Well, we are have past the deadlines for my work for Baycon therefore things have kicked into high drama mode. I HATE HATE HATE this feeling and I deeply resent being put here. Things went blewie on Sat and I haven’t heard anything since. Leaving me in the dark is a bad thing to do. I get more and more worked up when I am missing information and am inclined to be less and less reasonable. I used to be very good at cutting my losses and walking away. Nowadays, that talent has been getting rusty but is looking like it will get a workout.
You would think I would have learned better by now. I do have one thing going for me. I wasn’t suppose to have to deal with the pain in the butt person again. Due to problems he created earlier, he ended up being in my chain of command and now I am dealing with the consequences of his choices. Grrrrr Arrrrr.
My buffer between the PITP (pain in the butt) has gone dark and I haven’t heard from him since Sat. He is an information sponge and absorbs info but doesn’t always let it leak back out. I have no idea what is going on with him. I assume he is all right but I am coming up with other ideas as to why I am being left in the dark. It isn’t pretty.
I do not deal well with emotional turmoil. My main defense against it is information and action. PITP had a rational reason for causing a month’s worth of emotional turmoil at the beginning of this process that ended up being a massive waste of energy, time, and drama. Now he is doing it again after I should be done with the whole damn thing. I understand why PITP is being the way he is, but that is no excuse for his behavior. AT the moment, I have no information and there isn’t any action I can take. I am left with the emotional turmoil that has been eating at me for two days now.
I have been put in the position of needing to say I am going to take my toys and leave. It would be really sad if this is what happens because I put a lot of work and creative sweat into it but I think I can live with it. I can always give my toys to someone else who would appreciate them.
Note: black_reaver noted that PITP should end in B if it were a correct abbreviation. For some odd reason, I like PITP better than PITB. tsgeisel gave me a way to keep PITP and make it accurate in both letters and content. From here on out, PITP means “Pain In The Posterior.”
Shouldn’t this (the program guide I am assuming) been sent to the printer by now?!
Don’t they realize it takes time?
Ah-yup. Last minute fire fight. This is trademarked by PITP and most of the Baycon organization follows this process. It is so ingrained that it is just that way. Even a team of four very competent people that had a system for not falling into this trap have failed to avoid it. It broke two of us, one quit and we still don’t understand how the other survives this year after year. While she survived, she still was not able to finish her job on time or early like we had originally planned.
I pushed to have it ready for the printer for this morning. I pushed hard. And it was a work of beauty. This the last deadline of our choosing. I believe it is possible to get it to the printer in the next few days and have it arrive at the con just in the nick of time. There is no more buffer.
This borders on the surreal, they know the Con will be on “x” day, they know printing takes “y” amount of time.
I can’t believe there are so many last minute changes that they can’t lock the schedule down at a certain point.
Pain In The Butt
Wouldn’t that be PITB, not PITP?
Yeah, PITB would make since. I guess it became PITP because it really goes Pain In The Butt With All The Power. I guess my subconscious made that distinction even if I wasn’t paying attention. To me, PITP just seems to fit better than PITB.
PITB reminds me of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for some reason. PBNJ?
Think I will stick with the inaccurate but oddly satisfying PITP. Thanks for point it out though. Now it is a choice instead of a mistake.
Several years ago, a friend had a truly insane girlfriend who set the bar for every insane woman we’ve met since. We called her the PBW (Psycho Bitch Woman) and the acronym has been in use ever since. Sounds like you’ve got a PBM (Psycho Bitch Man) on your hands. My condolences. Drama sucks.
Oh he isn’t psycho and isn’t insane. He just is a control freak that must be in charge to prove that he is powerful and important. Or at least that is my opinion.
He is good at a lot of things and he is damn good at putting out fires. The hard part is that the way he works create the fires he is needed to put out.
When things are going well, he is a font of information and very supportive. When things are up against the wall, he will fix it no matter who he has to walk on to do so. This means he can be a real ass at times. Understandable, predictable, unavoidable. This eliminate the psycho part.
Bitch fits pretty well in this context.
Pain In The butt Person? Pain In The Posterior?
You will note consistency, even if it was not what was meant. This is the sign of a real professional.
