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[frank kayser]

In life, we're all tossed lemons, as has been described.
I can make some decent lemonade.
I also find Lemonade and Xanex a good cure for the idiots I face.


Better living through pharmaceuticals.  Cheers!


frank

[John Rutirasiri]

I used to think these things only happen at "community" type events, but nope, they happen all the time!

One show in a 20,000 sq ft ballroom, a "surprise" opening band showed up and used their own PA.  Two speakers on a sticks.  Few songs in and they burnt out one of the HF and voice coils rubbing on the 12".   Show organizer came telling me it sounded terrible.  I said it wasn't my system, but she kept on arguing.  I showed her the main fader was all the way down.  She did a 180 and said because my mains were down, the band had to crank their PA, so it was my fault their speakers blew and it sounds like sh*t.

I was speechless.

[Scott Holtzman]

I used to think these things only happen at "community" type events, but nope, they happen all the time!

One show in a 20,000 sq ft ballroom, a "surprise" opening band showed up and used their own PA.  Two speakers on a sticks.  Few songs in and they burnt out one of the HF and voice coils rubbing on the 12".   Show organizer came telling me it sounded terrible.  I said it wasn't my system, but she kept on arguing.  I showed her the main fader was all the way down.  She did a 180 and said because my mains were down, the band had to crank their PA, so it was my fault their speakers blew and it sounds like sh*t.

I was speechless.

Don't you just want to say "have you always been an idiot or is it a degenerative condition".  Possibly she wouldn't understand anyway.

I have fired a few customers in my other vocation.  Once I was out playing a round of golf with friends.  My phone blows up, 5 or 6 calls in a row.  I think something has burned down.  Now mind you I have three people in the NOC back at the office, two techs out in the field, a project manager, a technical partner and a customer service manager all back at the office. 

So I pick up the phone and a customer starts to light me up, after three or four rounds I finally ask him since he won't call the office what the f*** am I supposed to do about it.

He always called the office after that, and they actually are still customers.  I however would not suggest this.

[Scott Holtzman]

I have another great story.  About 17 years ago when I first moved to Cleveland I was a contractor at Sprint in the role of network design manager.  They had trouble retaining good people so I became the go to guy and had far more power and latitude than any contract job I had ever worked.

Anyway, to serve these cell sites we had 1 or two T1 lines back to the switch.  Most were in Ameritech land before it all became AT&T again (Judge Greene, the judge that presided over the original consent decree that broke up the Bell System, must be rolling in his grave).

Ameritech simply could not make dates.  They were missing 90% of the due dates.  I had to staff the switch 24 hours just to keep up with testing.

So we decided we needed to have a CTJ meeting (Come to Jesus).  I told our rep to get the 5th level and anyone else that would listen. 

Here we are in a huge conference room in the Ameritech building downtown and I have gone through a bunch of dry slides with statistics on orders, deliveries etc.

A little aside, when ordering dedicated services from telco providers once engineering is done checking what build needs to happen to get the service where you want it you get a FOC date (pronounced fock like in flock).  This is the date +5 you give to your PM.  It's a big deal.  Late facilities is one to one slip.

Anyway my last slide simply has the letters FOC on it.  I asked my adorable intern Andrea to please get out the dictionary I asked her to bring.  Now everyone is looking at me like I have spinach in my teeth and my fly is down.  I state the word firm and ask Andrea to please read the definition.  She does and we move on.

Then we get to order, basic definition and I simple state that your sales staff has no issue taking orders.

Then the big one, commitment.  The definition is read and I stated that their (Ameritech's) lack of understand of the word is causing our project to fall way behind schedule and go over budget.  One of the VP's looks like he is about ready to march out and tells me they are very committed to Sprint PCS as a major account and have all the resources at his disposal.  I responded that's great but I need a commitment for this to work and I said something along the lines that by all evidence your team does not understand what a commitment is or how to allocate resources properly in order to meet commitments.

It was a classic, tale was told for years.  Nothing changed but somehow we launched three days early,

One more from the same job.  We had a few cell sites up and the Motorola guys were in testing some software on the switch.  Some moron from marketing asked for an engineering phone and I suggested that was a bad idea.  Sure enough about 10 minutes later in walk a pile of suits.  The control room looks like a frathouse.  The Motorola guys (some in from Banglor) have been up for 48 hours.  The curry farts have been flying and the each build we are sent seems to get worse. 

