On the Job

I have posted before about the weird job titles I see on employment websites.  This week I saw one of the best ever:  Event Coordinator for the Edge of Chaos. 

Doesn't that sound cool?  It actually looks like a job only a Q would be qualified for, but still, the mind boggles.  Of course, the description was much more mundane and involved budgeting and Excel spreadsheets and boring shit of that nature. But props for creativity in the title.

 

Also, this week  one of my friends posted on the FB what his dream job would be.  I used to say that my dream job would be working in a repertory company, but I kind of feel right now that I am, doing three shows in a row. 

 

I think I have gone past the age of having a dream job.  I'll have to keep working till I drop dead, no retirement for me, but I'm okay with slogging away at an 8:00-5:00.  I am pretty content with my life as it is now and the idea of having a job that I actually care about makes me feel weary.  I only have so much emotional energy and that is currently being taken up by kids, friends, cats and theatre.  It's rather relaxing to come to a stuffy, pretentious office everyday and not give a flying fuck.  Also, I can learn lines.

 

I hate to pay the shoulda-woulda-coulda game, but I suppose if I had thought it through when I was younger (something I'm still not very good at doing) I might have chosen something that would have put me on a "career path".  But I am so much more of a "close-my-eyes-and-see-where-today-leads-me path" type of gal, I can't imagine I ever would have been successful at the aforementioned hypothetical career.  

 

Although, if I were a member of the Q Continuim, I would definitely apply to be the Event Coordinator for the Edge of Chaos. 



Career Ghouls

Once upon a time, I thought I needed a career change, so I decided to sell real estate.  I did not think this through.  (If I could Not Think Things Through for a living I'd be a millionaire, I'm very good at it.)  So I went to school at night and passed the test the first time (Yay!) and joined a local real estate firm. The open houses on Tuesday were lots of fun.  You got to walk through a bunch of houses that had just been listed.  Although, truthfully, after you had gone through 4 or 5  Mt. Brook houses, they all started to look alike.  Which is probably a quasi-racist statement, but nonetheless true. 

 

I soon discovered that I hate selling things.  Again, if I had Thought Things Through before I started this quest, I would have realized that already.  When I go in a store, I hate  salespeople to come up to me.  I actually hate people anywhere to come up to me.  It makes me anxious and I start assuming I've done something wrong, because that tends to be my fallback position in life.  I apologize for everything and to everything.  If I bump into a chair, I apologize to it.  Sometimes, the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is yell, "I'm sorry" to the empty apartment.   I'm a firm believer in being proactive. 

 

Anyroad, miracle of miracles, I did sell one house.  But I felt guilty (my second fallback position) for selling it to the couple because although the owner fixed some water damage, I knew they were in for more, having owned a house that fell apart from water damage.  I had no hard evidence that this would happen, just a general feeling that it probably would.  I really wanted to say something to them, because I have this thing about being honest.  Call me crazy.  But my supervisor said that legally I couldn't advise clients based on my Irish Sense of Foreboding,  so I got through closing, handed the poor young fools their keys and said, "Sorry."

 

My real estate "career" lasted about six months, the last two of which I spent mostly in tears and tummy pains.  My then-husband was not teaching that summer and we decided to take an extended cross-country family road trip, so I took that opportunity to quit real estate.  I also made my children swear a solemn vow that if I ever talked about going into sales again, they were to take me out to the back yard and shoot me.  They could bury me between the cat and the guinea pig. 

 

I guess I tried sales in the first place because I vaguely thought if I could get on stage and convince an audience I'm someone I'm not, I could convince people to buy things they don't need.   One of these things is not like the other.  Besides, and I swear this is the last time I'll say this-- AGAIN, if I had Thought Things Through, I would remember the fact that I am, like many actors, an intense introvert.  People scare the crap out of me, cause they talk to you and stuff, and expect you to talk to them back.  Don't they know I'll say the wrong thing?  Why do they put me through such torture??  In sort of the words of that Senator that finally brought down Joe McCarthy, have they no shame???  No, they don't.  They're people.   And people are scary.  Yeah, sales is a bad idea for me.

 

Unless I could sell to animals.  Or chairs.  As long as I don't bump into them.

 

Sorry.

A Shortie with Bizarre Wizard of Oz References

One of the many ways I while away the hours (other than conferring with the flowers, of course) is to look at employment websites.  Because I am SURE that one day I will see a job posting for a hot, 60's+ actress in Birmingham with a starting salary of $60,000.  But in the meantime, I get a kick out of some of the job titles that are listed.  Below are a few of today's favorites, followed by my commentary.

 

 

Fulfillment Technician - Duh, that's a hooker.

 

Lay Away Runner - They escort the client out after the Fulfillment Technician is done.

 

Nightlife Brand Ambassador - I could *so* do this, as long as the Nightlife Brand was Rojo.

