Yesterday did not exactly go as smoothly as one might have hoped, which was really a huge disappointment. I'm still struggling to wrap my head around my feelings on the day.
I'm a little nervous about what all I'm going to write because I don't want to get gossipy, but I'm trying to decide how much of this needs to be vented versus made into a bigger issue within the organization. You'll see what I mean.
If you remember the last time I worked as food supervisor, it went swimmingly. The only real problem was a lack of sterno candles, which was easily resolved.
This time, I was much better prepared and knew what to anticipate. Though I left my shopping until Saturday, I knew what I needed and was much more efficient at Jetro, Costco (using my new membership - w00t), and Fairway. I even thought ahead and hit up the dollar store for extra sternos and lidded pans after stopping by the pier to get platters and say hi to the Saturday food people. (And I paid the key-lime pie guy, finally!)
Cooking went fine enough, and I made things a lot easier on myself this time by either preparing things at the pier on Sunday or purchasing more pre-made items. I had my menu, I was mostly within budget (he gave me $100 this time and said if I had to go over, try to keep it to around $125 - I spent $128), I was looking forward to it.
I woke up Sunday morning cranky and with a crushing headache. I had to run to the store first thing to get some last-minute ingredients that I thought I had on hand and didn't, but it wasn't a big deal. I got to the pier exactly on time, but found the gate was locked so I couldn't park my car close to the building. No big deal, I double-parked outside and headed around to see if they'd opened up yet.
And here is where the day started going downhill...
I didn't mention it, but last time there was one woman among the sea of compliments and consideration who was intensely rude. It didn't really register because she seemed so completely unaware that she was insulting me - she kept saying things like, "It's too bad they couldn't get that gal from last week to do the food again - hers was really great!" and on her fourth plateful of sausage and peppers, "This is good, but I have a friend who makes it much better." That kind of backhanded insult to one person by way of complimenting another (who isn't there) really bugs me because it's that touchy kind of passive-aggressiveness where you really can't be sure if they're trying to do it or they're just that oblivious to basic etiquette and politeness.
So as I'm introducing myself to the others, up strolls Madame Backhand herself, and I was appalled. I had thought she was just an exceptionally rude show attendee, not a part of our organization! As it turns out, she had wandered by the pier when she was around checking out the new Fairway because, as she said, "I like to check out new grocery stores." She's not an artist, but she liked the organization, so she asked if she could volunteer and help out at the shows. I thought that was a pretty decent thing to do, so I was ready to forgive her rudeness at the last show and give her a fresh shot.
As we continued waiting for whoever was late in opening the doors, I decided to move my car and wheel all the food down the street in my grocery cart. People helped me carry stuff up the stairs, and I thought "Okay, off to a good start." I repeatedly introduced myself to my staff, who kept asking if I was Elizabeth, as they'd be informed that was the name of their food supervisor. I said no, and several times said that I was in fact the supervisor, having just spent my whole weekend organizing and preparing the menu and lugging all this stuff up the stairs. From the beginning, they seemed reluctant to recognize that yeah, I'm in charge.
And also, I know it's petty, but for the second time they didn't have a name badge for me. They had a Vanessa and a Valerie, but no Vicki's or Victoria's to be found. Both times I did this, I committed weeks in advance and have never changed my schedule - one would think I could get a lousy tag. Even the president's dog gets a badge sometimes, so really, what gives?!
I had two staff members, one of whom was a lovely woman I've met before and really like - she was full of fascinating stories about a recent trip and great conversation all day. The other was a little strange, seeming mainly concerned with parking himself at the bar and ranting to his friends about upcoming opportunities and how much his career was taking off lately.
I assumed he would not be overwhelmingly helpful, and I was mostly right. He wandered off a few times during the course of the day and ignored guests occasionally if he was in the middle of talking to someone else, but he was nice enough to me and didn't complain. Fine, not everyone excels at hospitality, and the other woman was incredibly helpful and friendly, so no skin off my back.
I got everything set up, and it looked great. People started in on the compliments, which yes, I live for, and I patted myself on the back for not stressing out and getting it all together rather effortlessly.
Then weird stuff started happening.
