The FUN Meeting

Saturday was a long day. I had to wake up at seven to be at FUN by eight for an all staff  new menu rollout meeting. Now seven, while selling insurance was sleeping in, but if you worked the night before, as most people in the service industry bank on a Friday night, seven is really really early. If the restaurant closes at 12:30 and we have to stay late to scavenge for five sugar caddies to fill with red, yellow, blue, pee, poo (Sweet&Low, Sugar, Equal, Splenda, Sugar in the Raw), then you don’t leave until 1:00 a.m. at the earliest. That is only a seven hour turnaround time until the meeting. On a set, they have to give you at least a 12 hour turnaround time. But this is not a set, this is corporate FUN.

 

I made it in record time to the meeting coming all the way from Northridge to Glendale. I drove 40 miles round trip, and I was working that night, which would mean 80 miles on my car donated to the corporate fat factory. I had hoped maybe there would be breakfast for us, but no. Because this was for all staff members, the cooks couldn’t make us anything; they had to come to the meeting too. Instead, there were stacks of Krispy Kreme boxes and lots of coffee. I wonder if the best way to get a bunch of 20s somethings attention is to feed them lots of sugar and coffee and then ask them to sit still for two and a half hours while we show them pictures of new food items on the menu and throw Jolly Ranchers at them when they answer a question right. 

But before the pictures of food, we have to award great behavior. This process took me back to my sorority days. Yes, I was in a sorority for three days. I cried the entire time until they let me leave. They made all the pledges wear these sacred pledge pins. They were actually a safety pin with two ribbons tied to it. We had to wear them at all times. We even were instructed to attach them to our towels when we were in the showers! In awarding great behavior at FUN people received a pin. They had to stand in front of everyone while a manager pinned them. It was very very Greek (and I don’t mean like our new Greek salad). People that have pins wear them everyday. I don’t know if they transfer them from uniform to their towels when they shower. 

Then came the new menu. We learned our new customer, no guest, greet would feature two items not on the menu. We would have to tell every customer these items after bringing bread within four minutes of them being sat. Our new greet will go something like the following: Welcome to FUN! My name is Kate and I’ll be your server tonight. We have a couple specials not on the menu tonight. Our first is hummus and the second is our crispy crab balls.  Crab Balls? Who decided to title them this way? Really? There are not enough italics to express my passion for this. 

Of course everyone at the meeting started snickering and the ball jokes began. I have to now greet tables, and with a straight face, say crab balls. Why they can’t call them croquets, fritters, cakes, or just crispy crab is beyond me. Maybe the reason they are not on the menu, is because if anyone saw crab and ball next to each other they wouldn’t order it. Hopefully. 

As the slide show continued, which displayed other new food items, a junior manager started wrestling with one of the huge canvas umbrellas bringing it into the restaurant where we were meeting. You know the kind I mean, with the huge wooden base and big black canvas tops with the FUN logo on it? He was bringing it inside and opening it. Opening an umbrella inside....ok. Clearly, the attention turned from the food to that. Some servers, after just realizing they will be demeaned by now having to say crab balls every night at least twenty times, now looked even more concerned. Will we be bringing in umbrellas if the customer requests it? One of the VPs noticed the shift in focus and her explanation was, “This, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect example of hospitality.” No, I don’t think that’s the right word for those actions. The other VP noticed that this was not a sufficient explanation as to why there was now a fully open big black canvas umbrella in the dining room, and explained that the sun was coming in through the window and hitting the black marble floors and bouncing into their (the VPs, only two of them) eyes. And moving a couple feet to the left or right would be far more difficult than watching one of the junior managers sweat as he erected this umbrella? 

Next, came the sugar coated threats. Wherein we were told that the company could have the guests just sign in at the front desk and a conveyor belt could run the food. BUT they’ve decided not to have that...yet. So they directed us to continue being our delicious selves. 

As I left the meeting, everyone was smiling a little more at each other. Maybe it was all the coffee and Krispy Kreme; or maybe it was because the meeting was over; but I started to think corporate chose the name Crispy Crab Balls, not to humiliate us, but to bond us and help us smile a real smile at every table. 

You can’t say it with a straight face even if you try. 

"Magic Time"

I quit my insurance job to move to L.A. and be an actress, or a waitress? Something with  a “tress”...not a seamstress. The place where I am employed will need to remain anonymous from this point forward. They, along with certain religious groups in L.A. are everywhere. I really believe that. I’ll just say that  they are a factory of beautiful actors, writers, and musicians all dressed in white, like angels, delivering cakes made entirely of cheese to overweight-fork-already-in-hand-stuffed-with-brown-bread customers. Since, I am not mentioning the name, I have decided to call it the Factory of Unimaginable Negativity, or FUN, and from hear on out it will be FUN. 

On the night I saw Transformers II, opening night at 12:05 am, I was in the elevator to the Arclight on Sunset and I was recognized! I was so excited. Maybe they recognized me from doing 12 Corazones on Telemundo; or my late night informercial for Termafreeze (which mainly shot my hands and my pink polo shirt meeting my white FUN jeans). But no, the girl said after, “You were my server at FUN.” Yes, this is why I moved to L.A., to be recognized as a server. She actually seemed really respectful in that elevator ride and didn’t ask for ranch or change or anything. She just stared like she was seeing me in real life for the first time and no longer consumed with FUN. She looked at me with respect. 

Some of my customers...no that’s guests as we are to refer to them at FUN, gasp when I tell them I’m an actor. They look at me in horror and ask why?  But you’re such a sweet girl. It’s such an interview question. Why do you want this job? Because my whole life I’ve dreamed of working in all white, even when that thing happens once a month, and serving cake. Why do I want to be an actor? Why would I leave my major behind, insurance job behind, to come drive in traffic, work at FUN, and be an actor? 

