Fired From Climate Pledge Arena

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.

A Fancy Parking Garage

I worked another event at Climate Pledge Arena today. The Kraken played the Vancouver Canucks. For those of you keeping track at home this was my third day in a row working an event which I think is a record for me. This job involves so much time on my feet that they hurt pretty bad the next morning. It turns out it's a cumulative effect.

I don't usually get stationed in the VIP parking garage but I actually kind of like it. There are less people around to tell you what to do, and it's the easiest work. You pretty much just stand around, ask people what seat they're headed to, and radio it to a person who will then escort them to their seat if they wish. At this point the regulars already know where they're going so they usually decline this offer. The players park here as well so I get to see them pretty regularly. Not because I can recognize many of their faces but because they all dress in fancy clothes and have the same shaggy haircut.

After the game I saw a new event: the TSA set up a little security station next to the team bus to check the Canadians out before they left the country.

Part of this assignment is also BSing with the valets. I told them I didn't know any of the players and they whipped out a nice little cheat sheet. They are really living the life out here. There's so little for them to do once the game starts that they had a little laptop they were watching a movie on.

Today I spoke briefly to Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon. You can tell he's the fanciest of them all because he has a driver/bodyguard sort of dude who follows him around, he has a fancy... I want to say Mercedes SUV with a light up hood ornament. His driver also doesn't park the car in an actual spot, he just sort of parks it next to the wall almost blocking everyone else. He also always lets out his passengers then wheels it around so that it is facing toward the exit. I wonder if that's some sort of tactical thing so he can escape quicker if necessary. I had assumed that he was just there because Amazon is the naming sponsor of the arena and Amazon also rents out a couple of the suites, but it turns out he's also a minority owner of the team.

It was really cold out there in the garage, and one guest refused to come out and get her car, so I just kept waiting. Eventually even the valets left so I took that as my sign to leave too. When I got back to where the rest of my team was I realized that they were all gone and had forgotten about me. Nice.

Met Dave Chappelle on New Year's Eve

At the end of November I received an email from my big boss at Climate Pledge Arena saying that a last minute show had been booked on New Year's Eve with an unknown performer, asking us to sign up to work the shift. Uh, no thanks. Over the proceeding weeks more details emerged: we would get paid time and a half and the performer would be Dave Chappelle. Uh, yes thanks.

Dave Chappelle is my favorite comedian. I have fond memories of driving around in highschool listening to his stand up specials, and in college I remember Chappelle Show was stupidly popular. We quoted lines from it to each other obsessively. In particular I recall a Phi Alpha Literary Society business meeting being brought to a standstill by people yelling lines from the episode where Chappelle impersonates Lil Jon. "WHAT?!" I was also super excited to find out who the "friends" the show promised were going to be.

Lydia was a pretty good sport about me abandoning her on New Year's to pursue my comic hero. We prepartied with some champagne.

Dave recently made fun of people with an underdeveloped sense of humor so there was a bit of controversy about his visit.

As I have documented, this job is extremely boring and involves standing around doing nothing for extended periods of time while not being allowed to look at your phone. I'm not a lawyer but I believe this is defined as torture under the Geneva Convention. Anyhoo, there was a nice old Japanese man that worked as an usher in my area, so one of my favorite ways to kill all that horrid time was to speak my terrible Japanese at him.

One thing that was new about this show was that they were locking up everyone's phone in a little magnetic bag so that you didn't try to record the show. That only applied to the guests, it seemed, as the magnet bag company people were not present at the staff entrance. There was abnormally tight security at the staff entrance for this show only, however, and they were checking our ID badges. I wonder if that was in response to an incident or just a precaution. I actually had a sort of fantasy about how this show could go for me. I was going to meet Dave and get a nice selfie with him, but I didn't want to be in my stupid work uniform in the picture, so I bought a Kraken hockey jersey that I would... have hidden somewhere nearby that I could pop on at a moment's notice. I'm usually not the excitable type so all of this silliness was definitely out of character. It was fun to dream though so whatever.