You remember Madame Backhand? Yeah, I don't know what she was supposed to be doing, but she spent more time over at the kitchen than anywhere else. I figured she was friends with my staff, as she seemed to be chatting amicably all day. Yes, they got into a lengthy debate about abortion, as well as a perhaps too-charged discussion about Red Hook and whether or not the people who vandalized one of the Yale students' presentations (a whole other drama) were making a protest or being destructive. People came up during the morning going on and on about the person who'd stood up and shouted down one of the students before she even gave her talk, and I thought about how obnoxious it is when ignorant people misconstrue a situation (thinking that proposed development plans were actually going to be implemented instead of presented as a hypothetical architecture project for grad school kids) and make a big embarrassing scene about it.
Ha, if only I knew what was to come.
I got busy maintaining the trays of food and chatting with people, encouraged again by their generous donations, talking up the organization and giving information about becoming a member, telling them about the upcoming show, etc. Eric came by and we had a nice visit, and I thought once again that it was going very well.
As the afternoon wore on I noticed that more and more people were taking the other kitchen woman's time up gossiping. Basically, there is this one artist who has two teenage kids that are perhaps a little too comfortable at the pier. A lot of people feel they are not welcome and both suspect and accuse them of everything from being unappreciative of art to damaging work, eating too much food, and stealing money. The last time I supervised, I got really pissed off at one of my staff because she yelled at the boy for throwing away his first plate then taking a second (which plenty of other people did), then made a lot of nasty comments to him about how "this isn't a soup kitchen" and "we're not here to feed the neighborhood."
Apparently a lot of people are deeply "concerned" about these kids and spent the whole day voicing their opinions about what should be done and who should tell whom they're not allowed to come and whether or not their father should be asked to leave the organization because he seems unable to control his kids. It was getting annoying even to me because really, they were acting like crazy old biddies, and racist ones at that. I nearly slapped Madame Backhand when she said a little too loudly, "Well really all black kids are thugs and thiefs if you don't stop them, we know that."
When there was about an hour and a half left to the day, I was getting pretty sick of everyone talking all day about these kids, and evidently I wasn't alone in it.
After a totally unrelated comment about restaurant food, the guy on my staff absolutely blew up at Madame Backhand. Like, crazy man pointing and hollering and dropping F-bombs kind of blow up. I was horrified and trying to defuse things to get them down to a reasonable volume, but M.B. found herself a live one and did everything she could to provoke him into a screaming argument.
People were starting to notice.
After she said "I really think there's something wrong with you, you must have a mental problem," she continued to say, "What do you have against me anyway? I was just talking," at which point he went into a tirade about how yes, she's been here talking, all day, instead of doing her work, and in the process, she's been insulting the shit out of a very good friend of his and his children. It came out that while he was talking to the kid at the bar, M.B. came over and said loudly, "Make sure you watch that he doesn't steal from the donations bin" right in front of the kid, among other things.
Understandably, he was upset and had had it with this busybody trashing these kids and acting like an ignorant racist. Frankly, I had too. But he was yelling at the top of his lungs and making an enormous scene which was getting really ugly really fast. No one listened to me or the other woman or anyone else when we tried to get them to calm down. Eventually guests of the show came over and asked them to be quiet, saying they were ruining their experience of the art. I saw heads poking out of all the aisles with concerned looks, thinking "What psychos are causing all this drama?" You can imagine how startled they were when they saw Staff badges around these people's necks.
I was absolutely mortified and ashamed to be associated with these people and the damage they were doing to our organization's reputation. What's more, they just would not stop. Literally, they stood there shouting for over a half hour having the most absurd, childish bicker I've seen in years. Cussing and screaming and hurling around accusations and flatly racist remarks, it was completely out of control and no one was doing anything about it. I thought about throwing things at them, but instead started apologizing to the people who were at the counter, including the black couple with infant who got to hear the "All black kids are thugs and thiefs" argument several times in a row.
One of the particularly angry guests came over and insisted that the guy "can it" because he'd disturbed everyone in the show (which is true) and he had had enough. Then the two psycho staff members got into it with this guy and his wife and several more people joined into the fray, and it just got ridiculous. As I watched in horror, I saw a stream of people rushing out the door to get the hell away, and all I could think about was what amazing word-of-mouth damage was going to go down.
As anyone who's ever worked in retail or customer service knows, no one listens even one-tenth as closely to the rave reviews of something as the stories of how terrible something was. Maybe if the guests went home and told people "I went to this great art show at the pier, it was so wonderful, you should come to the next one," their friends would glaze over and say "Oh that does sound nice" or have some other neutral reaction. But you can bet they're going to be appalled when they hear about the grotesquely unprofessional screaming match that errupted and the ridiculous scene their friends endured, as well as make sure they don't go support these psychos at their crazy-fest. When people have a negative experience, they tell everyone they know, and there is just no way to recover the scores of people put-off by that kind of negative publicity.
