I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

I’ve debated whether to write this story, as I generally don’t write stories about my current job.  

But this one is about me so I think it’s fair.  

On Wednesday, I got home from work early.  

4:00 early.  

I had one thing on my mind. 

A nap.  A two-hour nap.  Before Adam got home to make dinner.  

Seriously, it’s been a while since I’ve napped.  

As I was getting settled on the couch, I get a text from my boss, asking me to take a look and see if I can find an opening for a 7-top on Friday night.  

I open up the Open Table app and I take a look.  We were already busy from the guest count.  Chelsea Handler was going to be in town at our big auditorium, and that always drives business.

I look at all the options.

He reached out to me, because I pride myself on never saying no.  My job is to always get a butt in seat.  

I look, and look to no avail.  

However, as I’m looking at tables I can move, I click on reservations with notes.  

It’s my husband’s birthday can we get a candle.

Quiet table in the back. 

We’d like to be inside if anything opens up.  

Coming from work, might be a few minutes late.

If Jeff Fightmaster is working, please cancel the reservations.  

URRRRRKKKKKK!!!!

What the fucking fuck???? 

I read it again.  Surely, it’s someone I know joking.  

I don’t recognize the name. 

I google them.  Nada.

I look for them on social media.  Nada.

I screen shot the reservation and reach out to Adam to see what he thinks.  

I do the same to my friend Laura.  

Both say to ignore it.    

I delete the comment. 

And decide I’ll ignore them.    

To be honest.  

It’s not the way life works. 

There are lots of people who don’t like me in the world.  There are daresay LOTS of people in Maine who don’t like me.  

However, you need to keep that dislike in your lane.  

Not mine.  

If I’ve done something to offend you, confront me.  Or ignore me.  Or just don’t come to where I work. 

But you don’t get to be a mean girl.  

I did not cancel the reservation.

I did not call them.

I ignored them.  

The reservation time came tonight and five minutes after they should have been there, the phone rings.  It’s them.  I don’t answer.  I give the phone to the host.  

She answers and they tell her they need to cancel.  

Good for them.  

She hangs up and says they were nice, but they weren’t coming.  

The night ended without incident.

I will say, that I was anxious all night.  And I hated that I was letting them get to me.  In the nine months I’ve been at my new job, I haven’t had an issue with anyone. 

At my old job, everyone hated me, but they kept coming back.  

I don’t suppose we’ll ever know who this was.  

But I do know it was not COOL.

NOT COOL AT ALL.  

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

I did something last night I VERY, VERY, VERY rarely do.  

I met employees out for a drink.  

We were closed for cleaning, and when I checked in on them, they invited me to meet them at a bar for a drink.  

I arrived late, and joined them at the bar.  

I ordered a boulevardier and he knew what it was and made it excellently.  

I hung out with my team, chatted, learned that the bartender and I had mutual friends and talked for a while.  

I ordered my employees two more drinks, asked for the check and paid it.  

I didn’t pay attention and the bartender was busy when I leaving.  

I said my goodbyes and headed home.  

About an hour later, my phone rings and it’s a Los Angeles number.  

I don’t answer.  

A few minutes later, my phone pings and it’s the bartender from the bar, saying that the transaction timed out and my payment didn’t go through.  

OH NO!!!

I call him back and he asks if it’s okay to take my credit card number over the phone.   

I say of course and give him the number.  

I tell him to make sure that he adds the tip that I left in as well.

He says that he doesn’t feel comfortable doing so, because it was his fault the transaction didn’t go through.  

I tell him of course you’ll add the tip, it’s not that big of a deal, we are both in the industry and it’s how he makes his money.  

He is very gracious.  Adds the tip and we say goodbye.  

It felt good to do the right thing.  

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

I don’t have a nickname at the moment.

It’s actually been a while since I’ve had one.

I’ve always appreciated them when I did have them.

Here is a history of my nicknames.

In college I was Fight.

It started when I pledged a fraternity.

Now that you’ve all wiped up the liquid you just spit across the room.

Yes. I was in a fraternity.

I attended a very small. Very conservative college. And if you wanted to have fun on campus you joined a fraternity or sorority. By the time I graduated most of my friends were in frats or sororities.

It was also not very expensive to do so.

It was a couple of hundred bucks in dues. You room and board for the college paid for you to live in the frat house. And to be honest. It was a lot of fun.

