I have started to notice a difference between the two networks who air Vikings games. Because the Vikes are an NFC club, I see people from one network more often. That breeds more familiarity and thus more friendliness than when the other network comes. Add to that that I might be assigned to a different department for the broadcast, and what results might be not just an unfamiliarity with me, but an indifference, a refusal to get to know me. I am always going to just be "the help," but the people who come around more often I have seen (at least some of them) for years now. If I'm not going away, they have to at least recognize my face.
That was not the case with the game Sunday. First of all, Houston was in town. Second of all, I was assigned to work on that day, and to do something away from the actual broadcast department. Finally, I had to wait a whole hour outside Oooooooooooooooooosbahnk Stadium because the ... oh, I'll just say it, stupid people who had my credential thought they could wait behind the security gates to wait for me even though I couldn't get past the security gates because I didn't have a credential. (People got past the gate without a pass just before I got there, apparently. Oh, and when I got to the truck, the person I was specifically working under said, "The person who was supposed to pass out credentials couldn't get in because he didn't have a credential.")
So from what little I knew and what happened first thing in the morning, I knew this wasn't going to be a good day, or at least a time where people were going to be, you know, cordial. Going in I thought to myself, "Just keep your head down, don't be gregarious, and do what you are told the best you can." I learned that the hard one time a crew for this network came to town years back that being a nice guy might get you in a lot of trouble from people who don't give a shit about you. And it was the right mindset for the game, because the ... well, I'll be vague, what would have been my immediate supervisor was an in-over-his-head prick.
The driver who took the talent to the stadium got lost on the way and the commentators lost it. So that's why this guy was in a bad mood when he marched up to me and asked me if I knew how to get to the broadcast booth. And he screamed like ... yeah, I'll just say it, a spoiled millennial, "Don't say yes if you don't know!" To which I replied, calmly and like a grown-up, "I. Know."
I understand the panic in his attitude. He wants to work in sports. He feels as if he's at the bottom of the totem pole and therefore shit runs all the way down to him (even though he's not and it doesn't because us locals are here). And something bad happened to which consequences could be so bad that he could lose his job and thus his dream of working in sports. I see that. I saw that when he kept emphasizing that he needed someone reliable to take the director's friend to the broadcast booth (he never came, by the way). And I saw it when he warned me that his co-worker couldn't step outside to see his friend, who is working for the Vikings. Hey, pal, I fucking know that. This is not my first rodeo, although it's obviously this is your first rodeo. I was going to ask if he wanted to see her.
But although his attitude is not unlike most of the people in his position who I have encountered over the, oh, dozen years I've done this, there have been a few, maybe a couple, who have, at the very least, hasn't taken out the crap he's taken on me/us. There is such a thing as grace under pressure, and a very few people understand that you need to, at the very least, keep your head while everything is falling down around him or her. There are some people who think that being an asshole is OK while you're stressed because you're a completely nice person once that stress goes away. That is bullshit. You can be calm and courteous regardless of the circumstances; you just choose not to be.
That was the case here, and I fear that that will be the case from now on. In fact, just to be on the safe side, I think I'll keep my distance from these guys in all my games, from the familiar as well as the unfamiliar network. Better that to make sure you don't get your head chopped off. Still, maybe, just maybe, this really was this guy's first gig. And I guess he seemed relaxed when I took a hat for all my troubles. (I was one of several people swarming all over him after the game to get this piece of swag. That had to be supremely annoying from his end, but frankly, if I don't get hired by this network ever again [and that may very well be the case, even though I did nothing wrong], I was going to get a freebie out of it.) I did say three things: "Thanks," "Need anything else?" and "Have a safe trip." Totally innocuous statements to which he replied cordially.
So maybe I can cut him some slack. That's assuming that he won't get me fired because he's an impossible dick.
No comments:
Post a Comment