believe anything has been more restrictive given the political leanings of the counties outside of Cook County and the rest of the state of Illinois. Let’s just say there have been several county sheriffs who have said that they will not enforce a stay at home order and don’t want to stand in the way of businesses thriving. So you can take that how you want to.

JAIME: I take that as permission to interpret as I please. If I were someone who owned a business in Illinois, my only concern would be, in that position, what the legal consequences might be and the liability that we’ve discussed, essentially ad nauseum, since this started, for doing just the bare minimum. Even Tracy Donley of Associated Professionals said that their expectation as an organization is that their membership will do more than what the minimum guidelines are.

ASHLEY: That’s really important to keep in mind that the guidelines that are given are really the minimum standard that we should be holding ourselves to. And I would love to hear how the guidelines for both the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago compared to the recent guidelines that were issued in California for hair and barber services.

JAIME: Our guidelines were released just days ago, and they isolated hair services from the rest of the industry. It’s obvious that hair services are believed to be less problematic. So that’s why they were included in a first round of guidelines, giving the counties the option of allowing salons to open with some restrictions. So having done the same analysis on the California guidelines that I did for the state of Illinois guidelines, I went through those guidelines and did a word search, and the word must appears 12 times, the word only 4, the word require 12. So already we see that these guidelines are more restrictive based on that kind of language. The word consider was there nine times. The word should 28. And taking the prize for the most frequently mentioned word, of the words that are on my list, was the word clean, and it was mentioned 31 times. 

ASHLEY: Wow.

JAIME: Disinfect was 16 and again, no mentions of sterilizing.

ASHLEY: Do you believe, Jaime, that the recommendations for the state of California have been broken down by beauty discipline based on the fact that Governor Newsom came out and said, the first case of community spread happened at a nail salon.

JAIME: I think that must factor into the thinking. We don’t know exactly what information was presented to the governor and whose influence is greater, but I will say that the documents that have been released industry by industry from our governor’s office have been labeled with the logos of the California Department of Public Health and our California version of OSHA. They are not labeled with the logo of the Board of Barbering and Cosmetology because, while they do play a role, they’re not responsible for public health to the extent that the Department of Public Health is. The regulation language that BBC puts out normally is very industry specific. The language that we see in these guidelines, even though these guidelines are targeting hair salons and barbershops, you see a lot of the influence of OSHA and the Department of Public Health by the words that they use. They refer to workers, and employees, and they use the word operators, which isn’t even really a word that we use anymore in our industry. So you could see where the influence has been exerted.

ASHLEY: Well, and if you really wanted to kick this down the hill further, using words like employees to describe the beauty industry, knowing how much of the population is misclassified as an independent contractor, you could potentially say, since I’m not an employee, none of these apply to me, if you really wanted to play devil’s advocate.

JAIME: That’s true. If we’re to believe statistics that get thrown at us, the vast majority of beauty professionals in the state of California are essentially solo businesses. And as such, they either are solo businesses operating with their own establishment licenses, or they booth rent in a salon that holds an establishment license.

ASHLEY: Right. If you’re really cherry picking which guidelines you wanted to follow and not follow, you could again, hold this language up, if challenged, and say, because these are the words that were chosen, it doesn’t apply to me.

JAIME: Lest anyone get excited, even with the restrictive language, it doesn’t mean that the language is correct. Let me give you some examples. Here’s a quote from our California guidelines: “services for these operations must be limited to services that could be provided with both the worker and customer wearing face coverings for the entirety of the service.”

ASHLEY: Okay.

JAIME: So we’re talking hair only services, as far as we know, and services where both the person providing the service and the licensee, as I would like to refer to them, and the client are able to wear a face covering throughout.

ASHLEY: I think that’s a reasonable interpretation.

JAIME: It is a reasonable interpretation. And yet, because this was so hair focused, and there wasn’t much discussion about waxing, for example, we had to get clarification after the fact that this guideline does not limit body waxing, except for no facial waxing. In other words, nothing can be done on the face: so no facials, no waxing, no lashing, no makeup application, no shaving. Everything would have to be done from the neck down if it weren’t a traditional hair service, meaning hair on your head.

ASHLEY: That’s interesting. And I’m wondering why clarification was needed for what would essentially amount to esthetic services, if the guidelines were issued just for hair and barbering.

JAIME: Because of the language choice, Ashley, it all goes back to that. When you gear, the language towards the space where it’s happening, and you can’t even get that right because we don’t have separate licensing for a hair salon versus a barber shop versus a nail salon versus a spa versus a lash studio. All of those types of businesses, because they’re offering services that are licensed by the Board of Barbering and Cosmetology would hold the same license, and that license is an establishment license. So when you start addressing the industry and try to break it down by the kind of business where those services might happen, you’re always going to miss.

