March 29, 2008

Crazy Week

This has been a bit of a crazy week. The beginning of the week started off great - lots of great things happened in Freshie & Zero world. For starters, I received a consignment invite from Young Blood Gallery in Atlanta which was exciting; I contacted Art Effect in Chicago and they actually responded and told me they liked my jewelry (and holy crap their store is awesome!!); I had also contacted Naked Art Gallery in Birmingham and they got back to me and I now have a box of jewelry on their way. Yay! I was feeling pretty good, I must admit.

Then on Tuesday I went to work and found out that our former accountant and the uncle of my boss, Bob Schwartz, had died on Saturday. I was totally shocked - I had to sit down and then I hid in the bathroom and cried for a while. Bob was an 80-something year old who had basically been stuck at home for over a year due to his not-so-good health but he wasn't dying. I worked with him for over 6 years and he was really funny and was one of the first people I had met who made me rethink what the term "old people" meant. Much like his sister-in-law (my other boss who started the gallery and who is still a cool old lady in her 80's), Bob was over 80 but he wasn't senile or mean, and he talked to me like I was a person and not some dumb little girl (I can't say the same for my grandparents, the only other old people I ever really knew). Bob was a good guy, and it was certainly a blow to hear he was gone.

Losing Bob was rough, but then the same day I found out that another co-worker who had been fighting cancer for the past couple of years is in hospice and is dying. He, too, was just a nice guy who was addicted to smoking and now it's finally killing him. Then I heard more bad news involving death and impending death and is this blog cheerful enough for you yet? Tuesday was not good.

Wednesday was a typical Wednesday - all I wanted to do was vacuum and it never got done. I didn't make enough jewelry but I had lunch with my mom and ran some errands.

Thursday back to work and long story short, some bitchy male decorator with one too many face lifts yelled at my lovely co-worker Lyndi over the phone about something that she had no control over, and he made her cry. What a JERK! AND he's the choir director at one of the biggest churches in Nashville, but he's such an example of God's love that he has to make an innocent girl cry because his mat wasn't exactly how he wanted it. Obviously this mat is a life or death matter. Obviously he is a complete douche bag. The end of the story is infuriating - his ass was kissed enough so that his anger was appeased. Don't worry about his disgusting treatment towards the employees, just make him happy! In the middle of his rant, he asked for me since I was the "person with the highest seniority" so that he could yell at me too but I wouldn't take the phone, and then his secretary called and asked for something related to the frame job and I let her know just what kind of week we were having - you know, dealing with deaths that maybe sidetracked us from making framing miracles for his royal highness. She sounded like she felt pretty horrible, and I hope she relayed that to the douche bag decorator but he probably didn't care.

Ugh. Working with people is so much fun. This is the crap I put up with two days a week but I still manage to work there even after 8 years. The only good thing that came out of the situation was that I went to get a drink with my co-worker Lyndi who has had a string of random crappy things like that happen to her lately (I call it the asshole parade), and we had a more than a few drinks, some fried chicken, and some bowling so it actually turned out to be a great night!

Today was good. I got a lot done, I made a whole bunch of earrings (gotta get ready for all of my shows in April!), and Greg & I had dinner with my parents at Amerigo. Yummy. It's kind of been a crazy year but this was definitely a crazy week. I got one inch closer to quitting the gallery and many more inches towards success with jewelry. I was also reminded that this is only a temporary place and that I never know when myself or anyone else I know may be moving on. Sad.

2 comments:

Alison said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Alison said...

Beth,

I hate when people say...oh, I know how you feel...when they really don't...so I won't say that. What I will say is that after my daughter was born and was 6 days old, my husband went into cardiac arrest and we almost lost him. Death is such a scary and deep issue. I am grateful to say that my husband is doing great now...but, I know how it feels...sometimes, when it rains, it pours. Period. People (public shoppers) suck. Death sucks. I am sorry for the loss of your friends. I am sorry for sucking public people.

I hope this week turns out to be better than last.

Alison
www.theharrishome.blogspot.com
www.maggiemoodesigns.blogspot.com

p.s. I was totally not trying to rain on your parade...just wanting you to know that sometimes life throws some crazy curve balls.