See You Next Wednesday
Saturday, November 24
 
I’ve been working at Muppet TV this week.

Muppet Television House has swanky access control cards and automatic doors. There is a sensor next to the door which beeps when you put your access control card near it. This sound indicates to people inside you wish to join them. Beating on the automatically and firmly closed door may also help. You can’t get in unless someone inside sees you waiting outside and opens the door for you. This may seem like a security measure except even if you aren’t trying to get in someone may unlatch the door for you on their way past. One day everyone will go home and nobody will be left to let anybody in ever again.

Day two.

Me: I want to run through the lighting cues to check the levels.
Rizzo: There is a problem with the lighting rig which I am fixing right now.
Me: Will the problem prevent me running through the lighting cues?
Rizzo: No. It affects the rig, not the lighting board.
Me: Will the problem prevent the levels being checked?
Rizzo: No. It affects the rig, not the stage area.
[Lighting cues are run, no lights illuminate the stage.]
Me: The lights didn’t work.
(Me thinks: I will double check with Rizzo before I report the fault.)
Me: Was this because of the problem with the lighting rig?
Rizzo: No. It affects the rig, not the board or the stage.
Me: Then I will report this new and separate problem.
[Problem with the lights not working is reported.]
Rizzo: The problem you reported about the lights not working is because there is a problem with the lighting rig.

And then?

Because I was visiting all my authorization had to be cleared by the Theatre before I could do my work at the Television Station. Sometimes I only had to be cleared once. Sometimes I had to be cleared each day. However, for one thing I had to be cleared each time and if I took too long I had to be cleared again. This wasn't a rare thing either, this was making like making a phonecall. (Too long was about thirty seconds.)

This is not an allusion.

Due to various delays my work at Muppet Television was behind schedule. The powers that be decided I should extend my stay by one week. "Just move your flight back a week and book seven more days accommodation" I was told with two days notice. Previously, the Muppet Show booking agent took three days to find me accommodation with ten days notice. Also, the Muppet Television booking agent can't deal with my Muppet Show booking (because I'm not authorized to use the TV agent).

However I didn't get too far investigating my accommodation issues because my flight, which was the cheapest flight available, could not be rescheduled. I would have to buy a whole new ticket. As it happened the cost of the extra flight and accommodation was more than the cost of just flying me down again next week.

Now for some reason the powers that be were happy to extend my current booking, but if I had to make a new booking they needed to check with the people who control the purse strings - even though it was cheaper. The people who control the purse strings, not to be outdone in the application of obtuse bureaucracy, decided they couldn't afford to just fly me down again next week, but I could go down the week after. The powers that be joined in the oneupmanship and reported I am to return to Muppet Television the week after next, but wouldn't be drawn on a final decision about next week.

The following day the powers that be asked me (!) how much it would cost to just fly me down again next week. They reported this to the people who control the purse strings who said they could easily afford it. (Who knows what they had based the previous decision on? Apparently it wasn't the cost.) I was told it was "up to me" if I wanted to arrange my flights and accommodation for next week, in a town which is booked out a week in advance, using a booking agent I can't contact, at half past two on Friday afternoon. I declined.
 
Comments:
I hate Rizzo.
 
Did your stint at Muppet TV make you appreciate your regular workplace more?
 
Kinda not, emmajeans. If I worked at Muppet TV my card would unlock the door, my authorization would last, and I would not have to deal with Rizzo, the powers that be or the people who control the purse strings.

Fortunately the Muppet Show is only my workplace, from which I get to go home.
 
hee hee
i guess its a good thing you don't need a pass to get out of the building....
and if you see a little boy on a tricycle and some red paint on the walls - just run.
 
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This may not sound like the snappiest line from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), but it evidently caught the imagination of John Landis, who has worked references to a mythical film of this name into most of his own movies - memorably as the grotty British skinflick watched by an assortment of lycanthropes and zombies in the climax of An American Werewolf in Paris [sic] (1981). Ghastly Beyond Belief, Neil Gaiman and Kim Newman

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