Break a Leg

Happy Jenday, everybody.

As most of you know, we here at Break A Leg are the little guys: aside from the creation of the show, we mostly do normal, low-paying jobs and lead normal, un-glamorous lives...well sorta.  My point is that we have not yet achieved the dream of having somebody pay us to do Break a Leg so that we wouldn't have to, for example, make coffee for an endless stream of caffeine junkies, or work in a hell-hole like Kinko's, or heaven for bid - lick envelopes. 

   Currently, I work at a sign shop doing graphic design and customer service.  I hate customer service.  I refuse to subscribe to the addage that the customer is always right.  Sometimes they are dead f*&#ing wrong.  Here's a situation that I have had to deal with more times than should be legal: a customer comes in to order a sign.  Fine.  That's what we're here for.  We're called FastSigns.  So far so good.  The customer tells us what they want on the sign.  Par for the course.  We place the order and let the customer know when we will have a proof for them to review.  The purpose of the proof is so that the customer can make sure that the sign is set up exactly the way they want it.  This is the point where everything goes wrong.  I will be the first to admit that I am the world's worst proof reader and I'm pretty sure I have some unquantified learning disability.  Ergo, I make mistakes.  I try to counter this by showing my work to another coworker before sending off the proof, but this isn't always possible.  Now, the thing about people, see, and people in the role of customers is that they assume that the sign they want is the sign they are getting, which is a natural assumption, but means that they don't always pay as much attention to the proof as they should.  So often times, people will approve their proofs with some minor but significant flaw in the design.  Approving the proof means they are saying "Yes, this is the sign I want and I want you to make it for me."  Then, they will show up to pick up their sign.  This is usually the point where they choose to pay special attention to every little detail.  This is the point where they notice the flaw.  This is the point where they exclaim that WE the sign makers messed up their sign and demand that we fix it free of charge.  Now, yes, we made the mistake in the first place, but we showed it to them that way and they said that was the way they wanted it.  And now they're saying they want it different.  For free.  They are making us do more work.  Now don't get me wrong: I don't mind difficult problems, but I do mind people that make them more difficult by being total ass monkies.

   For this special brand of person, the ass monkey, I have developed what I call "The Customer Service Stare."  This is a technique is used to display absolute vile derision without overtly making your target aware of it.  First: go dead inside.  Turn off every part of your humanity.  Tuck it away somewhere until you're ready to let it come out later.  Next, let your face go blank.  Do not blink.  Let your jaw go slack and hang open slightly.  If you can manage to drool this is a plus.  Also, relax your posture a little bit so your shoulders are slightly rounded.  The purpose of all this is to indicate with every fiber of your being that you care so little about the person in front of you that you can't even be bothered to exist properly.  Of course, any person you find worthy of the Customer Service Stare is usually so self absorbed that they completely fail to notice.  Which is usually for the best.  No point in exacerbating an already volatile situation.

   Anywho, moving back to my original point...We all have to do something to pay the bills so that we can bring you the magical world of Break a Leg.  But what to do other than find some hopefully not too mind-numbing desk job and cranking out "product" day after day after day?  This is where my day dreams start...

    As anybody who has spent more than 5 minutes around me knows, I am a pirate.  I started my piratical career a couple years ago after playing the part of Antonio in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, who is in fact a pirate.  I enjoyed playing the part so much that I just decided to be like that all the time.  I also have a group of friends with whom I attend SCA events.  We call ourselves The Dread Ship Black Rose.  Then, the other day, a coworker of mine made a suggestion that really got me thinking.  Obvisouly these days, pirates are in: Pirates of the Carribean, International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and so on.  But some people think you can just throw on an eye patch, scream "yarrr!" and suddenly you're a pirate.  There's so much more to it than that.  There's a frame of mind that you can only acquire from participating in various piraty activities that one may not have the opportunity to indulge in or suffer through.  The progression here is one that I feel is quite natural: Pirate Camp.

  At Pirate Camp adults could learn the finer points of pirate-craft, such as boozing, wenching, fighting, swaggering, and so forth.  By day piratus potentia would learn the rudiments of sword play, semiphore and ship to ship combat.  At night they would learn sea shanties around the fire while getting toasted on rum.  And at the end of the week everybody would get their own doo rag to signify that they are ready to go out into the world and pillage to their hearts content. Hi diddle dee dee, the pirate's life for me. 

   And then reality comes rushing back in and I have to go deal with the fat schmuck in the bad toupee who, no matter what, insists that he didn't pay that much for his banner last time so he shouldn't be charged differently this time even though his previous order was from 5 years ago for half the amount of signage...

   Speaking of pirates and songs and such, I've written a few piratical songs myself and have always dreamed of recording them, perhaps putting together an album.  But what I really think should happen is we here at Break A Leg should make a music video out of one or two.  Yuri has mentioned the desire to do a few musical numbers, but seems to think they should be BaL related.  I would like to suggest otherwise.  So, to all you pirate fans out there: pester Yuri.  Tell him all my ideas aren't necessarily bad ones.  Yarrr!

Jen