Memories of a Wretched Weekend in Wheeling (with apologies to HST)

[the_archfiend]

This is not a post intended to bash Capricon 33. No, really.

AFAIK, all of the events went off without a hitch. Anime - the department I'm now officially second in charge of for once - went off without a hitch. Near as I can tell, the MIB Pirate parties both went off without a hitch despite some last-minute bumps and bruises caused by policy changes towards parties that I won't go into detail over here. So why in the hell am I so glad that this one is in the books?

The usual ancillary personal shit, of course. What else?

For one thing, a long-term contract job that I thought I had nailed down two months ago blew up in my face right before (read: the day before) the convention started. Ambiguous paperwork I received from that contractor only confused things more until I called their east coast office from the Westin Wheeling on Thursday and found out that the job, was, indeed, burnt toast. Lovely. As a result of this, I decided to drink a lot more than was my wont over the weekend. It didn't help.

As a result of my already frazzled nerves and tacit need to crawl into a deep hole somewhere, a lot of other things got also badly frazzled as a result, such as my run for the Phandemonium Board; granted, I'm not much of a public speaker in the first place, but this was made all the more difficult because I was so verklempt at that point that I could've done a better job if I hit myself upside the head with a spanner wrench and just winged it. I could've also backed out at the last minute, but quitting at that late a stage even for the best of non-emergency reasons is still quitting, period.

 For another, a MIB roommate who's also second in charge of kid's programming got screamed at by another staffer for making noise. On a party floor. During party hours. The verbal abuse got so bad that he now refuses to attend or staff Capricon unless this person either publicly apologizes or resigns. It also means MIB probably won't be held at Capricon again since my roommate is central to the running of the party as well. We weren't going to hold it next year due to LonCon (which - quelle surprise - costs a lot of $$$ to attend), but it appears that we might end up having to take the party on the road to another con until this situation is resolved to our satisfaction.

I'm still going to Capricon 34, regardless. I haven't missed a Capricon since 1984 and have no intention of doing so now, especially since I'm on the concom and have been helping out in Anime since the mid-90's. Even so, this year was a mess. It also serves up more proof that my overall disdain for con drama is extremely well-founded.

Comments

[unhipster.livejournal.com]

That sucks about the drama! The pirate party is always fun! :-(

Concerning the party

[the-archfiend.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your vote of confidence, although you might want to keep in mind that we're not going away _forever_; we might actually come back to Capricon (though not for 34 next year) and we're looking into possibly hitting Windycon or Duckon (with the former being a lot more probable at this time; we're not ruling out the latter, though).

As far as the drama is concerned, it's my stated opinion that the offending party - somebody who was wearing a silver concom badge just like me and my roommate and should've probably taken him aside for that reason accordingly - was looking to make an example of somebody. For _any reason_ that staffer could come up with, IMHO. This is a Very, Very Bad Idea at the best of times and (as I also stated on my F***book page) may backfire very, very badly since my roommate's boss in kid's programming isn't happy he's leaving either. .

People Speak

[ugitsisgv kanouludi (from livejournal.com)]

I've been teaching on panels and in demos for quite a while now. I learned how by ponying up the $45 per six month membership fee for the local Toastmasters. Worth every frigging penny. They teach you how to make speeches, presentations, and how to win at job interviews. As you well know, I was raised by wolves, and Toastmasters managed to somehow work off the rough edges. Give them a try.

Re: People Speak

[the-archfiend.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info. I'll have to see if I can fit something like this into my usually hideously mutated schedule. >:)