A barber named Franz Jakob has a shop in Western Quebec. He’s been garnering a lot of attention for being extra kind and compassionate toward one of his young customers.
Wyatt Lafreniere is just 7-years-old, and he has autism; he and his mom visited Jakob’s shop, called Authentischen Barbier, for a haircut. Wyatt doesn’t like sitting still, so, sitting in a barber’s chair for an extended period just wasn’t very feasible.
Since Wyatt isn’t very good at sitting still, he proceeded to lie on the ground. A photo of Jakob lying next to the boy while cutting his hair has gone viral.
“I’m just following what the clients want,” Jakob told CTV News. “It’s normal for me to go the extra mile for my client.”
“He just decided to go on the floor, so I followed him,” he added.
Now that hundreds of thousands of people have seen Jakob’s photo, they are hailing him as a hero. However, he doesn’t think of himself that way. Jakob has several customers with special needs; he understands that he’ll need to put in a bit more time to make sure he gets the job done.
“I think I’m easy-going with them,” Jacob said. “When those kids come here, they always stay quiet and they don’t scream and there’s no tears.”
Jakob thinks the reason why clients with special needs come to him, is because of the fun atmosphere; he plays music during haircuts and has entertaining posters on the wall. Oh, he also has candy.
Jakob’s post reads:
“My barbershop is located in an old mining town called Rouyn-Noranda in northen Canada. I opened here because there were no other barbershops, only hair salons, which is something completely different. Wyatt showed up with his mother during the first week I was open. He was my first child who had special needs. I figured out how to work with him by getting down to his level. These moments are very special for me. I’m taking great pride barbering here and my community is amazingly supportive towards my shop. People drive up to 4 hours to get a haircut. We usually start by having a candy together and we walk around the shop looking at everything on the walls. The shop is packed with gifts from clients. We can also put some music on vinyl during the haircut. I’m never typically driving the haircut, I simply follow the lead of the child. It takes me more than an hour to finish with a special needs child. It is worth every minute.”
The full Facebook post is below. It’s clear to see by the comments that Jakob is making a big difference in these’s people’s lives.
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