When you start a small business, there are a lot of upfront costs. You need to pay for all of the equipment you need, and obviously your time and advertising costs are not free either.
In today’s story, a woman starts a business doing manicures. The problem is one of her friends didn’t realize that she expected her to pay for the manicure.
Let’s find out why her friend thinks the manicure should be free.
For some background I (21F) am currently a student but I also work part time to help me pay rent, groceries and school.
I do not make a lot, so I am frugal with my purchases.
I have this school friend (21F) who I will refer to as Eva who is also in school with me, but she does not work.
She purchased the tools to do nails and invited me over to do them one time and so she did, everything was great and we had a fun time.
Her friend decided to turn doing nails into a business.
A few weeks go by and she askes me if I think she should start advertising her services to make a little extra money.
I encouraged her because I did think it would be a nice way for her to make money as she does not work.
So she started to purchase all the extra tools you need like more colors, nail tips, a drill and charms.
I thought it was very sweet, and she had very low prices which was reasonable as she is not licensed and does not have much experience.
Her friend wants to do her nails again.
She ended up getting some traction from some mutual friends of ours, friends on her sport team, and friends from other groups she was apart of.
One day she messaged me asking me if i liked the French tip styled nails, and I said yes, so she asked me if I would be down to meet up after our break and she does my nails for she can practice doing them and start offering this service.
I agreed as I thought it would be a win for me, as I do not mind the imperfectness of the nails.
She only says “yes” to help her friend.
I do not ever get my nails done though! So this is rare.
I do not get them because I am frugal with my money on things I do not deem necessary.
I also have a hard time typing with them and I am an anxious person so I rip or bite them off and so it is a waste all around.
I do not have the budget for these as cheap as they are. So the only reason I did agree was that I was doing her a service and they were free.
Her friend expected her to pay!
So we agreed to do them Tuesday, but on Friday night I see that she posted an update to her Instagram that said she was upping her prices by $30.
I did not think much as I was not paying.
Well, Tuesday came around and we end up doing the nails which took a few hours as she was trying to be preside.
At the end of it I was packing up and she asked if I wanted to pay with cash or a phone app payment.
She was shocked at how much her friend wanted her to pay.
I was honest and said I thought that they were going to be free as she was practicing on me and reached out to me as she knows I do not get my nails done often.
She said that her equipment coasted a lot and so she needed to charge me because I used so much of her stuff.
We went back and forth for a bit and I agreed to pay her, but then she told me my total would be $110!! Without tip and made a comment that the tip could be small.
Her friend called her “entitled.”
I told her I would rather she cut all my nails off instead of me paying as she knows I am struggling with my bills.
She did not seemed phased by this and told me I do not have to tip if want to act entitled .
I ended up leaving and she had not spoken to me in days.
So AITA?
Her friend needed to make it clear that this was not a favor but a service she expected to be paid for BEFORE doing her friend’s nails. The way she worded it indeed made it sound like she needed a guinea pig to practice on not like a paid service.
Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…
Her prices are too high.
Her friend is not being reasonable.
You don’t pay to be a guinea pig.
It’s a bait and switch situation.
They need to talk this out, or the friendship might be over.
It sounds like the favor was actually a trick.
If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.