Sure enough while the suits are there one of the core processors (a huge Tandem non-stop UX computer) core dumps the switching processes.  The engineers are looking at thousands of lines of decoded core dump and it's chaos manor.  One of the suits comes up to me and asks me what's wrong.  I answer, very politely "it's broke".  Now annoyed he wants to know what we and Motorola are going to do about it.  I answer, this time with a little disdain showing "we are going to fix it". 

He stammers off and my boss called me asked me what I said to the Senior VP of Sprint PCS marketing.  I told him and he says the guy asked him if I had a mental condition and needed referral to EAP. 
 

[John Rutirasiri]

I have fired a few customers in my other vocation.

LOL! I really want do that on some gigs!

Your telco story is great.  I was a co-op at RR Donnelley telecom dept in the early 90s.  We ordered T1s and E1s left and right to link various plants and offices, customer sites, off-site pre-press, satellites, etc.  I don't ever remember Ameritech being on time.  It got so bad the company started going with microwave.  Dial-up (which was supposed to be for backup) sometimes became the main link.

John R.

[Tom Danley]

But I hate the fucking "artists".

Dear Asshole Production Manager for the Opening Act that is not part of the tour-

You sat there, 25' from me and never gave me an input list, stage plot or otherwise made contact with me - and this was over a period of 3 hours.  When my stage/monitor person came to you to verify that what we saw (2 guitars, bass, drums) was what the band would use in performance, you had the opportunity to communicate that the guitar rigs were in stereo, that the singer needed special accommodation for her "performance", and that a DI and input were needed for a sampler.

You did exactly NONE of that, but were present on the deck while we wired the stage and still said NOTHING to us, leaving it to the musicians to explain during sound check (that was 5 minutes before doors because you took 45 minutes to get your shit on stage) that they needed these things, and only then did you produce a stage plot and input list.  And then you decided that we were at fault and went to the promoter to complain.

Oh, and we tried to contact you days before the performance but you never returned the phone calls or emails, either.  If you don't care enough to respond to our outreach, don't be surprised if we're not instantly ready for your band.  It's your job to advance shows, and we try to have 100% advance with every act on the bill.  If you don't care enough to respond, why are you PM?  Just to stir up shit between the production company and promoter?

Ugh, sounds like fun...not.

What is it they say, "you can't live with them...but you can't freeze them in Liquid Nitrogen and pound them into the ground like a tent stake either"
Best,
Tom

[Tim McCulloch]

Ugh, sounds like fun...not.

What is it they say, "you can't live with them...but you can't freeze them in Liquid Nitrogen and pound them into the ground like a tent stake either"
Best,
Tom

Liquid nitrogen is a little cold even by my standards. 

[Tim Halligan]

What is it they say, "you can't live with them...but you can't freeze them in Liquid Nitrogen and pound them into the ground like a tent stake either"

I like this.

My current personal favourite for moron clients is - and this isn't terribly new either - "is your arse jealous of the shit that comes out of your mouth?"

Cheers,
Tim

[GenePink]

And you know, it might be that they keep asking the agency to update their files, and they don't........

Yeah, I know a soundguy that works for somebody you probably have heard of, and when in Nashville, he went to the booking company and demanded to see their files.

He grabbed all the old riders and ripped them up, probably with his bare teeth, he was pissed about this exact topic.


I once called a soundguy/TM contact on a rider to advance a show, and talked to a nice fellow sipping margaritas by his pool. "I haven't worked for that band in over a year, and btw, the keyboard player died".

Gene

[Cailen Waddell]

And you know, it might be that they keep asking the agency to update their files, and they don't........

Should be time to kick that agency to the curb. Sursly, a loss of business sometimes is the only thing that calls their attention to the problem!

-Ray

I can tell you the number of times I get a contract and rider for a C level national act, when they are booked a year in advance and then a month out go googling to discover they have a different agency and a new rider.  Which is fine with me.  Happy to get the rider, just wonder if everyone moving agencies doesn't cancel out...

We had a local band show up for an outdoor gig, and it was a busy day for us, so we only packed the Tom mics we would need for the gig (3) the rest were in use in other venues.  Drummer shows up with 8 toms like he fucking plays for rush or something and starts complaining that we don't have enough mics for his kit.  He is shown the rider, we offer to throw some 57s at the problem or just mix with overheads (small stage anyway) and he still complains, till the lead singer walks over and tells him that he watches and the drummer never plays half the crap he brings anyway and to only play the drums we mic because he is tired of hearing the guys shit.    Needless to say - I don't think they still play together.


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