I recently attended a workshop that reminded me why. It was hosted by John Stamos, his manager, his agent, the producer who brought back the musical starting with Chicago, and a television director. It was at a new theater that John Stamos had donated money to and I was in a room of people exactly like me. The first thing the manager said was we have the hardest, most competitive job in the world. The second thing he said was that all of us will never be in the same room again. Some of the group will continue going to workshops, some will work (not at FUN), and most, will go home. They all continued to talk about the business. John Stamos had this cool, relaxed confidence about him which reminded me almost exactly of family friend Russ Agee. The audience would ask questions and John and his posse would all chime in with answers from their various departments. 

They emphasized that we are all in this together, the people in the room, and who wouldn’t want to be in the business of being apart of dreams? They explained that “no” actually never means “no.” It means keep coming back, maybe for ten years...They were all such interesting looking characters. The manager was east coast and looked and dressed like the man who drove the Mule Shuttle at my college. (Our mascot was the Mules, a suitable mascot for D3) The agent was the only one in a full suit, he looked sharp. The producer and director were in blazers and tennis shoes. The agent said very little just the occasional “you’re fucked” response to doing anything wrong. The manager said you have to want this enough to sleep on a floor, while John Stamos chimes in, “or a producer.” 

But why do you want to be actors? The agent asked us. Because we can’t be anything else and be satisfied, this is it! We love it. John Stamos answered the question, “money.” The producer, said he started out as a production assistant on the set of Glen Gary Glen Ross. His job was to go get Jack Lemmon and walk him from his trailer to the set. He remembered when Jack Lemmon stepped out of his trailer he would always say, “magic time.” They reminded us it is a magic time where we get to fight the Brittish again (where our competition comes from), where no doesn’t mean no, where everyone gets a little lucky, where you will sit on a set for ten hours to play a character with an IQ thirty points lower than you, where grown ups still get together and read plays, and where people will work for copy, credit and or meals. Why do I want to be an actor? I want my magic time. 

Just remember, whenever there is magic time there has to be a little FUN. 

Quitting

It's weird that my first blog ever would be about quitting but for me to start something new I had to quit my old habits. 

I quit my job on Friday. I had been selling auto, home, and life insurance for the past year and a half. I quit to move to L.A. and become an actress. (original right?) I have a complex about quitting jobs because of my first job out of college. I hated and hated it. I vowed to myself to stay six months and on my six month anniversary I marched into my bosses office and right before I could quit, she fired me. It was the worst feeling ever. I was literally about to hand over my letter of resignation when she pushed across her desk a check with my final wages on it. 

I was successful selling insurance so there would be no reason for them to fire me, however the morning when I arrived at work I was convinced I was getting fired. Then I heard that my manger would be in our office that morning. He normally works out of the Denver Tech Center, (the DTC, like L.A., we can make cool abbreviations too) so I had rehearsed the perfect phone dialogue to say to him with my parents and then again with my friends. Part of me thought he was coming to the office to fire me. Because I was quitting I had not sold much in the last couple weeks. 

He came into the office and set up in the conference room as usual. I was so nervous I felt I was visibly shaking. My mom always says when crazy feelings like these happen and it's hard to breath, to get control of yourself, just imagine yourself swimming. Imagine doing the breast stroke and having to take deep breaths and make even strokes, and most of the time that works...however, since I committed to acting, I wanted to really be present in these uncomfortable emotions, even if I looked like a shaking freak in front of my boss. 

I went into the conference room and closed the door. It was not a glamorous conference room. The nicest thing about it was the single French door painted white for the entrance. However, someone had put yellow caution tape across the door that read, "caution: learning in progress" so that took away from the beauty of it a little. The insurance office was in a strip mall –a dying strip mall where only discount stores flourished, the kind that sell knock off Keds...at least those are coming back in style. So, to sum up the conference room has no windows and cheesy caution tape across the door. I sat down and folded my hands in front of me and just said, "I have to give you my two weeks notice."

To me it was the hardest thing to say. Saying "no". It was almost as awful I imagine as having to say, "I want a divorce." ....too dramatic? My manager simply nodded and said "ok." OK? I lost sleep over OK? Here's the thing. I worked for a very large insurance company. One of the top five. They have invested thousands of dollars training me and I have produced very well for them, but in the end I was just one of forty thousand employees. I'm insignificant and not special. My mom would coo "oooo but you are special to me." Thank God for mothers or we really wouldn't be special. I don't matter to this boss. This boss I helped bonus, this boss I played along with at cheesy meetings, this boss who I let "coach" me as they say to make it sound like we're all on a baseball team instead of in an insurance office in a STRIP MALL! I don't matter to this boss. In L.A. they say if you quit an acting job there are always 100 girls who look just like you and better and are in line to take your place. I think it's the same in insurance. 

I told my manager I had been offered a job at the Cheesecake Factory as a food runner...in Los Angeles. I paused before I said the location for dramatic effect. He nodded  (again–what is he dead?) and seemed a little interested or maybe annoyed because now I had just interfered with his daily tasks and created some extra paperwork on his Friday. I went to go pack my things. I packed a picture of my parents two cats out in the snow. My dad had put them out as a joke and they both were looking in the window with forlorn looks on their faces. I packed my purple "Keep Boulder Weird" mug, and I packed my lamp. 

For selling a lot of life insurance I received the Lamp Lighter Award which entailed a cash bonus (what helped me move to L.A.) and an old looking wooden lamp with a parchment shade and my name on a brass plate glued to the base. It was an honor to have at my desk because it looked credible and there was no way I was leaving without it. I said my goodbyes, and my manager, true to company policy, "escorted" me out of the building/strip mall. 

I drove to L.A. the next day.