ASHLEY: So do you anticipate further guidelines being issued for skincare and esthetics, and then additionally, nail technicians, manicurists, et cetera?

JAIME: There will have to be additional guidelines because nails is purposely left out of this. If there was ever any intention to include them, it’s obvious that that was not the case, because they are specifically left out. And for estheticians, I feel for them because they’re straddling the ability and permission to offer waxing services from the neck down, but the rest of their work involving the face would not be allowed right now. And yet they’re arguing and rightfully so, but I could do lashes with a mask on and with my client wearing a mask. But that’s not how this is being interpreted. So this is all happening with the governor’s input, the CDPH I mentioned previously, Cal/OSHA, BBC, they’re all trying to work around each other and not using the same language is not helping. I mean, they’re all speaking English but they’re not using the same terminology and this is the guidance in English. I imagine that as it gets disseminated and gets translated into other languages, it’s just going to complicate the situation even further.

ASHLEY: It’s interesting that there’s so much variability among states when it comes to their guidelines and what we’re seeing presented as the priority. And it’s really, I think, going to be interesting for salons that are close to the border. There’s certain states where the border’s just across a river, and as the client, you have the ability to choose to maybe drive 10 minutes out of your way and be in a different state that might have a completely different guideline, whether it be more stringent or more relaxed. That’s yet another reason why it is so frustrating, especially in the US, because each state has its own licensing requirements. And now we’re seeing there’s completely wildly different requirements and guidelines being issued across state lines.

JAIME: Some of that comes from the timing of the guidelines and what we knew, or thought we knew, about how coronavirus spreads. That’s the challenge. We’re only working with the information that we have at that moment, and the governors are second guessing how much we’re willing to tolerate and adapt as business owners, service providers and clients. My sense is that not everyone’s adapting well. I think you have an example of that, Ashley.

ASHLEY: Well, I think an important part of this whole equation to consider is the client side of things, and how we’re communicating with and to our clients about the guidelines that have been issued because you know the general public is not going to be scouring these documents   the way we as beauty service providers are. I think we all have to get really used to rehearsing and having a little bit of an elevator pitch in our back pocket about discussing the amount of PPE that’s being used because, again, these are the minimum requirements. So if you choose in your business to take additional steps, that is completely up to you, but I do believe you should have a conversation with your client about it. Case in point, Missi Wimberly in Birmingham, Alabama recently tweeted that she was very thankful businesses were opening back up. And then, has a picture of a nail technician wearing a disposable mask, an apron, gloves, and then a plastic face shield. And she says, “but this is what I had to look at while I got a pedicure today. Apparently my feet are contagious?” Question Mark. “It’s almost more depressing to be in an environment where people act afraid to be touched then to stay home” and then #stopsocialdistancing. We’ve already heard some horror stories about clients refusing to wear PPE, clients invoking the ADA, as far as a reason why they don’t or shouldn’t have to wear a mask. There’s been lots of guidance given about conversations you can have about reasonable accommodation and things like that but on the client side of things, unless they understand that PPE is worn to protect them, I can see where maybe an uninformed client would take it as an affront that you somehow think they’re dirty, therefore you have to wear all of this PPE.

JAIME: Ashley, you’re being too kind. Oh, Missi, Missi, Missi. You should have stopped after the first sentence and the first sentence was, “I am so thankful businesses are opening back up.” She could have stopped there.

ASHLEY: I agree. And to say, this is what I had to look at while showing a picture of a nail technician just completely dehumanizes her. And that’s a whole other conversation, especially because the tweeter, as the client, and the service provider are of a different race.

JAIME: What Missi fails to realize, and this is common sense, the only reason she’s able to get that pedicure, because obviously we cannot avoid the distance issue as service providers, the only reason that pedicure was possible, was because that service provider was wearing PPE.

ASHLEY: It’s the only way that we can have these interactions that require us to be physically close to other people.

JAIME: So if we were to correct her tweet, we would fix it for her by deleting everything else after being grateful for opening back up. And we’d have another hashtag, perhaps more than one: #staysafe, #maintainsocialdistance, #wearPPE.

ASHLEY: If only Twitter had an edit button, but it does have a mute and a block button, which I use freely.

JAIME: Well, and Missi could have just closed her eyes.

ASHLEY: Well there was a conversation about this in a nail tech group on Facebook about whether this is fostering a relaxing environment for our clients and honestly, I don’t care if my client is relaxed during phase three. Nothing about this is relaxing. Everybody’s worried about the level of risk involved with performing a service, whether you’re giving the service or receiving the service. And so, at this point, I don’t believe relaxation should really figure into the service. If you are looking to have a pedicure the day your state opens, it’s likely a medical necessity or  you have good reason to be seeking out these types of services. I think if a client would like a relaxing service that they should either perform it themselves at home while they listen to some Enya and drink some herbal tea, or wait till phase five. It’s as simple as that. Just because you’ve made the choice as the client to leave your home doesn’t mean there isn’t risk involved for me as the service provider. 

