Fair
While I am pleased at the understanding I’ve received this year regarding the peculiarities of my job it seems there’s still some explanation to be meted out. So by way of example I present the following two tales…
My Boss
The other day my boss was telling me about how her boyfriend called during fair, being a little needy because they hadn’t talked much lately as often happens at that time of year. The thing was she was eating with the senior management group including the CEO when he called. Us fair employees being the paragons of virtue that we are, naturally they were all listening in to the call.
She told him that she couldn’t talk right now but she could text him as she has a blackberry. She could not make him understand why she could chat by text but not verbally.
Not to sound sexist but I had thought only women had trouble grasping the unique situations fair puts us into. Suffice to say it’s nice to have another person around who knows what that’s like. My previous boss’s husband owns a rodeo and used to work for the fair so it was well understood in her household that she disappears for awhile in the summer and it’s no reflection on them.
The New Guy
A new Guest Services attendant was returning his uniform the other day as I conversationally asked “how was your fair?” and he said “I’m not sure“. I asked how his appraisal went and he said it was fine but he thought there were a few situations he could have handled better.
I took this young man aside and said “it’s your first year, no one expects you to be perfect and the fact is there are no perfect answers to people’s complaints. If you did your best and tried to help then you did fine. As long as you didn’t make any situations worse then you were part of the solution and you should be proud of that“ he nodded.
“Look at it this way,” I said, “you survived your first fair without getting fired or doing serial killings, you did fine“.
* * *
“Reasonable?! I’m a raving bloody lunatic! If I wasn’t cooking I’d be out doing serial killing! You look at me, you see a personality problem under a silly white hat! Don’t talk to me about reasonable, I don’t do reasonable!” -Chef ‘Personnel’
