Last year, I had finally found a barber who gave me two decent cuts in a row. When I asked him for something more specific than "short on the sides" the third time, though, he deliberately botched it worse each time I tried to make the directions more specific. I wound up going to a new shop the next day to get it fixed up, and there was a new guy there who did a wonderful fix-up job and left me with a somewhat odd partly-flat-top cut that I liked a lot. I went back there the next month, and the owner said he had fired the new guy after the first day and he could fix up that crappy cut for me. 

I should have known to get up out of the chair as soon as he said that, but he whacked off my bangs before I had a chance and it was too late. He gave me the typical roundheaded Italian shapeless not-quite-Caesar cut, which was more than a little stupid-looking on my Dutch-looking face with a big cowlick in the front. I should have told him as soon as he made the first snip that as long as it was that short he might as well just make it a flattop, but instead I just told myself it'd grow out to something manageable in a month and I'd just live with it till then.