But also? I gave my entire weekend to these people, and now I'm ashamed to have been associated with them. And furious that it was such an awful hostile scene for everyone there after I had worked so hard to make it a hospitable and pleasant environment.
That is not all, though. After ruining the show (literally, the place emptied out and the ones who stayed were thoroughly disturbed), these two just couldn't leave it alone. Someone from the site supervisor area (I still don't know why no one intervened sooner) came over and acted as a moderator 45 min after the fight started, and eventually the two agreed to just stay away from one another the rest of the day.
But no, they kept it going. They wandered around chattering to anyone who would listen, trying to convince themselves and everyone else that they were right, as if it even matters, because damn it, are they really so socially retarded they don't recognize that they just mortified us all and irreparably tarnished our reputation?! They both had the nerve to come up and rant to me, no matter how much they wouldn't listen to me in the beginning when I insisted they quiet down, take it outside, etc.
Finally, for once in my life, I had it and just blatantly said exactly what was on my mind, telling them both how obscenely inappropriate their behavior was and how appalled I was at their actions and continuing atrocious manners. I told them both off in the most level, even tone I could muster, then asked them to get away from me and, to the guy on my staff, please go home. Of course it didn't register with either of them and not only did they not shut up and go away, they kept on pestering me right until the end.
Madame Backhand even had the mystifying lack of awareness to follow me to my car and ask for a ride to the subway. I restrained myself and instead of backhanding her and saying "Oh hell no," muttered, "actually I drive straight to the BQE from here and there aren't really any subways on my way." Why the hell was I wasting manners on someone so dense? Why didn't I throw things? Why was I crying on the way home because somehow I thought it was all my fault or that I had an intense character flaw which made no one respect my role as supervisor from the get-go?
Times like these really make me agree with Sartre - hell is other people, especially when they act so inhuman and despicable.
I haven't decided if I'm going to stay on with BWAC or not and what (if anything) I'm going to say about it all to the president.
Ugh, what an ordeal.
For someone as generally haircut-reluctant as myself, I realize I'm hardly in a position to complain that Eric goes so long between cuts (or that his last one came from his mom). However, wouldn't he look gorgeous with his hair like this? Costnerlicious... no no, costnacular. Hehehe.
It occurred to me the other day, as I realized our second "anniversary" is coming up (do you have anniversaries when you're dating? my first boyfriend celebrated monthiversaries and I thought he was kinda insane for that), that I've known Eric for seven years. I met him in 1999, when I was 17 and a freshman at Trinity. He was in my first drawing class, and he had this delicious vaguely British ex-pat's accent. He pronounced gestures with a hard G ("guess-tures") and was adorably enthusiastic.
It took me oh, two years, to get over being so awkward and nervous around him that we could actually consider one another friends, and by my junior year, he was far and away my best friend, which he's remained since then. I think Eric's love for Smokey played no small part in his regular presence around my room.
In 2003 I moved to Brooklyn and was feeling incredibly detached and disconnected from all my friends and social life. Eric was one of the few people who regularly came down to visit, and we IMed each other more or less all the time. I was in a pretty messy relationship and while cynically dealing with its aftermath, I found that the times I most looked forward to were visits with Eric - going to museums or galleries, driving around and having death flashes, hanging out on my fire escape, getting blitzed at random Mexican restaurants near Union Square (which we've never been able to find since), and generally enjoying being in the city with my best friend.
I asked him to be my date to our friends Kari & Eric's wedding, and he cheerily accepted. I don't think I'd seen him in a suit before that and was stricken with how handsome he was (something you don't usually notice about platonic friends). While slow-dancing, I found my cheek brushed up against his and being held in the improbable expanse of his shoulders, I felt that suddenly everything in the world was right. It's a terrible cliche, but being in such an intimate proximity with someone so right, I finally felt at home.
After the wedding we drove back to my parents' house, and it was a chilly night so I brought a big comforter out to the hammock, where we laid under the stars giggling and talking. One of my fondest mental images of Eric is from that night, with moonlight glinting off his eyes and teeth, grinning ear to ear.
