Chaos Attraction

The Comedy of Errors

2019-10-10, 10:33 p.m.

10/9/19:

I feel like a spoiled brat having power this morning when 800,000 people all around the edges of us don’t today. Not to mention getting dressed in lights, going to work, etc.
Work continued to be draining and involving mail drama. Whee. I was so exhausted I went to bed at 7 p.m. and slept till 6 a.m.
And yet so far the horrendous winds promised don’t seem to have kicked in yet. I was expecting out of the normal and so far other than being fairly breezy, nope. Seriously I’ve been through much worse winds that this. Last night before I went to bed I watched the press conference from PG&E and they said the really bad winds would be from 8 to 10 p.m.


10/10/19:
Woke up to an email from the yarn/quilt shop saying that their power was back on as of 8ish last night. I checked online and theatertown seems to be back in power again, along with the community center. Sounds like there will be a show for my friends tonight :) I think all their homes are still blacked out, but at least they can act.

I got my Ancestry DNA results in.
59% “England, Wales, and Northwestern Europe” (er, Scottish)
20% Germanic Europe
14% France
4% Norway
3% Eastern Europe and Russia

So far no secret siblings, just my aunt and 600+ fourth cousins, and I’ve only so far heard of one third cousin on it. That’s random. I’m surprised I’m more English/Scottish than German (always was told it was other way around), and meanwhile, France?!

I went to work and of course, we had drama. We had a sudden meeting with BigBoss (just as I was about to skip out for my flu shot) about my boss leaving, which turned into a giant “we’re all drowning here” rant on behalf of half the office.

Items of this meeting:
* Original 2nd in Command (who I’ll have to retitle again) will be our supervisor for the time being.
* Because they don’t have any HR problems as long as they don’t rewrite a job description, they can immediately try to hire to replace my boss and think they can get it done before Thanksgiving. I would place my bets on winter 2020, myself.
* They tried to hire someone for scheduling, but that hasn’t happened either (oops, we forgot to mention that) due to the same kind of HR hangup as the assistant job. This came up because Lioness begged that the current interim scheduling manager be assigned to us again because she filled in on boss’s job for a year a while back (and was in this unit before that) and was lovely to work with. BigBoss was all, “You want to take their supervisor away?” and “that causes another hole we have to fill if we hire someone in house” and “she hasn’t expressed interest in it.” To which I was all, she was literally being interim supervisor for 2 units very recently, why can’t she at least help out here?
* We are now down 3 people out of an 8 people unit. They will be hiring another temp (and we noted that one of our current temps has his time run out in December) until a new boss is hired. We expressed concerns that temps are frequently not allowed access to all the things in order to help us or if they do get access, it takes up to 3 weeks. BigBoss said she’d work on it. I asked if they were ready to hire once our absent blinded coworker officially has to cave in and never come back to work (sad but true) and she said yes, they didn’t change her job description so they could do that.
* There were complaints that we don’t have enough staff to answer the phones every Tuesday and Thursday. I wonder if they can hire a part time person JUST for Tuesdays and Thursdays? Not that I feel comfortable suggesting anything, mind you.
* There were complaints that two people are spending all of their time doing nothing but testing the new computer system and don’t have time to do their regular jobs. I am semi trained in their unit and said I’d volunteer to help out, but I’m too busy handling my own stuff all alone to be able to do it as yet. (THOUGH HEY, IF YOU TOOK THE OTHER UNIT’S STUFF AWAY, I COULD....I didn’t say that out loud.)
* BigBoss said that the people working on the upgrade didn’t plan to have us test anything At All and thus did not budget to give us a tech person of our own or get any assistance for anything. Sheeesh.
* We discussed whether or not it’s feasible/reasonable to ask anyone here to wait a few days for us to process their crap. I pointed out that if I don’t do everything right away, that means I get calls and emails nagging me until I do, so that’s why I just drop everything and do their shit now. I would absolutely give terrorists what they want, y’all. Give the people what they want so they will go away, that’s my motto. (And indeed, talked a guy into doing that at 4:50 today because otherwise the person was going to harass all of us for months if he didn’t get what he wanted by Friday and someone was trying to be a rules lawyer. That’s no good here.)

I guess that’s why you get the big management bucks, to deal with this crap. Good lord.


Tonight since I had no Thursday plans for a change, I went to see The Comedy Of Errors. I like how this theater company has gotten more balls to the wall insane in their Shakespeare presentations in recent years. This one was full 1970’s wardrobes, with two hippie flower outfits in particular I really wanted even though they made your eyes bleed.

The plot of this one, should you not have heard, is two sets of twins, separated by shipwreck, end up on the same island together along with their also shipwreck separated parents, and everyone is split up a la Twelfth Night. In this production they decided to gender swap a few roles, so we have Antiphola as the name for both the local and visiting “lady” twins and Dromio as the local and visiting servants. Both Antipholas are jerks who literally beat the shit out of their Dromios every time the Dromios get mixed up, so you don’t root for them. (Though I did enjoy the sound effects.)

The local Antiphola is married to Adriano, played hilariously by the guy in “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” as a Mr. Mom in aprons, ironing the baby clothes, and generally being super upset at his wife for bailing, being a jerk, etc. all the time. When not in aprons or skimpy workout wear, he dresses like Freddy from Scooby Doo. The visiting Antiphola gets dragged in for lunch (the local one is locked out and runs off to a ...courtesan pimp daddy’s house?...for lunch instead) and is all, “I have no idea what the fuck is going on with this crazy, but I guess I’ll go along with it?” Visiting Antiphola then decides to come onto Adriano’s sister, which is a fun twist with the gender stuff there. Naturally, the sister finds this awkward.

Other moments:

Visiting Dromio manages to figure out how to pick up five large suitcases at once and then Visiting Antiphola pitches her last bag around his neck.

At one point an Antiphola throws a Dromio’s pen into the audience and yells, “free pen!”

Visiting Antiphola and the courtesan pimp daddy get into a growl fight at one point.

Of course there are swords being waved around.

Visiting Antiphola (the more “hippie” twin) breaks out her tarot cards periodically. I doubt Shakespeare wrote that in.

I’m pretty sure the scene where a FUCKING WIZARD SHOWS IN SHINY DISCO WEAR and magically forces Local Antiphola and a Dromio to disco dance around isn’t quite Shakespeare either.

For those of you wondering how the heck they have the twins reunite, they have a wall up on stage and have the twins all “meet” behind it, with switching and some arm body doubles and voiceovers.

It was pretty crazy.

I would also like to mention that I saw a license plate that said "ROG SQD" and the frame around it said "My other ride destroyed the Death Star." I desperately wished I could photograph it, but it drove away.


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