Yesterday my Climate Pledge Arena boss emailed me wanting to have a phone call at like 10 am or something today, on a Friday. So it brought me very much joy to remind her, no, I have a real job, so no, that won't be happening. We rescheduled to 5pm or something. Ok. This was perfect because Lydia was back from school by the time she called, so I put it on speaker phone so she could hear.
I was about 90% sure that this was concerning me talking to Dave Chappelle before his New Year's Eve show that I worked. It was a wild night though, so it wasn't impossible that this conversation was going to be about a fight I may have witnessed or some of the patrons I saw get ejected. It was about Dave. When my boss said she also had HR on the line I knew that this was going to be entertaining. I had liked this lady at the time of hiring, but she had gotten worse over time and by now she had a definite air of superiority over our team. She was full time, we were all part time and benefitless. The pitch of her voice would get really high and fake around other arena white collar office workers, but around us I found her to be pretty dismissive. I earned a master's degree in data science had just accepted a data engineering role at Microsoft about a month and a half ago so I was even more amused by how important she thought "arena usher manager" was. It was actually kind of fun to be in this pretty crappy job but know that none of it mattered. So this all was part of her big girl manager routine. She no doubt heard you were supposed to fire people on fridays so that there would be less chance of me wigging out. So while she listed off the charges leveled against me and used big business words, I decided to kill these two dimwits with kindness. "We've decided to separate you from the team" or some nonsense. "Great!" Several times there were long pauses where she seemed to think that I didn't understand what was happening or had never heard such a dismissive retort. Oh I understand, I just don't care.
Lydia and I were like silently laughing to each other throughout this call and having a great time. At one point they said I was no longer welcome in the staff areas of the arena and if I tried to go there I would be trespassing. Fair enough. Then they said they wanted me to hand deliver my uniform to a desk at the arena which seemed to me to be in a staff area. Um no. I thought that this was a pretty good microcosm of their whole superiority delusion. You're fired, now we want you to commute from your home to the arena, park at your own cost, walk to this particular office, hand deliver your uniform, then drive home. A non entitled moron would just email me a shipping label. The uniforms sit in my closet to this day.
Another funny point that Lydia especially enjoyed was when they told me that although I was fired, I was still allowed to buy tickets and attend events like a normal person. I think they must just be going through their "let's help this broken man cope" routine despite the fact that I do not care about any of this.
The fun of the job had long ago wore off and the grind of additional rules and other nonsense increased, so getting fired for talking to what some call the best comedian alive is a fantastic way to go out. I'm not sure if I've written about this, but the ads they put out while trying to hire staff said that they were going to provide meals and then they, just didn't. All of these working class people were then just stuck making crap money in a place with wildly overpriced food.
I ended the call with an extremely warm "thank you, and have a great weekend!" I've never really been fired from a job before so it was extremely fun to go through the experience in a scenario that didn't actually negatively impact my life.
I was a bit bummed out that I didn't end up getting a picture with Dave because I had no evidence that the interaction ever happened. Well now I had some official documentation of the incident. I call that a win. What a way to go out!
I thought it was especially funny that I didn't get caught due to some kind of security measure, but because I told two supervisors my crime! One of them jokingly was like "I'm writing this in my notes" and I was like "don't do that I'll get fired". What a couple of rats. One of my rats was the guy who forgot about me while I was freezing in the parking garage the next day, so that was especially good.
In the end I think I was purposefully just ignoring a lot of the rules because it was a way to stay sane, keep a sense of power over my own life in a weird situation, and if they wanted to fire me for it then go for it. I did spend a lot of time speaking with janitors, cooks, security guards, roadies, food service workers, and all manner of guests from different walks of life. Where I live in Kirkland is kind of a sleepy fancy pants area so I'm very grateful for the chance to interact with normal folks from Seattle. It also forced me to go to the city a ton of times and learn about the area, where to park, where to avoid, some fun spots that I could show others... really what I was hoping for in the first place: a sort of fast lane way to integrate myself with the city I hope to be my permanent home.
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