I usually laugh when they give us these backstage credential sheets because there's no way I would ever remember all of these complicated rules, and I don't care to enforce them anyway. But look at how rad that all access pass looked!

There were a few little extras out for the staff in a dining room we didn't usually have access to. There was food but I had already eaten. I was excited about the hat selection though.

There were a couple of openers but one of them was Patton Oswalt which I thought was super cool because he was actually doing a show earlier today. Some suckers paid just to see Patton but here he was just a free appetizer to get us hungry for Dave. Ok so the arena is kind of oval shaped, as they often are. My world on the lowest floor is kind of like a big donut. There's the seats surrounding the center ice rink area, and then on the outside of both is this big hallway that all the service people use. Usually I can pretty much go wherever I want in this hallway to get various places, including the staff locker rooms and the break rooms. Well on concerts and shows like this the area directly behind the stage is no man's land. This is annoying because it makes my walk to some of those places really long. Also very tempting to me was the fact that while security was posted to keep guests out of this area, they were still letting me through. There was sort of a hierarchy of staff that I was, or at least imagined I was, towards the top of. I know for a fact we made more money than security or the normal level ushers, for example. Also tempting was the fact that our big boss was sick or something and so was not present to scold me for the slightest infraction of her ever changing stupid rules. So I was taking shortcuts through the off limits area anytime the whim struck me. I chatted at the security people a lot anyway out of boredom, so I asked some of the sentries back there if they'd seen Dave. One guy had stopped Dave's wife from entering a restricted area because she didn't have credentials, so Dave had to come out and vouch for her. Very cool! This only served to increase my level of daring. I think I went back there after Patton's set was over just in case he was milling around back there. No dice.

Later in the night my mandatory 30 minute arrived and I again took the forbidden shortcut to get to the breakroom. This time, he was back there. I think the reason he was out in the open instead of the green room or somewhere relaxing was that he's a big smoker, and he was smoking right near where they park the zambonis. Now this was still covid times, and I was serious enough about it that I was wearing not one but two masks, the outer mask on this occasion being the custom Chappelle masks they were handing out to guests. Dave was accompanied by two massive dudes I later learned were his bodyguards. So I wasn't trying to get up in his face unless invited, so spoke to him from a distance that was a bit farther than normal. The day dream of meeting Dave Chappelle that I had harbored for weeks was actually somehow happening. I played it super cool though so that Dave would know I was a normal guy and not some crazed fan in a plastic top hat. The first words out of my mouth were “oh my god it’s fucking Dave Chappelle!”, and he laughed. Then I said “hey Dave can I take a picture with you?” and he said “no I’m about to go on.” Then I said “break a leg man” and he said “thanks” and that’s the story of the time Dave Chappelle politely told me to eff off.

I was so excited that I continued to the breakroom and wrote out the entire very brief and embarrassing encounter on my phone so that I wouldn't forget. I was so happy and probably shaking a little bit, like when you get dealt an especially good hand at poker. I was so happy in fact, that when walking back to my post I passed by my shift manager Dan, who I'm pretty friendly with, and recounted the whole story. He thought it was cool and told me so, and the rest of the night went great. Dave had a recurring joke where anytime he said the new covid variant "omicron" in a story the DJ would play some techno and Dave would do the robot. Another amusing incident involved the bodyguards I'd seen earlier backstage. Dave joked that one of them could sing really well, and that the guy would kill you and then sing beautiful spirituals at your funeral. At one point the guy got up on stage and whispered something to Dave which kind of freaked me out because I thought there might be a security threat or something, but then he took the mic and sang a spiritual. It was really funny.

There were a few outbursts that I assume were related to the haters I referred to earlier. I've never been posted on any floor other than the lowest, but there are a few select luxury areas on the upper floors. I saw a video later on social media with two drunk ladies fighting outside of the fancy Moët & Chandon Impérial Lounge and a couple of my coworkers were visible in the background. What a night!

Patton got a pic with Dave. Must be nice!

