Friday night's show was a success. I wasn't sure who was going to come, but when the place began to fill up with friends from Mass and NH, I was overjoyed. I hadn't seen many of them for months and the fact that they came to support Sean and me meant a lot.
Sean went on first and played a great set, despite the occasional howling of a blender making smoothies that did its best to draw attention to itself. I've always been a big fan of his songs and sharing a bill with him was an honor. I look forward to September, when we'll be playing together again.
My set went well. I love playing out and when it's in front of friends, it's even better. I didn't screw up as much as I thought I was going to. I say this because I was playing a lot of new material, some of which I had only finished writing the lyrics to the night before. My guitar playing and vocals were in fine form and the only mishap was leaving my set list in the car. If future shows go half as well as this one, I'll consider myself lucky.
After my last song, the staff kicked us all out so they could close. A group of us went over to the Blue Shamrock for some drinks and after one, I went home to sleep because I had to get up at six for work on Saturday.
I'm eager to play out as much as I can. I love the idea of playing out with friends and I've been talking to Foley, the guys in NSI, Chrissy, and Leesa about booking some shows. And maybe, just maybe, I'll actually get paid for once. That would be something.
--
Friday was one of the most taxing days I've ever had at work and I found it bitterly ironic that it had to happen the day of my show. It was so bad that it was possible I was going to miss it, or at the very least, get there extremely late. Fortunately, I made it on time, but it was too close for comfort.
We had a big job in Weston that required me to be there to help my guys set up tents. A few of the guys arrived at the job first thing in the morning and I got there with Al around eleven. We had to put up a 20 x 3o and a 30 x 50 frame tent, in addition to a Moon Bounce and chairs and tables, for a back yard party that some filthy rich surgeon was having in his back yard.
It was tough work, made worse by the pouring rain and lack of help. Gio, the driver I've had multiple issues with, was the only one there who knew how to properly erect the tents, and seeing him in action gave me a little insight into what he goes through. The drivers have thankless and physically demanding jobs and Karen isn't very sympathetic to their hardships. Watching Gio, a tormented guy with a shitty home life, out in the rain with the rest of us, doing his best to make sure the tents went up, made me want to reevaluate my opinions of him.
Larry, another guy I've had issues with, came extremely close to being fired. I had told him and Al to unload the cube truck so we could send it back to the shop, and he didn't take too kindly to the instruction. I was sitting down with John, a guy who was having his first day (poor guy!), unraveling strings of globe lights and replacing their bulbs, when Larry came over to us and said "Y'know, this is bullshit having me and Al unload the truck while you're sitting on your ass. We need everyone helping." Larry doesn't like being told what to do, at least by me, and that is why I've had issues with him. I was in no mood for his antics, so I told him to get back to the truck and continue unloading.
I knew he wouldn't be able to keep his mouth shut and sure enough, when he came back down the hill near where John and I were sitting, he came at me again. "Not for nothing, but I don't like seeing you on your ass doing nothing while I'm busting my ass."
My plan was to sit with John for a bit to get a feel for him in addition to getting the globe lights ready, and then, if the guys were still unloading the truck, I'd help them out. I didn't tell this to Larry because, frankly, I don't need to explain to him my every action. My job is to manage my crew and his is to do what I tell him to do. Between him and Gio, I'd suffered enough insubordination over the last month to warrant firing them several times over. Larry had gotten on my last nerve. "I don't need to explain myself to you, Larry. Go do your job!"
He looked at me incredulously, as if I wasn't his boss, but one of the warehouse guys. "Do my job? Why don't you fucking help me do my job?"
I would have fired him on the spot, but unfortunately I needed his help. "Go unload the truck. Just fucking do it!"
He had had been walking away from me, but when he heard what I said he stopped in his tracks and turned to face me. I knew at that point that I crossed a line with him and now he was going to make this a physical affair. "Why you got to talk to me like that? Go fucking do it? No one talks to me like that!"
There I was, the day of my show, in the pouring rain at a job site I in most circumstances wouldn't have been at, about to get in a fight with one of my drivers. Larry curses more than anyone I know but when he hears me tell him to go "fucking" do something, he flips out. I may as well have told him I was going to have anal sex with his mother. As fed up as I was with him, I did not want to get in a fight with him. I tried to diffuse the situation without putting my tail between my legs.
"Larry, you've been coming at me and accusing me of being lazy and you're insulted? Listen, either unload the truck or don't. If I insulted you, I apologize, but I'm not going to explain my every action to you. So please, if you wouldn't mind, unload the truck."
He walked back up to the truck and muttered "Man, if this was the streets, you wouldn't be talking to me like this. I'd fuck you up!"
I let the comment pass and returned to my bulbs, pissed and at the same time feeling a little bad for John, who must have been wondering what he had got himself into. Gio came back later and we put up the 30 x 50, which took hours to do.
Larry never apologized to me but his subsequent actions indicated he wanted to make nice. The thing with him is he's a good and thoughtful kid for the most part, but he has difficulty keeping his mouth shut. Anyway, putting up the tents unified us all out of necessity. Karen kept calling wondering why it was taking so long, and I kept telling her we were going as fast as we could, that we wanted to get out of the rain as soon as possible.
Once the tent was up, Larry and Gio headed back to the shop while Al, John, and I remained to finish up. It was a little after three. Karen called me on my cell and I told her I needed to be out of work at five. She said it wouldn't be a problem, that it would only take us twenty more minutes. We still had to set up all the lights, tables, chairs, sidewalls, and the moon bounce. Even if we were hopped on pcp, we wouldn't have been able to finish the job in that time. I tried telling her that, but she wasn't having it.
While we worked, the caterers and wait-staff showed up. And so did Tuni, one of the most difficult clients I've had dealings with over the phone. She was the party planner for this job and seeing her order my guys around didn't make my already gloomy outlook any brighter. When I looked at my phone and saw that it was almost five thirty, I realized that I might not make it to my show in time. We still had some work to do and traffic was going to suck.
We made it back to Somerville around six o'clock. We had worked all day in the rain without taking lunch and I was fuming. I wanted to give Karen the ol' "I told you so", but I knew it wasn't her fault why we were late; the job was an aberration. I had to rush home, make a quick meal, take a shower, and haul my ass to Lowell as quickly as possible. Fortunately, I made it in time.
--
Yesterday was even worse. Because we'd spent so much manpower at the Weston job site the day before, we were backed up on deliveries. It was a hellish and confusing day. I won't go into it any further. I thought the slow season was upon us, but apparently it's not. Thank God, I have the next couple of days off.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment