Tag Archives: rants

what can Brown do for me? nothing, apparently.

{15 April 2009}

i walked into a UPS Store this morning. told the clerk i’d like to ship a package on a UPS account number.

“oh, we don’t do that here!” she chirped.
“what?”
“we don’t ship on account here. if the package is all labeled and ready to go you can drop it off, though.”
blink, blink. “but you’re The UPS Store.”
“yes, but we don’t make any money off of shipping on account, so we don’t do that here. you can get a form from your UPS delivery guy, or from the UPS dropoff box located across the street. fill it out and then you can drop off the package here.”
blink, blink. “are you aware that you’re wearing no less than 6 UPS logos on your clothing right now?”

i considered continuing on to explain that the reason for the brand-association between UPS and what was formerly Mailboxes Etc and is now The UPS Store is so that customers like me will come in, fill out a UPS form, ship my package on account, and impulse-buy a dozen envelopes and some stamps while i’m at it. i mean, what the fuck? The UPS Store doesn’t ship UPS packages? are they aware of the irony?

i went to Fed Ex* instead. am i trapped in some kind of commercial about small-business shipping-needs?

*That would be a Fed Ex Kinkos, to be exact. if one shipping company buys a copy shop, the rest of them have to, also.

{17 March 2009}

took my car in to see my mechanic yesterday, fully expecting to spend $$$ on new shocks. the guys greased some squeaky part and sent me out the door for $25. took my cat to the vet, my perfectly healthy cat, and paid $306 to be told that, guess what? my cat is perfectly healthy.

it doesn’t even cost $306 for ME to go to the doctor and have her pronounce me healthy.

oh yeah, and when i got home from spending all that money, yesterday, i found a $100 parking ticket in my mailbox. back in october i got a $50 ticket for parking on a street cleaning day, and it totally wasn’t posted so i contested the ticket. i heard nothing back for 6 months, so i pretty much forgot about it, until i got the final declaration back. the ticket still stands, only NOW i owe $100, not $50, because the ticket has been outstanding for 6 months and the penalties have doubled the cost. except that i didn’t pay the ticket for 6 months becuase i was waiting for the results of the contestment*. so…i have to pay the penalties for the fact that the city chicago can’t process paperwork in a timely fashion? yup. what a racket.

chicago, are you just trying to make me hate you, so that the breakup will be easier?

*is contestment a word? well it should be.

tipping point

{25 February 2009}

About Face Theatre
Magic Theatre
Theatre Jeune Lune
American Music Theatre of San Jose
Seaside Music Theatre
Milwaukee Shakespeare
Shakespeare Santa Cruz
House Theatre

of course, there are many many more theatres than what i listed up there, those are just companies that are large enough to be nationally recognized or else local to my own vital theatre scene in chicago.

i’m just wondering how many times theatres in financial crisis are going to be able to post an appeal to the tune of “give us xx dollars by next tuesday or we’ll be forced to close our doors!” before the american public grows weary of these bailouts. or not weary, but just unwilling, unable, to give enough money. all of the theatres listed above tried that tactic in the past year, some met with success, some closed their doors for good. don’t get me wrong. i’m all about funding the arts. it’s my livelihood, for god’s sake. i’m pro-government, -foundation and -individual sponsorship. there is no functional model where theatre can be produced here in american funded on ticket sales alone*. but i am skeptical that going “holy crap! we can’t make payroll!” isn’t going to meet with the same criticism coming from a not-for-profit arts organization as it is from a major national bank. because my own question is the same, regardless of the company: how did you not see this coming?

the answer is that many arts organizations have limped along with large debts and poor financial management practices for a long time. and in years of The Good Economy, many of those theatres were able to get a free pass. credit was extended and extended again. individuals and foundations were generous without asking hard questions about the company’s bottom line. but the fact that arts organizations don’t function on a dollars earned/dollars spent model doesn’t mean that we are exempt from fiscal responsibility. it makes it about 100 MORE important. i look at companies who were skating along with $1,000,000 in debt that suddenly got their line of credit yoinked and say, “you MUST HAVE KNOW THIS WOULD HAPPEN SOMEDAY!” it drives me bonkers.