It’s the only thing I will ever have in common with Mitch McConnell. Same frat. Different colleges. Different political beliefs.

My fraternity brothers started calling me Fight when I pledged, and it continued till I graduated.

I loved it and it was the name on all of my fraternity gear.

Then I moved to Atlanta and became Jeff Ann.

It started when another server named Clay Boye got hired. He was quirky and weird, in all the best ways.

He was a visual artist and is the person who told me that if you buy your art to match your sofa, you should hang your sofa on the wall and sit on the floor.

Buy ART that speaks to you.

He was called Clay Boye and he started calling me Jeff Ann. It stuck. And I was Jeff Ann until I moved back to Kentucky.

When I moved back to Kentucky, I went to grad school at the University of Kentucky, getting an MA in theater.

One day, my design professor and I were in the the McDonald’s drive through and I saw a friend from work. I rolled down the window and said hello to Lisa Larmour and she said What’s up Maddog?”

It stuck.

No one had ever called me that before.

But from that moment, everyone called me Maddog.

When I went to the department graduation, the chair of the department called me Maddog.

PS. Lisa would have had no idea, that it ever happened and that the name stuck.

When I left Kentucky to go to NYC, the Maddog name was lost in the move.

I haven’t really had a nickname since.

I do sometimes add Anne to the name of the person I’m talking to at work. Less so now, but when I started managing I did it all the time. Kimberly Ann. Laura Ann. Brian Ann. So, there are a few people called it back to me calling me Jeff Ann.

It does make me smile when someone from my pasts calls me by a nickname.

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

Most of you know that in a different life, I was a lighting designer.  A pretty good one at that, if I don’t say so myself.  I had a knack for it for some reason, and it just made sense to me.  

In the 20+ years I was active, I designed well over 100 shows.  In all types of theaters and venues.  For many different organizations.  

When I started out, I wanted to design musicals.  In fact, I almost didn’t go to UCSD, as they don’t really produce musicals.  I was assured by Chris Parry, that I’d get what I needed and then wouldn’t you know it, I ended up designing two musicals at UCSD while I was a student.  

However, grad school taught me that I really like the artistic dramas the most.  Especially those, that allow for big bold lighting statements.  There is a lot less demand for those designers.  

So, it was musicals that paid the rent.  

As a lighting designer, I am also the unluckiest motherfucker you have ever met.  As I said, over 100 shows, and three times in my career I had light boards crap out and the shows were lost.  Completely.  Back ups corrupted.  Boards didn’t work.  Nada.  Zip.  

A little background for those non theater folk.  Lighting is run through a computer, that has the settings for each of the lights recorded.  You press go and the lights change as they’ve been programmed and thus the design is executed.  Without those cues, you are basically looking at a dark stage.  

The first time this happened was at The Diversionary Theater in San Diego.  We’d finished up our dress rehearsal of M. Butterfly, been given notes, and the theater was empty. I was left to do a page or two of lighting notes.  Adjustments that needed to be made to make the lighting better.  

I started and about 20 minutes into the process, I hit record, time 4 enter, enter.  And the board shut down.  I rebooted it, and it restarted without issue. 

Except.  

That my show was gone.  Fuck!

I double checked everything. 

Nada.  Zilch.  

I checked.  The disc was in the computer, and it would mean doing my notes over, but I went ahead and loaded the show from the disc.  

Except that it wouldn’t load.  It kept saying the disc was corrupt.

It’s now close to midnight.  I have a light board with no cues.  And we have final dress in about 18 hours.  

Fuck.  Fuck.  Fuck.  

I take a deep breath. 

I should say, when stuff like this happens, I go to my calm place.  

I rebooted the computer. 

I tried the disc again. 

I say.  Well.  Here’s what needs to happen.  I have till tomorrow at 7:00 to get the show re-cued.  

I grab my keys and drive to 7-11.  I get a Double Gulp Diet Coke.  I go back to the theater.  I get a new disc…

And I start.  

Page by page.  

I know where the cues go because they are written in my script.  I’ve seen the show enough to rebuild most everything.

And I cue.  And cue.  And cue.  

When the Executive Director shows up at 8:00 the next morning.  I’m still cuing.  

I finish up around 10 or so. 

Go home.  Shower.  Get to class as I’m a student at UCSD. 

At 6:00 I get back to the theater, where we do our final dress.

