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Today will be my last day working with most of my concert hall comrades. Although I'll be on duty for a few more nights this coming week they'll mostly be smaller events or room attendant jobs. Tonight I'll be captain for the main space for the last time. While I won't miss the stairs, I will miss the people. It was a pleasure (and a challenge, at times) working with a wide variety of very different styles of usher. There were old-timers who knew the job far better than I ever had a chance to, and newbies whom I enjoyed watching grow into the job. There's a definite skill in dealing with the public, many of whom (apologies to my theatre-going friends, but you ought to know the truth about yourselves) can be enormously unreasonable when attending the theatre. For whatever reason it's an extreme offence, for instance, to give directions to someone who's been going to the symphony for years. "I know where my seat is!" they bark. Very sorry, sir. I didn't see that "I'm so cultured I have season tickets" sign around your neck...your neck which I'd break if it weren't my job to be nice to you... The best are the old guys who say they know where they're going and whom you later see wandering aimlessly. "You just assumed you'd see your wife sitting in your seats didn't you, sir? Well, you're on the wrong floor, so there's the elevator." Or the people who don't understand (or don't listen) when you tell them that the elevator won't be unlocked to the upper floors until the house opens. "Your elevator's broken! Fix it!" Or the patrons who leave during the curtain call (or during the last movement) so they can "win" the race out of the parking structure. It's Milwaukee. The traffic is never that bad. Get a life. Try acknowledging the orchestra for the beautiful music you just heard, you ingrate. Sigh. The only remedy for homicidal thoughts it to stop seeing them as the sheep or cattle which they act like and remember that each of these annoyances is a person who just wants to have fun at the theatre...while breaking a few of the theatre's policies. |