it sucks sucks sucks to have to program smaller projects, hire fewer actors, fewer artisans, to rely on lower-quality, cheaper labor, whatever. all of the companies i work for/with are doing that now and in their upcoming seasons. but you have to do the hard thing if you want the organization to survive. lop off the finger to save the hand (god that’s a gross analogy – why did i just bring gangrene into this?). i write this knowing that i’m going to have to face those hard decisions many many times in the coming year – when i take over my new theatre position in July, it’s knowing full well that i may have to make hard decisions about how much employment i can offer to talented professionals, how many resources i can make available to the creative team. i know full well that i’m taking a risk that i could be joining a company that could be a victim of the recession in a year (they tell me their books are solid but…you never know these things until you get there). but for all my bleeding heart liberal ways, i am as practical and proactive at heart as any one human being can be. what i can tell you is that, as much as i am able to control it, we won’t be deficit spending on my watch.

and while i’m not getting all sunshiny about the Great Depression that is bearing down on us, i truly do believe that working against those constraints forces artists to make better, more creative work. does a bolt of $500/yard silk REALLY help us tell the story?

* don’t get me wrong, plenty of small theatre companies function without significant sources of contributed income. but they don’t make it on ticket sales alone, either. they make up for it by not being able to pay their employees. what you can’t pay for in dollars, you can pay for in sweat equity. and this works, but only up to a point. there’s a limit with what you can do when your reason for getting up every day doesn’t pay the rent. there is finite amount of energy and time available to each of us.

sunday morning rant

{17 February 2008}

what with the SAD, and all the rain and dark clouds this morning (it could still be night time for all the natural light that’s coming in my window), getting out of bed was a herculean task this morning. the effort started with the radio, the gentle tones of NPR pulling me toward consciousness and the outside world. then my laptop (still in bed), emails from a few (early-rising) family and acquaintances further tugged my brain toward wakefulness and functionality. skimmed some blogs. checked my scrabulous stats. the cat slept on my feet. turned on the bedside lamp. eventually, in order to get up and stay up, it took turning on all the lights in the apartment, warm, incandescent glow* to fight off the sluggishness brought on by the darkness outside.

really, the drip drip drip of the 40 degree rainstorm is a good thing, it might eat away at the parking lot glaciers that are making owning and operating a car a ritual pain in the ass. this cold rain is the ugly process by which we move into spring.

for now, on to orange juice and yoga, then my to-do list. this is actually why my life is usually so over-scheduled. i *think* that empty days on the calendar will be wonderful, freeing, blissful, but instead i find them crippling. intertia takes over. i move slower, get less done.

can you tell i’m done with winter?

i should really really think about living in california. (florida’s not an option).

*you will have to pry incandescent lights out of my cold dead hands before i switch to fluorescents. i would sooner give up my car than give up incandescent bulbs. (and what with everyone pitching their fluorescent light bulbs into the garbage and contributing to the mercury contamination in our food chain – talk to me about switching bulbs once you’ve set up a functional recycling or exchange program). when it seems that incandescent is going out of style, i will horde cases of them into my old age.

monday morning rant

{10 September 2007}

okay, so i had an early dentist appointment and no time for breakfast this morning. i threw some blueberries into a tupperware and brought them with me, and when i got to work bought a yogurt from the museum cafe next door. since there was only one brand of yogurt i didn’t bother to look at it too closely, just selected peach and paid for it. i stirred in my blueberries, took a bite and…that nasty whiff of sucralose crawled up the back of my tongue and settled, preventing me from tasting anything else. gross! creamy sucralose with a hint of peaches. i turned over the package and read, “dannon light and fit: o grams fat, 0 grams added sugar, 60 calories.” what the hell! so this is just orange goo that will pass through my system without actually nourishing me? i’m eating this because i’m hungry. i actually WANT to consume calories.

i hate diet foods.

plus, now i’ve just finished my snack and i’m still hungry, since i mostly just consumed a handful of blueberries dressed with a mystery substance that resembled yogurt.

do artificial sweeteners taste this bad to everyone? maybe i’m just hyper-sensitive, like i am to fluorescent light, caffeine, and other people’s emotions. i’m a delicate desert flower, people.

today’s reasons why the bush family makes me angry

{23 June 2007}

two quotes:

first, president bush on why he vetoed legislation for embryonic stem cell research:

BUSH: Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical.

