Here's a rant for you...

When I was younger, I used to make mental notes of things I would never do to my children; usually things my parents had the indecency to do to me. Usually I told them about the additions to my list, and they would say "Oh just wait until you get older and you'll do that to your kids all the time."

The truth is that I don't remember many of the things that I put on the list, but I do remember the main one was that I would never, EVER tell my children that "life's not fair." And I am proud to say that in a year of nannying, two summers of camp staffing, and a decade (can you believe it-- A DECADE) of babysitting, I have listened to more whines of "BUT THAT'S NOT FAAAAAAAAIR!" than I can count, and I have never, EVER countered with "Life's not fair, it's time you learned that."

Now that I don't live with my parents anymore, I find myself instead making lists of things I will never do to "my" interns. I am sure that at some point I will work somewhere where there will be interns under me-- in music, that's just how things work. As far as internships go, mine has been astoundingly wonderful. I have nothing bad to say about Immortal, it's been lots of fun, I've learned more than I thought possible, and scored more free schwag than any 21-year-old ought to be allowed to have.

But occasionally something ridiculous happens and I add another bullet to the list of things I don't want to do to my future interns. (#1 on the list? I will never ignore the interns until I have a task I don't want to do, then go introduce myself to them and make them do it. Especially five minutes before they need to go, when the project is going to take an hour and a half.)

This week has been madness, though... Starting last week, I was taught how to post things UPS to help out the accounts woman that does all the mail. BUT I am NOT the mail girl. So the woman from Accounts Payable, who taught me how to do the mail, told me I can't post anything without her approval. Weird rule, but ok. BUT the problem comes because I am constantly asked by MY boss to mail things, and then she DOESN'T give approval. "Just wait," she says, "I have to make sure [with her boss] that it's ok to send out." But stop and think about this-- I need to send out PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL FOR OUR BANDS. That's what record labels do; since when do we need APPROVAL to do it? So today when my boss walked through the mailroom and saw 23 envelopes he asked me to mail on THURSDAY still sitting in the mailroom, he came to me upset that they hadn't been mailed yet. (Legitimately so; he asked me to do it four days ago! I've never not done something he asked me to do immediately, so I think he was mostly confused, but he was definitely upset.) I've been asking Accounts Payable every day if I could mail them out yet (despite the fact that I HATE UPSing things), and she keeps telling me I can't. And he keeps telling me to do it anyway. Usually I would do whatever he says, since he is the coolest guy I have ever met in my life. But the problem is this: My boss thinks he is higher on the totem pole than the Accounts Payable woman. But the woman in Accounts Payable thinks that because she is the assistant to someone higher than MY boss, that she is higher on the totem pole. And my boss (rightly, I would say) thinks that because he is nobody's assistant and has his own position, that HE is higher. And it gets worse: they started at Immortal the same week, so they can't even claim seniority over each other.
And then there's Normaltern (my work nickname, acquired my first week on the job), stuck in the middle and trying not to get in trouble with anyone.
Grrrrr.

Tammy Faye died??? How does no one tell me these things?? And here's a [terribly irreverent] question: Who is gonna keep Max Factor in business now??? Also, do you think she honestly believed her eye makeup was attractive? Didn't she notice that the first thing anyone ever said about her was "the one with the clumpy mascara"? And honestly, I've reapplied mascara over old mascara and it NEVER looks like that-- how DO you think she did it?

Love, love, love, love, love, love,
B

P.S. I think there is a significant dearth of band members with very slight lisps.