Oh no hun!! If you had done it yourself you would have definitely saved 4-5 inches. So sorry this happened. You have every right to feel very upset.
I know a lot of people keep asking, "Why did you pay! Why did you let them do that!?" I can't answer for you, but I know my own personality and frankly I am not the most assertive person around aggressive people. I have learned that if I can't beat 'em, I'm keeping them the hell away from me. This is the kind of environment I have experienced in many salons from childhood. The stylists often tell YOU they know what they're doing, are super aggressive, and want to tell YOU how to manage your hair and what it needs. In a salon when you are sitting there in a position of vulnerability, you often can't walk out with jacked up hair, and when you complain they get offended and act even more rough on your hair.... So I would often just sit there and they do a botched up job. I don't like having to be in a combative mode when I am getting my hair done. I have all but sworn off salons for this very reason.
I know not all stylists are the same, but finding good stylists who care about your hair growth is VERY RARE. I would just rather do it myself. When I was younger, my hair was natural and my mother had all the right steps - the moisturizing, the frequent washing, she kept our hair in cornrows constantly, she made sure it was deep-conditioned. But she took us to a salon to get it done, and they were ROUGH ROUGH ROUGH on our hair. I had a big old bushel of hair when I was five, yet it never grew past shoulder length despite all these years of being pure natural. This was because of the incredibly brutal way they treated my hair at the salons. Rough brushing, hardly any detangling, ripping out knots... they really don't care about retaining length. Many of these hair stylists think that if your hair is "sleek and bouncy" at the end of the day, who cares how much they had to rip out to get it there.... They think they did a "good job".
In sum, there is NO need to treat hair that roughly. AA hair is not unmanageable! Everytime I went to a salon it was like they were in a circus trying to tame a beast. Don't even get me started on the so called "trims" they gave where they chop off incredible lengths of hair. No WONDER people think black hair doesn't grow!
I won't get into the personal motivations for why so many stylists handle black hair this way. Some would say ignorance. Others say jealousy, others say lack of time..... Who knows? All i know is that I am staying away from hair salons and managing my own hair. And since I have been doing that, my hair has never looked better!!!!!!!
They really should have let you make the decision on a cut like that. AND, they should have detangled better before conditioning and washing the tangles in. They know better! 
perplexed
erplexed