excuse me, what? it’s all well and good to moralize about that when we’re talking about frozen embryos, but isn’t that exactly what we’re doing in iraq? our foreign policy, all foreign policy, perhaps, is centered around the notion that american lives somehow have a higher intrinsic value than the lives of other people. that’s why when the white house or the military reports deaths in iraq, it’s always framed as, “12 US soldiers were killed….” and then tacked on to the end of the story, like a footnote, is “oh yeah, and also 243 iraqi civilians died too,” or whatever. the news has made a big deal as we passed each milestone stone of the number of US soldiers who have died in Iraq, 2000, 2500, and so forth. i sure haven’t seen any news blurbs about milestones of total civilian casualties.

so in war, it’s okay to take an iraqi life to save an american life, but it’s not okay to take an embryo that was never going to become a human anyway and use it to find a cure for diseases that people already living are suffering from? how much more arrogant that we create hundreds of human embryos in the pursuit of invitro, and then throw them away when we don’t need them any more. (why doesn’t anyone ever talk about that part?!?) better to use those embryos for essential, life-saving research. bush, you huge, walk-the-party-line hypocrite. under pressure from your conservative base you pull support for embryonic stem cell research (calling it unethical), but you don’t have the political balls to stick with your moral position and oppose all forms of invitro, and for that matter, contraception, because that would alienate the moderates.

the second sound bite that made cartoon steam come out my ears this week was the first lady speaking with michele norris about

LAURA BUSH: In countries where there are “gender issues” and where girls feel like they have to comply with the wishes of men, I think abstinence [and abstinence education] become even more important. We need to get the message to girls everywhere, not just in Africa, that they have a choice, that they can be abstinent and make choices for themselves that keep themselves safe. (quotes mine)

what? did she get lost mid-sentence and miss her point entirely? i’m going to assume that what she delicately referred to as counties with “gender issues” in fact refers to countries with a predominant patriarchy. and in a culture where women are so devalued, they often DON’T have a choice about when they have sex or with whom. there are cultures where women are still sold by their parents as child brides. they are denied access to education and employment. they are raped until they become pregnant and then have no choice but to stay with the husband who literally purchased them. don’t talk to me about how these women need to know they have a choice. in their lives, they have very few choices. what they need is education about the ways that HIV is transmitted, access to testing and condoms and antiretroviral drugs to help prevent the transmission of the disease to their unborn children. i can’t think of anything more condescending than laura bush sitting in her ivory tower talking about how abstinence eduction can empower women to protect themselves from HIV.

cover letter 101

{26 May 2007}

so, badly written cover letters are my pet peeve. this week i’ve been sorting resume and cover letters for a crew position i’m hiring at work. a few of my favorite excerpts from this morning:

“Strong personal skills I possess are, leadership, attention to detail, organization…” (you can’t put a glaring punctuation error in the same sentence in which you tell me your attention to detail is good!)

“I am a graduating student of B— B—, and she has given me your name as a contact for securing a position for either this summer or next season at Victory Gardens” (wrong theatre)

“I am writing after hearing about stage management openings at Timeline Theatre…” (again, wrong theatre)

“…where I was in charge of all the backstage technical elements including props, costumes, the fly system, and bubble machines.” (bubble machines?)

“Selected Accomplishments: Staying within thirteen cents of a $100,000 budget” (I so want to call him in for an interview just to say, ‘so, did you figure out where the missing 13 cents went?’ and watch his head spin around poltergeist-style. Being anal retentive is something I understand, so I’m allowed to mock it in other people)

“I’m a go-for-it guy – the kind of person you need as your next Page.” (I’m hiring a Page? as in a knight’s apprentice? will he bring my horse round for me?)

“Also, I’ve done this exact job before, not in your theatre, but at many other locations. It is one of the few jobs on the planet that I’ve found, doesn’t ever make me tired, or get old.” (wow, we’re hiring for our fountain of youth? the anti-aging job?)

“Buddy was also representative of my quintessential delegation…” (your what?)

“I display: Exquisite paperwork,” (really? what exactly IS exquisite paperwork? will it come dipped in fine chocolate and be something I can eat? at least be illuminated with little pictures of monks and gold dust on the edges?) “…the ability to work with performers and crew on satisfying individual needs,” (okay, now you just asked for that one to sound dirty…) “…special skills, including thorough computer knowledge” (I don’t think that using a computer can be considered a “special” skill any longer).

