Rough Days, Screaming People, and Aliens Playing a Board Game, and Missing Drain Covers

This past weekend, my company worked with perhaps our largest festival to date. We produced a ton of items for them, worked with the largest bands we’ve ever worked with, and stepped into new territory. Certain aspects of it went great, but certain aspects didn’t go according to plan. The space was too small, the staff provided was not enough, and the number of people who wanted to buy merch was much higher than in years past. What this led to was a super crowded workspace, which made finding items in a timely manner difficult, and created a long line. TLDR, it was probably the longest and most stressful day of my life (not exaggerating). In the heat of it all, I tried to console myself by thinking about how diamonds are formed under pressure and all of that type of stuff. The truth is, some days just suck, and that is a part of life. Not every day can be great. You will have bad days. You will have days where, no matter what you do, things don’t go your way. The bad days make you appreciate the good days, because they serve as tangible examples of how bad things can be. I’ve noticed I try to intellectualize my problems away sometimes by chalking up the mistakes that I make as learning experiences. I think this is flawed. Do you know what’s better than a learning experience? Being right the first time. Most learning experiences are obvious and avoidable. Running into traffic and narrowly getting missed by a speeding minivan isn’t a learning experience; it is dumb. I digress.

The most interesting experience from this show was my interaction with an individual who worked with an unnamed band (who most of you would probably know). From the get-go, this guy did not want to be my friend. He spoke very vaguely, and when I asked for clarification, he treated me like an idiot. At the conclusion of the show, he came by to grab the unsold merch from the band and launched into perhaps the most insane screaming fit I have ever seen. It felt surreal. It was just him and me standing in the middle of an empty field at 2 in the morning. He was upset that the items were in boxes and not laid out. He didn’t trust my team’s counts of the remaining items and wanted to do them himself. He proceeded to call me an idiot, an amateur, and a number of other things that I will not write. It was odd. I don’t think I’ve ever been screamed at (at least in this way). In situations like this, I believe the best response is no response. I let him do his screaming and yelling, looked at him, and then just walked away. He continued yelling, but without my response, he eventually quit. People like this interest me. There are scenarios in life where I want to scream at people, but I don’t, because I am an adult. Did this guy have the right to be upset? Yes. But the yelling was insane. It blows my mind that people like this exist.

Screaming man’s statement about me being an amateur was interesting for a few reasons, but mostly because it was right. I am in most ways an amateur. I don’t have formal training in most of the things that I do. Nearly everything in my life has been figured out the hard way or from reading. My life (and most people’s lives) has been figured out as things happen. We are building the parachute as we jump out of the plane. Richard Feynman has a quote where he compares discovering the laws of science to watching Gods playing chess. Where you understand the rules as new things happen. This past weekend changed the rules of the game for me. It exposed me to things I had never witnessed, and it was probably one of the best experiences for me to have at this point in my life. In a way, I am thankful for the screaming man.