 

Hardlines Merchandiser - John Boehner.

 

Entry Level Pharmaceutical Sales Rep- I have many friends who already do this.

Fireman & Oiler - This is code for the Personal Assistants to the Scarecrow and the Tin Man.

 

 

 

 



Yet Another Continuation of Today's Posts

Okay, I'm just going to ignore the blatant, idiotic racism of my co-worker's statement this morning.  It's not worth dignifying with my typage.

 

But I would like to address the issue of her being scared someone is going to hide behind the foot-wide metal posts and leap out and mug her.  At 4:45 in the afternoon.  I have another co-worker who walks all the way down to Boutwell at 4:30 and moves her car to the parking lot in my building, because after 4:30, you can park here for free.  She does this because (she says) when she leaves work at 6:00, there are evil, menacing crackheads lurking in Linn Park, ready to pounce on her.

 

Yes, I have seen homeless people in Linn Park (black and white).  Sometimes they say hello to me.  I say hello back.  Sometimes they ask me for a cigarette.  I give them one.  

 

When I go to hang  out with friends, I go wherever I'm going by myself and leave wherever I've been by myself. Most of these locations are downtown or Southside.  The leaving part often happens at a late hour. At least later than 4:45 or 6:00 p.m. Sometimes, I have friends who walk me, but a lot of the time, I hoof it solo.  And I'm not quaking in my boots, or looking around nervously, I'm just walkingthefucktomycar. 

 

So, newsflash, lady who feels inconvenienced by the memorials of the Civil Rights Movement.  Your racism ends up scaring the shit out of yourself, nobody else.  You think that every black person on the street is "out to get you" because of your antique, racist attitude, not because it's true.  I am proud of Birmingham for honoring Fred Shuttlesworth with these markers by Linn Park.  I am proud of our city for acknowledging our shameful past and celebrating how far we have advanced.

 

Although, obviously, as Little White Scaredy Pants has shown us, we have a long way to go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*insert clever title here*

 

Well, it's Friday afternoon, which means I have reached my Maximum Level of Boredom Tolerance.  So, even though I don't have anything particularly profound to say, I thought I'd get my blog on and do another one of my useless but supposedly charming lists. 

 

The topic for today is:

                                                Things That Annoy/Delight Me

 

I'm kinda going for a ying/yang thing here; for every annoyance, I hope to provide a suitable delight.  I'm not real optimistic about being able to do this for every item, but here goes....

 

I am annoyed by the overwhelming trend of young girls (say, 14-25) to talk in this airheadish, nasally twang, with all of their sentences ending in an upward inflection.  It doesn't matter what region of the country they come from and maybe the media just goes out of its way to pick idiots for soundbites, but it seems to be an epidemic.  These young women could be candidates for the Noble Prize in Physics but when they open their mouths I assume they have the IQ of a Schnauzer.  (No offense to Schnauzers.)

 

I am delighted by the number of enlightened, intelligent young people going to/appreciating live theatre.  Let's make *this* an epidemic. 

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I am annoyed by the absurd political polarization in this country.  I get the feeling I'm not alone in feeling this, and yet no one seems capable of doing anything about it.  The public opinion of Congress has been nosediving for years, it's become a national joke.  Except that we're all paying these assholes' salaries, which is not funny.  If you were paying someone to clean your house (This is one of my dreams, by the way.  I wish I had enough money to pay someone to clean my apartment every couple of weeks.  I bet those fucking Congressmen have people cleaning their houses....) and after a while, instead of cleaning your house, the CP (Cleaning Person) made your house messier, and never took responsibility for it, and kept blaming the cat, you would fire the cleaning person. I realize that government is much more complicated that house cleaning (not to me, housecleaning is advanced calculus to me) but maybe we could hire someone to make it less complicated and hateful.

 

I enjoy visiting our Nation's Capital because the buildings are pretty and my children live there and I love them.  Sorry, that's the best delight I could counter with.

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I am annoyed that science hasn't made our lives all unicorns and rainbows by now.  Over 40 years ago we managed to put people on the moon and bring them back; proving something important, we haven't figured out what yet.  You can't even boast that the space program gave us Tang anymore, because who the fuck drinks Tang?  Anyroad, if we can do that, why are we still working crappy jobs for not enough money?  Where are the moving sidewalks and disposable clothes and flying cars I was promised in my youth? Why does time still move ten times slower on Friday afternoons?   How are we supposed to make it to the 24th Century where hot starship captains tell us there is no need for currency if it costs $300 to get an iPhone in the 21st Century?  Why is no one working on this???? 

 

I found the Apollo 13 movie with Tom Hanks delightful. 

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Okay, this isn't going very well.  I apologize for the increasing rantiness of this blog.  I really do have many delightful times and find a bunch of things delightful, but I guess my delight biorhythms are pretty low on Friday afternoons.  I'll try again Saturday night at 12:30.  I'm usually pretty delightful by then.

 

 



Working Through It

So I have already posted this morning about having to deal with a bunch of attorneys who don't realize that "second floor" means "two".  Or how to get from the seventh floor to the second.  These are attorneys.  Not cats, ATTORNEYS. 

 

But the following is my favorite part of the morning. 

 

We have two Major Asshole Attorneys.  Neither of whom use voicemail.  If someone calls them and they aren't here, I have to take a message and email them.  Okay, maybe there's some legal reason for this, whatever, I do little enough at my job, I can handle that. 

 

One of the MAA's calls this morning.  I can tell it's him, because my phone screen tells me it is, but I pretend I don't know it's him, because I like to create the illusion of having no contact with him.  He asks to speak with one of the attorneys who's not in yet.  So I say, "I'm sorry, he's not in yet, would you like to leave a message on his voicemail?"  My logic behind this is twofold:

 

1.  I'm still trying to pretend I don't know it's him; and

 

B.  While I know he doesn't like to use voicemail to retrieve messages, I thought he might not be averse to leaving voicemail messages for others.  In other words, he's not a Catcher, but  maybe he is a Pitcher.  And, yes, I just equated using voicemail to gay sex. 

 

Anyroad, I ask him this, and my query is met with a Haughty Silence, followed by him saying, "This is Mr. Asshole *not his real name* and I choose not to participate."  I wanted desperately to finish his sentence with "in the 21st century.", but I didn't.  Cause my kitties need food.  And Momma needs beer.

 

Like right now.

Theatre History (Debstyle)

Tomorrow is the birthday of the man who got me hooked on theatre.  Every year when his birthday rolls around, I get to reminiscing about those early days.  I remember it like it was yesterday...yesterday...yesterday.......

 

When I was fifteen years old, my best friend and I were obsessed with the Beatles and anything remotely related to them.  Barb (my BF)  had moved to Philadelphia but we still sent numerous letters to each other every month with any Beatlesque tidbit we could find.  My mom and I went to Philly to visit Barb and her mom and we found out that Jane Asher (who was then Paul McCartney's girlfriend) was playing Juliet  (Name That Play!) in the Old Vic touring company that was in NYC, just an hour trainride away.  Now, I was expecting to get all giddy when I saw Jane Asher step on stage, and I was, sorta, but I was not prepared to be totally blown away by the play itself.  And all those people on the stage doing said play. It was like eating chocolate, and having sex, and drinking beer and giving birth and..well, you get the idea.  Pretty fucking awesome.  I turned to Barb after it  was over and said, "That's what I want to do." 

 

My mother was not exactly thrilled with the news.  She had always envisioned me as a sort of Eleanor Rigby Librarian, tucked back in a corner, wearing my face that I keep in a jar by the door kind of thing.  Sound like me?  Yeah.  There's a reason I've gone through therapy.  ANYROAD.....

 

At that time, my mother's favorite person in the universe, her brother (he was always her favorite person in the universe, not just at that time), was engaged  and Ma was all about impressing Uncle Paul's fiance, Marie.  My mother was dead set against me doing anything about my theatre leanings, when Marie said she thought it would be a good idea if I took acting lessons and she heard they gave them at the Pittsburgh Playhouse on Saturday mornings and they weren't very expensive.  (Pause for a Hallelujah Chorus to my Aunt Marie.)

 

Side note:  The reason my mother was vehemently against me having a Life in the Theatre was because she was convinced that actresses were really whores.  I only wish I had have half the sex my mother thought I would have had by now.  Frowny Face.

 

So, I took a 10:00 a.m. acting class at the Pittsburgh Playhouse.  My teacher was Thom Thomas.  And my life changed forever.

 

The first thing he had me do was Amanda Wingfield's monologue from "Glass Menagerie".  I loved it.  And never looked back.  Well, I did for a little while, but that's beside the point.

 

During the course of the course, Thom announced that he and his partner were starting a summer theatre that summer and they needed apprentices, who would do tech work but also get a chance to act.  I somehow convinced my parents that this was a good thing (I may or may not have played the Aunt Marie card)  and I spent the next seven summers working at Odd Chair Playhouse.  It was magical.

 

Thom taught theatre at Point Park College and I refused to apply to any school other than Point Park.  That was a fun fight (and Ma and I had a bunch of them),  but I won and got in and continued to be in awe of Thom and theatre.  Until the morning I  looked back and got scared and left for 26 years. 

 

But, still, I came back and don't intend to leave again until they carry me offstage feet first. (Exit stage right, please.)  And I owe it all to Thom Thomas.  So thank you, dear friend, and a very happy birthday.