“I am 22 years old, single, a downtown Chicago resident…If I do not hear back from you in the next few weeks, I will try to reach you by phone to possibly try to set up a meeting.” (ah, don’t call me, and I won’t call you.)

but really, people, learn to proof read your cover letters. would you come into a job interview with a big stain down the front of your shirt?

i can’t claim to know much about the rest of the job market, but as for my biz, i know me some good cover letter writing. here are the guidelines:

1) keep it short – i have not yet encountered any justifiable reason to go over a single page.

2) PROOFREAD! seriously. you are formally introducing yourself on paper. if we met in person you wouldn’t go to shake my hand and, being careless, accidentally grab my ankle, right? you wouldn’t show up at the wrong theatre and expect to hired, yeah?

3) do tell me: 1) what job you’re applying for, 2) who you know, 3) the briefest of biographical info as pertains to the position without simply repeating your resume, and 4) what your availability is with regard to the job and interviewing. that’s all.

4) do not tell me what a stage manager does. would i be allowed to hire a stage manager if i didn’t already have a pretty good idea of the necessary duties and required skill set?

5) do not tell me what qualities i should be looking for in the person that i hire. i have a pretty good idea of what i’m looking for.

6) if you have an unusual skill that might come in handy in this position, you can highlight it. if the most original, or most flattering, details about yourself that you can come up with are that you are: smart, detail-oriented and hard-working, save the paper and ink. i’ll probably be able to figure that out on my own. who makes it this biz who ISN’T smart, detail-oriented and hard-working? dumb lazy careless people don’t go into theatre, and if they do, they don’t last.

that concludes our lesson in cover letters today.

handy internet link of the day:

{04 May 2007}

http://www.gethuman.com/: how to talk to a human a quickly as possible on the 500 most common tech-support and service call centers.

cause, is it just me? as soon as i start speaking to a call center robot i feel myself getting defensive. i get my hackles up even before there’s a problem. i generally try and escalate my call to a human as quickly as possible. directory trees are for suckers.

people are dumb

{22 March 2007}

so some fishermen caught the largest (well, technically, a colossal) squid ever. and what did they do? they killed it and froze it. now, they’re trying to figure out how to microwave the thing (which is the size of a bus) so that they can study it better.

uh, am i the only one who thinks it was perhaps imprudent to kill the squid before anyone got the chance to poke and prod it? i mean, wouldn’t you learn more from a giant (colossal) squid if you studied it alive rather than defrosted?

i’m not weeping for the life of the poor little (colossal) squid here. it just seems a little short-sighted.

survivor: north pole

{07 February 2007}

as punishment for us winter-tough chicagoans belittling the woes of our new york-based pals when manhattan hit 18 degrees last week, chicago has been in the throes of a deep freeze for four days now. and by deep freeze we mean highs in the single digits, wind chills of -20, dead car batteries, pipes at my favorite coffee place frozen, emergency warming centers for the homeless, take a cab you’ll die waiting for the bus, boogers in your nose freeze on the first breath, what-the-fuck i don’t live in fargo for a reason-cold.

to add insult to injury, it started snowing this morning, apparently to the surprise of whomever schedules the snowplow drivers. about four inches hit the ground before the sanding trucks made it out, consequently it took me, oh, 90 minutes to travel 16 miles to work today. on the upside, chicago is really really pretty with a fresh coating of snow.

the first day or two of really extreme weather are kinda fun, it’s something to talk about with everyone you meet, like we’re all in a game of Survivor: North Pole together or something. after that it stops being so much fun.

whenever i complain about the cold JUST a little too much, someone points out, “wait, aren’t you from idaho? don’t they have winter there?” true, they do. but, two items in my defense: 1) i lived in the bay area for five years, and that made me weak, once i learned that people don’t have to live like this, and 2)winter in idaho is fun. they have mountains, and outdoor sports. and garages to park one’s car in. anyway, i’m taking a long weekend and going out to idaho for 4 days of skiing, snow-shoeing, and generally loafing around the cabin eating/cooking/knitting/reading/napping. the weather man promises chicago will back to livable temperatures by the time i return, and i hopefully will have reconnected with the sporty fun side of winter.