The show is in.  It’s actually not a bad copy.  

And the show opens the next day without further issue.  

Fast forward to Oklahoma.  The state.  Not the musical.  

I’m there to design the summer season for Light Opera Oklahoma.  The Music Man.  Sweeney Todd. Naughty Marietta.  

In the summer, LOOK tours one of their shows and this year is The Music Man.  Three stops on our tour.  

One of the theaters is on an Army base.  I can’t remember the name for the life of me, but the founder of the theater’s portrait is hanging in the lobby and they’ve captured his gayness 100%.  This theater was built in the 50’s and that’s when the last technology update occurred.  Overheard, the stage is lit with strip lights with red, white and blue roundels.  The best part of this theater is the soldiers who show up to see the show.  Hot.  Hot.  Hot.  

The weird part is that it is required by law that the Star-Spangled Banner be played before any event.  So, the orchestra plays the SSB.  Then immediately launches into the Overture for The Music Man.  It was weird as fuck.  

The next theater, is old.  Old.  Old.  And is big enough for about 20% of our scenery.  The lighting is a little better, BUT there is no air conditioning.  It’s July.  In Oklahoma.  It’s insane.  By the time the crew loads in, we are exhausted.  

The show happens.  

In both of these theaters, the lights pretty much stay on, and the stage manager calls follow spot cues. 

I’m excited for the next space.  It’s a brand-new performing arts space in Claremore, Oklahoma.  Brand new.  1,000+ seats.  All the bells and whistles.  Including a/c.

We load in.  We hang the plot.  We focus.  We cue.  We are ready to go.  

Fun fact:  We are the first group to use the space.  We discover the hard way, that everything said on the clear com, is also heard on the dressing room speakers.  The Music Man children heard a few inappropriate jokes and comments before we realized this.  

We take a quick break to get a late lunch.  We get back to the theater around 6:00.  Show will start at 7:00.  

Just as we get back to the theater, a typical thunderstorm rolls through.  This has never been proven, but it was the consensus as to what happened, but we think lightning struck the building.  The Board crashed.  When it comes back up.  Once again.  The show was gone, and the disc was fucked.  And this time for my theater friends, the patch is gone.  

Once again, I took a breath and went to my calm place.  I started directing people as to what to do.  

You do this.  You do that.  You go over there.  

It’s 6:30. The house is supposed to be open.   We can’t open, because I need to figure what each of the lights do, where they are plugged and get submasters programmed.  

The theater operators are in the booth with me.  I turn to them and say, give me another 20 minutes and we’ll be good to go. I’ll cue the show live using submasters and Kelly, the stage manager, will call spots, and remind me what part of the stage is going to be used, and what scene is coming up.  However, if this is going to work, I’m going to need the largest Fountain Diet Coke you can find.  

I go back to work.  The house is opened.  And just before the overture starts, a Diet Coke appears on the floor beside me.  I cue the show live, and believe it or not, it looks pretty good.  

Fun Fact:  Fast forward 2 years, and Adam and I drive to Texas.  On our way home to NYC we stop in Claremore, Oklahoma to visit his friends from college. We meet at a Mexican Restaurant.  And about 15 minutes into the visit we realize, they were the theater operators, and they are the folks who got me the Diet Coke.  We love them dearly.  

Now it’s 2013.  I’m in Grinnell, Iowa.  I taught there in the winter of 2007, and designed one of my all-time favorite shows for a choreographer friend.  I was asked back after that, and went.  I continued to go until Adam and I moved to Maine and I stopped designing.  

The last year I was there, I designed a show that I am afraid to say I don’t remember the name of.  It’s a lot of fun, I get to spend time with friends and do great design work.  The production staff at Grinnell is second to none.  

The show opens, we celebrate.  I fly home the next day.  It’s a full day of traveling to fly from Des Moines, to Portland.  

When I get here there are a number of calls from Erik.  Seems, that their board, a Marquee, that I always hated using, but had no choice in for this show, has crashed.  They are asking for back up paperwork etc.  As they can’t get a replacement, and the disc won’t work in their Expression.  They are basically forced to re-create the show from memory.  

I thought to myself as I hung up the phone with Erik.  

Fuck my life.  NOT again.  

So yes.  Unlucky.  

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

Writing is so weird.

Sometimes I sit down to write and the words and ideas just flow from nowhere.

Other nights, like tonight, I sit staring at the keyboard wondering what the fuck is up with this.