Well I'm annoyed that I don't have any actual evidence of meeting Dave Chappelle but I swear it really happened!

Hawks and Salmon

Before I started this insane job I'd been to like three hockey games in my life. Now I'm getting my arm twisted to go to them everyday in some sort of sick mode of torture. How many Canadians does a man see before he loses his mind? 

"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the Canada, the Canada gazes also into you." – Friedrich Nietzsche

Today's game was fun because it was against the Chicago Blackhawks. Chicago is full of poo poo people that deserve my scorn, so I felt it was important that I be there today.

When the Kraken win, which is not often, the players of the game will throw these plush autographed salmon over the glass to the fans. Well that's where all the rich people sit so the fish end up laying around like trophies back in their tunnel club suite lairs.

The fish throwing thing is a reference to the fish throwing happening at Pike Place Market. Seattle-native Macklemore raps about it in "Downtown".

I like the comically large luggage that the away teams use to move all their gear.

Don't steal it John. You'll never get away with it.

There's a shuttle that we take back to the parking garage, but this time I followed a couple random workers who acted like the bus was faster. It was not. The end of the night is another sort of sad demeaning part of working at this weird job. You're tired, you're feet hurt, it's 1 am and you have to work in the morning. All of the fans and most of the staff are long gone but you had to stay late to watch rich people drink beer, so now public transport is done for the night. The only choice then left is this sad single shuttle bus that you have no way to know when will arrive or if it will at all. Calling an Uber will burn off and hour or two of the money you just busted your butt to make in the first place. It's downtown at night in a major city and the street people are out shambling around. I think about quitting all the time but there's always another concert in the distance that I think if I could just last long enough to see that it will make it all worthwhile.

Continuing to get yelled at for leaning against a wall or looking at my cellphone is even more ridiculous due to the fact that I just accepted a position at Microsoft. Part of me is like "do you know who I am?!?" and then that's quickly followed by guilt for thinking I'm too good to do work that a lot of Americans are stuck with. I'm definitely building a lot of empathy for the working man. I sort of hate this but in the end I'm just a tourist and can stop at anytime. One of my coworkers said he was looking for more hours because he just got married and had extra bills to pay. Oh man.

My First Seattle Basketball Game

Today we started our adventuring with a hike around Bothell, north of Kirkland HQ.

Later it was time for me spread more joy and hospitality at Climate Pledge Arena in the city.

The armory had a cool Lego exhibit happening.

Today was actually something a bit different for me at the arena: a Seattle University basketball game!

Idaho State were the bad guys today.

It was fun to see how the basketball court wood panels were set up. Fun fact is the ice for hockey stays underneath and concerts/basketball flooring are just stacked on top. 

The different tunnel clubs are more or less identical but some of them have unique art pieces or other little flair to them. 

"Tyrrell Winston

Wearing Me Down, 2021

Used basketballs, liquid plastic, steel, epoxy

Tyrrel Winston is known for his assemblages of old basketballs that he frequently arranges into grids so they become studies of material, culture, and history.

Self-taught, Winston began his art practice creating collages using paper scraps he found while roaming the streets of New York City. He also collected debris like basketballs and cigarette butts, both of which now serve as foundational material for his works.

His artworks all explore what the artist calls "embedded history": the narratives perpetually lodged in other people's discarded objects."

Seattle U is a tiny little Jesuit school so I'm honestly a bit confused about this arrangement. It seemed to me that there were barely enough people in attendance to bother keeping the lights on. One benefit to me was that there were way fewer rich people, and some of the tunnel clubs were completely empty. It also meant that I could check out some of the upper areas during my breaks and they would be devoid of people.

I believe this was the Space Needle club which was way outside of my zone. There were a section of lesser, higher up suites called the Pitchbook suites that another chunk of our team worked at. Also a fancy area called the Moet Club. I never did get stationed at any of those places and I wonder if that was a conscious choice or just a fluke that my masters decided to stick with.

This is the area that the announcer people stand at during Kraken games. They will also often have famous people come up here to wave to the crowd.

