Black Friday

So named not because it's awful to work it in the retail biz, but named because it's the day retailers depend upon to go into the black for the year. Do we pity them? Maybe. But I pity the poor fools working for da retail man even more. Been there. Done that.

This year I did something entirely different on Black Friday. Yay! I got the call on Wednesday, at 4:45 from the agency. They were in dire need of people to work at the IMAX theater handing out some brochures or shit. I said sure. WTF. They said wear professional attire, a warm coat and they'll see you there.

Friday morning dawned. It was raining. Hard. And I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to do it. I spent a good 30 minutes trying to talk myself into going. Finally I just got ready and went.

I got there and only one other person was there. She was wet too. Holding a bottle of foetid looking fluid. After about 10 minutes the supervisor showed up hefting a heavy box and some bags. We couldn't get into the IMAX until 10. Glad we all showed up at 8:30. We went to the food court and discussed what we were really doing. Seems that we were going to hand out exit polls for the showing of Polar Express. In 3D. Then we would collect the forms. And get 300 by the end of the day. Or else. I never did hear what the or else would be. Probably some kind of sinister Warner Brother's displeasure. I dunno.

We got to the theater and set up in time for the first showing. Most people had what appeared to be at least a dozen squirming, damp, impatient children in tow. Bet they had lots of time to fill out an exit form, right? Especially since the geniuses at Warner Bros had decided that despite only really needing info for 4 of the questions, made the fucking thing front and back of a full sized piece of paper. Right ON!!

OK- let's get this straight- the whole bloody thing was depressing. The smell of the popcorn curdled my stomach, and sucessfully kept me from having an appetite all day. And the people I was working with were FREAKS. Mostly benign, but in one case seriously creepy. And since I hadn't been told what I was really going to be doing, I lacked any kind of reading material for the interludes while the movie was playing. I just closed my eyes, sat on the floor and listened to the others talk.

Team spirit- 2 of them were young, pretty inoccous girls. Nice. But boring. Then there was one middle-aged woman who kept to herself, but seemed fine. Then there were the freak twins. #1 was a largish (think taller Nathan Lane) gay man wearing a scarf that looked like Elmo with glitter. He knitted it himself. Did a fine job. For Halloween he was Glenda the Good Witch. Made the pink tulle dress himself, he did. I watched him get bitchier and testier as the day went on. I am guessing that it was a blood sugar thing. Hope so, because he had another job later at the carousel, where he would be in full contact with more children. He was also the kind of guy who is permanently disgruntled. He told me his professional history, and it was full of persecution and bitterness. I'm a thinking that he is one of those people who is perpetually unhappy at work. Bummer too, because they tend to bring others along for the ride.

Then there was freak #2. Deep breath. She was trippy. Scary trippy. Dead ringer (only a little taller) for the Romanian- Anka. Dead fucking ringer. Even the odd 100 yard stare. And had the same strange way of dealing with conversation- basically not really understanding normal conversation so much as interrupting with non-sequiturs that kind of related to the original topic. She was very tall- over 6 foot, I am guessing. With that odd sausage casing build- somewhat slender, but no muscle mass to add distinction, and no bones showing. She was also happy to tell us all about being a Sister of something something something- they dress up as nuns and wear geisha makeup and pass out condoms at events. I heard all about the way to get into the order, the rules, etc. Ad nauseum, ad infinitum. She also told us a truncated version of her life story. Sounded pretty rough. And she was a witch. And she "cleansed" peoples' homes of bad hoodoo. And she had just broken up with her girlfriend. She followed me around a lot.

Friendly, but creepy. She approached people with the forms and said, "Hello, I have a gift for you." I suspect that they took the forms from her in order to get some space. I saw a few of them sneaking their forms back onto the mother table later on, when she wasn't around.

After a couple of movies, they interspersed it with the Harry Potter film, and I left for the day. Enough pleasure for me, I thought. I decided that I really do HAVE to get a job in some normal kind of place- dealing with broken people really isn't my forte. Interesting, yeah- but they make me sad and tired.