Old barber Sarkis had one unbreakable rule that every apprentice had to learn: never rush the final customer of the day, no matter how tired you are.
He often said that the last customer might have postponed coming in for weeks, sometimes for reasons that had nothing to do with hair.
The apprentice who did not understand
One evening, a young apprentice named Ashot complained that closing late for a single customer was unfair to the employees waiting to go home.
Sarkis did not argue. He simply asked the final customer that day—a quiet, unshaven man—how his week had been.
The man’s eyes filled with tears before he could answer. It was his first haircut since his wife’s funeral, and he did not want to be hurried through it as though his presence were an inconvenience.
What Ashot never forgot
Ashot remembered that evening for years. When he eventually opened his own barbershop, he kept the same rule and passed it on to every new employee: the person sitting in the last chair before closing deserves the same attention as the first customer of the morning.
Sarkis never displayed the principle on a wall or turned it into an official policy. He simply believed that the last customer of the day should never feel like a burden.
Sometimes the patience and attention offered at the end of a long day are the most important parts of the service.