It was homecoming court... presentation time which was fun. One notable thing was that even a Catholic school out here on the west coast was so liberal that they didn't have homecoming king and queen, but rather two "royals". I believe they were both women.

It was clear that the production values were suffering a bit during these games.

I Don't Give a Duck

Today was another day in paradise being my usual hospitable ambassadorial self watching rich people cheer Canadians punch each other in the face.

I will admit that I was slightly excited that the visiting team was the Mighty Ducks. Fun fact: the real life NHL team was actually founded in 1993 by the Walt Disney Company, who then sold the franchise off in 2005.

I know that if I just get handed enough arena schematics that I will someday be able to answer every question these people can come up with.

There's the damn Green Room the players' families keep asking me about. Listen lady I doubt you even bought a ticket to get in here so why don't you use your millions to buy a compass.

I will definitely memorize all of the different 2021-2022 Seattle Kraken Seasonal Credentials. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

Today was actually special in that I was stationed on the east side of the stadium where's the NHL locker rooms are. This is both way cooler and way more of a pain in the ass for both myself and the guests. Anytime the players are moving between the ice and their lockers they are using the tunnels from which the tunnel clubs get their names. Due to covid the players are supposed to be in some sort of bubble and separated from the fans. So in order to control this situation we are constantly enforcing lockdowns to keep everything legit. There is also a large section of the backstage type area that some genius has decided is off limits either to me. So if I'm on the close end of the circle sometimes I have to walk all the way back the opposite way around the circle to get what would be three steps ahead of me, if that makes any sense. My boss and the literature officially refers to this hallway as "lava" which adds a childish nature to the already annoying rule. The rules have really been piling up here I feel like. As the wild west nature of the operation starts to calm down the killjoys have gone to work ringing every last bit of enjoyment out of everything. At one point they decided that my rich guests can buy alcohol all game, and can drink it in their suite, but the cannot walk it 10 steps to their seat to watch the game. Being rich people who paid a ton to be there, they often get pissy when I try to police them. So, I do not try to police them. Problem solved I think. Another stupid alcohol rule: I think the rich people areas are the only ones that sell hard alcohol. Poor people cannot be trusted with the devil elixir and so I'm supposed to police my rich people walking to the elevator with drinks containing hard alcohol. Minus taking a sip of that pink thing you are carrying, I do not know if it's wine or a cosmo and I can assure you I do not care. I'm almost certain at this point I am breaking more rules every day than I am following.

One of the fun parts of being on the action side is that there are more workers of various stripes to talk to. Then news crew people who interview the players are very rude in my experience, even the camera guys think they're too cool to chat so I avoid them. Yes you point a camera sweaty men missing teeth all day, you are very cool and talented I'm sure. I spend a lot of time talking to the security and police who enforce the lockdown. The security people I kind of feel bad about because I think I made like $10/hr more than them to essentially both stare at the same wall in different uniforms. I thought it was fun to see the goalie's I guess spare masks sitting in the hallway behind their little bench. Those metal tube things behind that is a glove warmer/drier thing that they put their gloves on.

Player interview area. One thing that's fun is the players are all friends with the guys on the other teams. Maybe our team especially because in the NHL expansion teams are made from like a garage sale of stealing players from other teams. So everyone is from somewhere. OMG just like me! Anyway they'll hang around in the hallway and wait for their friends to come out of the opposing locker room. Join me, fellow wall starer. I had some small illicit conversations with a few of them. I know I'm supposed to be seen, not heard, but arrest me I guess.

I do like a good hockey fight.

Another group of people that I stand around and BS with are the low level NHL employees. I actually had a really interesting conversation with the puck boy about the different kinds of pucks. I think some of them have like a RFID chip that automatically tracks the position of the puck and maybe who has possession of it type stats at the same time. I thought that was cool. I was tempted to try to bum some pucks out of them but... I don't want pucks and would probably end up throwing them away anyway. Sort of like I throw away my time telling people where the bathroom is for 8 hours a day. Anyway...