Three months later, and in a whole new area, I decided to try the same department chain's salon in the community I'm now near. The person doing my hair claimed they'd been doing hair for 2 years and I thought, hmm, my style is simple, they can't screw it up. WRONG!!!! How one can botch a long layer bob which is tapered in the front is beyond me. I phoned the next morning to express my displeasure and was thrilled (not) to have to speak with the person who had botched things. They felt they did their best and said I should come in for their manager to fix the cut (that would be 2 more days as it's now the manager's days off).
Instead I went to a whole different salon, explaining what happened and was treated like royalty. The stylist at the new salon treated me so nicely and did a spectacular job on fixing the mess without losing any more length in the process.
So what have I learned? Well, I can either let my hair grow out and never get it cut again, I could go for a shaved head and not worry about hair dressers, or I can make sure I don't let them do a botch job again. I'd do that by keeping the overall length longer until I see how they do the cut. If it's being handled right, I can quickly ask for an extra 1/2 inch of length to be removed. If it's not going well, I'm going to stop their work and demand a more experienced person.
Oh, and I'll invest in some more hats.
