Frustration, Disappointment and Music...

Gloomy night up here. But sometimes I like that kind of weather. Call me weird. I've got a lot on my mind tonight and I have no idea where to start. I'm feeling a little off because, for one thing, I'm trying to figure out how to deal with difficult personalities at work. These are some of the most contagiously bitter and almost inhumanely catty people I have ever dealt with. But the main problem is that I'm finding myself responding to them the way I see them responding to others because I'm not thinking first about my actions. I've gotta fix that. The other thing is that I find myself getting frustrated with the way in which they train me, i.e. as though either they must think I'm an idiot for not getting something (or not seeming to) right away or they just think that I need to be shown how to do the most rudimentary tasks even though I've mentioned on several occasions how long I've worked in a newsroom and how much of their equipment I've used before. This is probably a sensitivity issue on my part, at least to an extent, but I will say that it certainly feels like a large number of my coworkers don't seem to get that I've got it and they continue to frustrate me by leaning over my shoulder and telling me how to do things as I do them. I probably shouldn't let it get to me.

I figure in time they'll stop but meanwhile, I suppose I have to accept things as they are and not get catty along with them. Because the other thing that I noticed the first week I was there, was their collective tendency to talk about their coworkers behind their backs. This immediately made me uncomfortable because I can imagine they'll eventually find something about me that they can talk about behind my back. And that's just not conducive to a good working environment. Unless I just don't take part in it. It's not as though everyone there sucks. My new friend in engineering is one fine example. Even though we spent the other night after her band's show talking about work and what is wrong with it, I feel like she's at least level headed about it. It's okay to talk about the fact that everyone talks about everyone but it's not as though we were joining in singling out certain people for their behaviors. In fact, we were discussing on a philosophical level what leads to that kind of disharmony in a work place. Mostly it's people being badly trained to think it's okay to do the bare minimum (I'm getting an image in my head of Mike Judge's character in Office Space telling Jennifer Aniston that she needs more pieces of flair) and then passing that lazy attitude on to other people. Someone said to me, "Don't worry so much about doing your job exactly right." Whatever the hell that means and never mind the fact that I was being spoken to by someone several years younger than me who probably is working her first professional job at the station. Pardon me for being a little frustrated with that. I did just come from probably one of the best working environments I've ever been in (News 14 people, where you at!?). But essentially, everyone wants to try and get by doing as little as possible and they keep passing work on to other people, (for example, every single time there's a problem with a piece of equipment, or there might be, everyone jumps to the conclusion that the next logical step is just to step away and call an engineer to fix it, even if there's a huge probability that it's a user error type of situation). Then, everyone gets frustrated by those who do it, even though they do it themselves. I just don't work like that though. I like to know how to do things and be able to fix them instead of succumbing to helplessness and whining to an engineer that something's broken when it probably isn't.

Anyway, enough about the frustrations and disappointments in my life right now (except that I feel I should mention my cat peed on my rug [that rug really tied the room together, too]. Toilet training her is a trial). I had a good time out at Bunny's show, The Spines. They sound like The Ramones meets The Frogs and their singer plays an auto harp which I found pretty innovative. There were a few songs that I really enjoyed, the rest were typically 80s punk-inspired fodder. The hole in the wall was called Lakeside Lounge and it exists on the lower east side, right off of Thompson Square near the Life Cafe which was sung about in Rent the musical and was used as a location in Rent the movie (I love this city). Lakeside had $3 PBRs so it made my night a little easier. And they also had a pretty formidable juke box which I will be having a closer look at upon my inevitable return visit.

Tonight, I went over to a place called LIC bar and met a guy named Gus who, I think, forgot that I was coming to see his show and the bar at which he does booking specifically to meet him and other music types. Gus is a guy whom I myspace-met through a coworker, George, who gave me a list of music types to contact. When I met him tonight, he seemed to not realize who I was and was busy mingling with his friends. So I left and took a horribly long train ride home from Queens on the G train. I liked the bar and I liked Gus' music (he played a right handed guitar left handed, which I've only ever seen one other person do before) but I was ready to get out as I had gone by myself and I felt like, having another beer and waiting to talk more with the guy seemed stupid as it was going to take me an hour to get home and he didn't seem to remember that we had even exchanged emails. Whatever.

Tomorrow (more aptly today) I'm having Bunny over and we'll probably jam for a good bit. I'll blog to let you know how that goes. Wednesday I'm going to try and see Mike Edelman play some jazz and Banjo Jim's on the lower east side. Looks like I'll be heading back to Alphabet City again, where the avenues have letters instead of numbers. Once again, I love this city.