(ETA: “note” consistency, not “not”. Spelling errors – the sign of an unreal professional.)
ROTHFLOL.
Thanks for the giggle and a way to keep PITP since that is what I ended up settling on for no real reason.
Pain in the Posterior sounds so much more upscale.
There is a reason we have sworn “Never Again” about being on staff for BC. We observed that the institutionalized need for heroics is one of several symptoms of its dysfunctional architecture.
Note that many of those dysfunctional traditions (including the horrific meeting structure and the insane entitlements for volunteers) pre-date PITP. They were instituted by the *original* chairs.
I was asked specifically to help because of the way I do things in hope that could help BC change at least a little. I have great pride in something that happened the first year I came in at the last moment to “save the day.” We had a special meeting after the con to discuss things that didn’t work and how to fix them. It was determined that each department needs to document their procedures. At the end of that meeting, I turned in a large wad of documentation for the work I did that year because that is my normal process. And I am pretty sure that no other procedural documentation was ever developed and my stuff was filed away never to see the light of day again.
This year, a few of us thought we had it beat. Everyone in our little group that we had to count on was prepared to “do it a better way.” Sadly it didn’t work. The beast was too big to be tamed or avoided.
I am truly sorry to have missed out on working your con. I have a big long email composed in my head to send to you and haven’t managed to get it into the computer for many made up reasons. I am sorry I wasn’t able to help you out but mostly I am sorry I wasn’t able to experience what I thought was a well run convention and to be part of that. I admire what you and bovil do and how you are able to do it. I am very upset that where I am in my life and your con overlapped like it did. I didn’t even dare to attend because I don’t have the energy to spare to enjoy myself and I knew I would at your con.
I don’t doubt that many of the dysfunctions were in place from the beginning. I can actually live with the bad meeting structure and insane entitlements. It is the fire fighting and the creation of unnecessary fires by ignoring things that I find beyond my ability to deal. There is a great feeling by overcoming a large mess and making it work. I am good at it. I just can’t afford the aftermath and the price I have to pay for that heady feeling. I feel that PITP is instrumental to that fire fighting thing continuing and burning people out.
New Ribbons
“Burned by BayCon”
Give ‘em out to all the staffers and former staffers who have been toasted over the years.
Re: New Ribbons
LOL
That is a funny idea. Sadly most of them would go to other cons because a lot of people burned out by working Baycon are now no longer attending.
What about “Friends don’t let friends work Baycon” ? I guess that could be shortened to FDFWB.
Baycon is very much like my relationship with the military. I had a general feeling that I didn’t like how it is run. Then I had the opportunity to see it up close and personal and developed a real respect for it. And now I also have specific reasons why I don’t like it.
I’m sorry it has become that kind of BS and drama. I miss working cons, not in the capacity that you are working for BC but when we all did security *ahem* excuse me OPERATIONS it was so much fun and had very little BS to deal with.
Hang in there my dear.
Ops for LosCon is going good. There doesn’t seem to be this BS there. Either that or Bert and Melissa keep it away from the rest of us.
In fact, Ops is going so well that we seem to be considered and elite crew and people putting in bids to chair a loscon have asked for us two years in advance. LosCon gets us a sweet suite and has us stay for an extra day because we are so damn good at load out as well. We call ourselves locusts because we come in, strip everything and move it all in record time and have a blast doing it.
Loscon Ops was even asked to do Westercon in Las Vegas this year.
And you are responsible in some part for this. Half the crew comes down from from here and that was your doing.
LOL well I appreciate the credit and am humbled by that since it has been nearly 10 years since I have been to a Loscon though. I do miss it a lot I wish it was not the same weekend as the opening of Dickens fair it’s tough to skip my first love of singing on stage for hanging out with you all but I just can’t seem to do it. I should try and make it to other cons again it would be fun to get back in the convention circuit again.
You could come to Baycon in about a week. The theme is Pirates!
The organization is a bit of a mess this year but for the attendees, it should be just fine.
~Gina
Was just discussing that with a friend..it might happen but not 100% on it yet.
I’ll deffinitly call you if we do decide to show for a day.