I know this is an old post but... may I ask where you work, if this hasn't been solved already? IWhen I was first out of school I worked at a supercuts, great place for someone outta school wanting a steady job, I moved up to management within 3 months, not because of my wonderful experience just outta school but, because I was the only one left in the store that could be trusted with money, and a key! Sad!
I have found that the chain stores in my personal experience, chains, just use people like warm bodies to fill the chairs, pay you an ok hourly salary but expect way too much in the form of productions. So say if you are making $8.00 which is what I did then, you do 4 haircuts an hour even 3 they have made depending on the cost of a average $12 haircut they make appx. alot of money off you. And they wonder why people walk out on them. The stylist feels why should I work my a** off for this amount when I can work here for X amount. Or I have seen this one before...
I worked a mall chain very trendy cute alternative one called mia and maxx...they give you 40% comm, or min wage, $5.15 an hr which ever greater. So then they hire like 2 people for evey station and have overlapped schedules, then they work like 7-8 girls at a time all depending on walkins. So you only are able to do say 2 haircuts for that day...rotation thru 8 girls taking turns, you have done $50 bucks, but remember you only make 40% of that $50. So if your books are only semi full you average say $50 a day you'd be better off with the $5.15 you'd make more off that $5.15 in a 40 hour work week. So at that place you'd be better off sitting on your stuff than doing anything!
So the point is, if I have one, to my stories is this is a hard business and really when you decide to leave a job the grass is only sometimes greener on the other side, and two do the math it is $$$$ in you wallet. And three only a small percentage of people get rich in this multifacted business. I guess I am jaded now. But I have worked in many avenues to this business in my 9 years in it so I finally opened my own shop. Which is even harder. Good luck!