Three years ago, when I first started writing I would jot down ideas on my notes from work. This has continued since I switched jobs. I also sometimes lie awake and make lists in my phone of potential writing ideas. In all, I probably have close to a thousand writing ideas. Which is also bad, because then I have to choose and having too many ideas is as bad as no ideas.

My lists are comprised of grad school all 2.5.5 times I attempted it. Teaching high school. Teaching college. LOTS of theater stories. Getting fired stories. Waiting tables stories. Management stories. And I think each idea is just as good as the next.

I also know that every day at work as a manager, for the past 11 years, I’ve been punished by my staff doing things that I did 30 years ago. Every time it happens, I think, there I go again.

Here are two server stories.

One is the best tip I ever got.

The other is one of the worst tips I ever got.

On July 4, 1988 I was working at Bennigan’s at Lenox Mall. For those familiar with Atlanta, I always tell people this was back when the mall was only one story. Before they built up.

We were being slammed as the parking lot was great for viewing the fireworks. The wait was well over an hour, and there were people standing everywhere. I was working in a section I hardly ever worked in. It was in the 20’s and a non-smoking section.

Side Bar: I hate, hate, hate cigarette smoke. Hate it. My mom chained smoked when I was a kid, and I suffocated in the backseat of the car with the windows rolled up. Hate it.

However, I always asked to work the smoking section when I waited tables, because fun fact, smokers tip better than non-smokers. Across the board. Almost every time.

Here I am in the afternoon, in the 20’s and we are on a huge weight. And my table is sitting empty. And it’s empty for FOREVER. Looking back, I think the hosts were probably lost. It’s easy to do, when the people keep coming and there is no time to breath. However, I make my money with butts in seats and my table is still empty after a half an hour.

I say fuck it, and go into the lobby and grab four people and seat them at my table. (For my Hard Rock Café friends, it was clearly a sign of things to come). I wait on the four top and when they are done, they pay the bill. What I didn’t know, was that they worked at the Bally’s gym right behind our restaurant. When they paid the bill they tipped on the credit card, but they also gave me a free three-year membership to the club. The manager said, come in this weekend, we’ll get you signed up, and you’ll be set for the next three years.

And sure enough, the next day I went in, signed up and that was my gym until I moved back to Lexington the next summer.

A great fucking tip.

One of my worst tips, and there are a lot, was a ten top I waited on for brunch at Daryl’s Restaurant in Lexington. Both Bennigan’s and Daryl’s were what my friends called brass and fern restaurants. Lots of brass. Lots of potted plants. Lots of memorabilia. Daryl’s was known for having the “jail” and having Ferris wheel carriages, both on the second floor.

I wait on the ten top and give exemplary service, I am sure. (Seriously! There are few things that I’ll say I’m excellent at, but waiting tables I excelled at). The table finishes up and asks for the checks. Checks because they want 10 separate checks. I oblige. What are you going to do.

The guests get up to leave, and I go up to start bussing the table. I am shocked to discover, there is not a single piece of paper money. In the middle of the table is a pile of change. A pile. Probably ten dollars in small coins.

Fuck you, motherfuckers!!!

I gather up the change in my apron, think Auntie Em, collecting eggs from the hen house. And I walk to the stairs and start down them, just as 6 or 7 of my guests are coming from the restroom. I then, “trip” down the stairs and drop the coins all over the floor in front of them and say, “Oh, no. I dropped my tip.” There were coins all over the bottom of the stairs. The guests were quite aware of my point, but I’d never said anything to really get me in trouble.

My co-workers helped me collect “my tip” and I went on about my day.

Two stories.

Same server.

I waited tables for a long time. I was good at it. And it afforded me a very comfortable life throughout my time doing it. I loved it for a long time, and then one day I realized I needed to get out.

And here I am.
I watch my staff do it every day. They kill it. Over and over again. I look at them, knowing the days they are having. The stress. The anxiety. The angst of getting good and bad tips.

Someday, they’ll write these stories. In the meantime, they have to put up with dad sharing his stories with them.

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

Adam and I spent our “weekend” in Western Mass this weekend.   The Berkshires for those who don’t know.  It’s about four hours from Portland, and this is the 6^th or 7^th  time we’ve made the drive.  

We go to Barrington Stage Company to see their professional shows.  It started with Ragtime in 2017, and it’s continued with other shows that pique our interest.  This last time was to see Bernadette Peters and Next to Normal.  

