WEEK TWO

Right, well I have already proved that I am crap at this, but I will endeavour to keep it up to date from this point onwards (I'm sure I said that a couple of weeks ago, but, maybe I can succeed this time!)

OK then, I started with work at Melbourne Fringe 2010 which is a whole new role from everything I have been used to and am now a Front Of House manager - which I hopefully won't cock up too much! I will have a few volunteers every night to look after doors, but apparently I am in charge of the whole venue - not scary in the slightest! I have quickly learnt that all nights in the place go much quicker when you start the evening with a couple of Krupnickas from the bar! It is Lithuanian honey vodka, and as I don't really like honey or vodka that much I was pleasantly surprised at the drink, but it is amazing, very sweet and syrupy, and warms you from the inside which is what is needed in the world's coldest building. 



Also,  at the end of each night there is a Club where Will and Toni work which has free entertainment and a DJ at the end, which means I have somewhere to go and drink at the end of my shift and have forced myself onto the techs so they have to make friends with me - they have no choice!! Mwah ha ha! Various people have also given me free drinks cards for the bar, so to-date I am yet to pay for a drink, which is a massive bonus. Also means I am semi-nocturnal now and it seems early if we all get home before 3am.  Which also sometimes leads to some kind of silliness - note, Joey with a small children's jacket on - she really didn't appreciate it and for some reason took out her frustrations on Turnip until we freed her from the clothing again - she enjoyed it really!

The other Front of House manager has also not stopped talking about the strange costumes he wears everyday during the Fringe and for a while tried to get me to dress up too - this has just led to a 'telling off' at the end of each evening with him asking why I am wearing jeans...the strangest thing he has worn so far is top-hat and tails, which although is slightly impressive, it is not the more outrageous lion outfit he has told me about many times. All I can say is I am glad I am in a different building to him entirely as his 'eccentric' ways would start to grate on me very quickly (they almost are already!). 

I also had my first taste of a sell-out show in my largest venue, which is stressful, but really good fun, and really marks the difference between sitting behind a box office selling the tickets, and the side of it when you are having to deal with 330 people coming in and out of a venue, even roughly on time - gets the heart going as I can't seem to figure out the logistics without running up and down the stairs about 6 times in the space of 10 minutes! It doesn't help that the people who go to this particular comedy show barely have 2 brain cells to rub together and truly are the biggest bunch of idiots I have ever met! Getting them in and out is like herding cows - sadly we aren't allowed to use cattle prods on them, it would help a lot though. One of the shining examples of their moronic behaviour is that one woman (fake tan, and stilletto'd) looked at a room of empty seats, and then decided to sit on the one with a 'Reserved' sign on it - she then put the sign on her lap! Top class that one! Safe to say, I have once again been reassured that the general public are stupid - individuals are fine to deal with, but put them in a group and they turn into animals. 

Oh, I managed to lock myself out of the house when I took the dogs out for a walk one day. When I left I must have snapped the key off in the lock without noticing, so when I arrived home, just in time to jump in the shower before work, grab some food and run out the house to work again, I pulled out my key-ring and was greeted with half a key on the end of it. I then had to spend the next 20 minutes trying to break into the house, and phoning Will to confess I had broken the lock!

I spent my day off with Phil and Rowan and they showed me round their little area of town. Will had told me about a pizza place that did $4 pizzas so we decided to go there for food and then go and see Boy at the cinema. Pizza place is on Brunswick St, which is lovely, ad so very kitsch and 'cool' - it really does try too hard, but some of the shops there are full of the weird and the wonderful, and I will have to go there for a proper explore at some point, and treat myself for lunch in Vegie Bar, a plan for when I don't have to work in the evening. Pizza was very good, and the place has some cool little nooks and crannies you can sit it, and as it was crappy weather I could have happily sat there all day and just drunk hot drinks and watched the rain! Saying that, the lady behind the bar seemed to have some kind of problem every time you asked her for something - not weird things, just things like, a drink - You are standing behind the bar, stop being such a moody cow when someone wants a beer!!

Anyway, that has been my week, I have lost my evenings, and most of my dinners now come from a plastic box or a paper bag, and I am starting to miss cutlery! But, it has been a baptism of fire into my new job and I am loving the new challenge I get everyday - that's the problem when the people you are working with don't get paid! Sometimes they just wander off halfway through their shift...not good! So yeah, one more week of the Fringe, and the Tim Burton Exhibition ends on the same day as I finish work, so I have to go there before my shift one day!