JAIME: And Missi, we’re not people acting afraid. We’re licensees who are obligated to follow the law. So if the law states that we’re to wear PPE, that’s what we’re doing, whether you like it or not.

ASHLEY: And this is why the language being so open to interpretation is an issue, because there’s going to be people like Missi who are your clients, who are going to pressure you, and brow beat you into doing something that you know is not right, and that’s where we have to hold the line as professionals. Because it is a business. This is not RuPaul’s best friend race. We still have to honor our clients by keeping all of the clients that come after Missi just as safe. if you were to remove PPE, or allow a client to remove their PPE, you’re creating more risk for the clients that come after, and for yourself, of course. 

JAIME: You know what I’m grateful for? 

ASHLEY: What’s that?

JAIME: I’m grateful that I don’t have clients like Missi.

ASHLEY: Me too.

JAIME: And if I ever did, I could immediately nickname them Missi, and we’d all know what I was talking about.

ASHLEY: Well in better news, there’s some really cool things happening in response to some of the guidelines coming down in other states, and I wanted to share one thing that I saw that was really interesting happening in Portland, Oregon. Because a lot of these guidelines are discussing reduced capacity in salons where you can either work at about 25 or 30 or 50% of your normal capacity. There’s a hotel in downtown Portland, the Jupiter Next boutique hotel, and it is offering its 3000 square foot ballroom to be partitioned into socially-distant spaces for personal service workers to see their clients, by appointment only, free of charge until at least July 7th.

JAIME: What an incredibly generous and innovative solution. That’s awesome.

ASHLEY: And the general manager of the hotel in the interview I read, said he just wanted to bring some energy back to the hotel, and I’m sure he’ll be creating lifelong loyal guests and patrons by extending this really fantastic olive branch to the beauty industry. Again, we’ve said many times on this podcast and just personally in conversations with each other, the beauty industry remembers, and this is something given all of the ugliness that’s happened in beauty in the past month, I enjoy having a little bit of a light in all of this darkness. So great job, Jupiter Next hotel.

JAIME: And speaking of light in darkness, let’s share a testimonial that was left for us on Apple podcasts. This comes from thenailpixi. She says, “thank you guys for putting together such an informative podcast for our industry. This information has been so relevant. It couldn’t have started at a better time.”

ASHLEY: Yay. Thank you, nailpixi. If you’d like to have your review read on the podcast, you’ll need to leave one at Apple podcasts.

JAIME: As always, you can follow us in comment on recent episodes on Instagram at @outgrowthpodcast.

ASHLEY: We also have a brand new website at outgrowthpodcast.com so I encourage you to take a look and for this episode as a special bonus, there will be downloads available on our Facebook page, as well as our website for some signage that you can post with some general guidelines like masks required, et cetera.

JAIME: That should prove really useful because, we can say what’s required, but oftentimes it’s nice to have a visual backup.

ASHLEY: Definitely, and it’s going to be something that’ll be easy to print. You can just print it off of the printer in your office and don’t worry about using all of your ink, cause they’lll be light colored and easy to print either in color or black and white. As the guidelines start rolling out from each state, I know there’s going to be more confusion, lack of clarity, and frustration. So Jaime, if you can just outline who we should contact to get more clarity, if we have any questions on our state guidelines.

JAIME:  Lucky for us, the guidelines aren’t anonymous. They come from government, typically. We may not know the actual individuals responsible for writing the words, but we know what agencies they represent. So you can start by contacting the agencies responsible for the guidelines first. And as they move from the state level to your county or city level, and they may become more restrictive, that’s when you need to have the conversation with local officials. So your local health official or county supervisor would have even more information about interpretation. Don’t trust your interpretation if more than one could be had.

ASHLEY: And maybe Facebook? Not the best place to go for clarification.

JAIME: Right. Don’t believe what the guidelines say unless you see it in print from the source.  And in this case, that source is your government, whether it be at the local level or at the state level.

ASHLEY: Perfect. Well, that sounds easy enough. I’m sure it’ll be more difficult in practice, but I wouldn’t leave my business to something I heard on Facebook. I’d rather get it from the source.

JAIME: Exactly.

ASHLEY: Well, please subscribe, rate, and review Outgrowth on your favorite podcast platform. It absolutely does help us reach more listeners like you.

JAIME: I don’t know about you, Ashley, but I have some more reading to do.

ASHLEY: I agree. I just want someone to break it down for me in bullet points, but I understand these documents are complicated and they require our attention and especially our attention to detail. So until next time.

JAIME: Be smart.

ASHLEY: Stay safe. Bye.