We’ve always enjoy the shows, we enjoy the get away, and it’s more or less a 48 hour vacation which we always need in August or September after the intense summers that we have.

The other great thing about Western Mass is Mass MOCA is there and is an excellent contemporary art museum in an old mill, with incredible installations.  We often try to do both when we drive out.

This is all back story about whey we drive 4 hours to see theater in the middle of nowhere Mass.  

This past trip was especially fun, because I saw two friends from grad school at UCSD, and another friend from Kentucky.  The two friends from UCSD I knew would be there, the friend from Kentucky was a surprise. 

It was great catching up with all of them finding out what creative things they’d been up to, and sharing stories with Adam about the adventures of my past.  

Every time this happens, I walk away with a longing for times gone by.  Reminiscing about shows I’ve designed, creatives that I’ve worked with, and my days in the theater. This awakens something in me that has been mostly asleep for the past 11 years.  

However, before you get ahead of yourself…I DO NOT miss lighting.  I don’t miss the schedule.  I don’t miss the travel.  I don’t miss the deadlines.  I don’t miss it at all.  And if you’d told me 20 years ago I’d say that I’d have told you that you were crazy. 

I DO NOT miss it at all. 

What is awakened then???

The artistic outlet!

The collaborative art forms.  The discussion of art in general.  The discussion of concepts and ideas.  The breakdown of these ideas into smaller ideas that can be used to create art.  

I miss the intense discussions of what we saw and whether we appreciated the story telling.  Whether we understood the director’s choices, or whether the lighting designer, set designer, and costume designer got it right.  

I want to argue about art at 4:00 in the morning after 2 too many bourbons.  

I want to spend 90 minutes singing the praises of my friends who just finished producing ground breaking work.  

I want people to understand that Neil Simon and Andrew Lloyd Weber are just as important in the theater world as Stephen Sondheim and Tom Stoppard.  

I miss these conversations.  Adam and I have these conversations, but truth be told our tastes are similar, so there is rarely an argument.  We are both preaching to the choir. 

On Tuesday night, over drinks with my grad school friends, we chatted about our thoughts on the recent Broadway shows that we have seen.  Suffs.  The Notebook.  We all had our opinions.  There were things we liked.  Things we hated.  Things we disagreed on.  

And as I walked back to our hotel I was thinking about how much fun it would be to light a show for my friend Jen.  Which is true.  But more true was how much I enjoyed the conversation.  

I’ve spoken of the “bar” I ran in grad school.  The happy hours I hosted.  

These were the conversations we had at 2:00 in the morning.  What is the meaning of theater? What is theater?  Is football theater?  What makes a good director?  Does a play in a classroom with overhead fluorescent lighting need to credit a lighting designer?  Is performing in street clothes a costume choice?  

I could go on.  

I do NOT miss lighting. 

I DO miss talking about it. 

I DO miss collaborating. 

I DO miss the intense conversations at 2:00 in the morning.  

And goddam it, Neil Simon is hard to quote my friend Hilary on Tuesday night.  

The Notebook was a great experience.  

Suffs is a good play, made better by the fact that every college, high school and community theater will beproducing it in the coming years.  

And for me, yes football is theater.  It has two directors.  A costume designer.  Performers.  Underscoring.  An Intermission.  Scenery. Lighting.  Rules of engagement.  And people pay to see it.  And sometimes they even have standing ovations.  

Too many people stand up for shows that aren’t deserving these days.  And I feel compelled to stand up so that I can see the rest of curtain call.  

This is what I miss. I need more of it.

PS. I get equally excited about restaurant speak. That collaboration. That creative work. But truth be told I need both in my life.

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

Adam asked me tonight why I’m not writing more these days.

It made me realize I do miss it.

Here’s the thing.

I don’t write at work because it feels weird and I want to be home when I’m finished with work.

I don’t write at home because I want to spend time with my boyfriend.

A year ago, I’d write when I got home when I needed to unwind before going to bed.

So.

I’ve traded my work schedule and writing schedule with spending time with Adam.

That being said.

I have about forty pages of things to write about.

I told him I’d start bringing my computer home and write while he makes dinner.

Meanwhile.

Tomorrow we’re going to Western Mass. And I hope to see two of my favorite people from grad school.

I’ll keep you posted.