Sometimes a job is just a job

When i tell people that i used to work in a pet store, most people's first reaction is to light up in delight at how much fun it must have been to live out the scenario in the song "How Much Is That Doggie In the Window?" They squeal at the prospect of being payed to play with little fluffy bunny rabbits (which we didn't sell) or puppies (which we also didn't sell) or kittens (again, no kittens either). You may be asking yourself, what kind of shitty pet store was this? See, the city of San Francisco has all these weird rules about about only being able to buy dogs and cats from licensed breeders and kennels, and not the Pet Connection at 31st and Judah. I mean, this was not a PetCo by any means, but we sold food, and cages, and aquariums, and we had a wide selection of fish, reptiles and rodents.

If you know anything about the geography and neighborhoods of S.F., the intersection i heretofore mentioned will bring up images of endless, pastel colored, post- WWII cookie-cutter suburbia smothered in fog. My main area of work was in the basement of this building, where i would knock my head against the pipes, train my peripheral vision to watch for mice and rats and hamsters that had escaped from the multitudes of cages that i had to move up and down stairs and clean every goddamn day, and resent the fact that even though San Francisco minimum wage was around eight dollars at the time, my employer had found a loophole in the law that helped small businessmen screw their employees by continuing to pay them the existing minimum wage, which was six dollars and seventy five cents an hour.

Did you know that it takes 80-100 chinchillas to make a fur coat, and that these animals clean that precious fur by rolling around in dust?

Did you know that picking 500 live crickets from an aquarium and trying to get them all into a plastic bag is just as hard as you think it is?

Did you know that mice and rats cannibalize each other?

I could go on for hours about how terrible that job was; i mean, they wouldn't even let me rock out to Sailing the Seas of Cheese and Purple Onion as hard (read: loud) as possible while I put my hands into some of the foulest things most of you can imagine. It robbed me of my soul so many times over i had to convince myself that i was still a decent human being every time i had to murder mice and rats. I would get on the N-Judah to go home after another four hour shift of cleaning excrement, urine and dead animal carcasses out of at least fifty or sixty animal cages, the stink of work still clinging to my clothes and hair, every muscle aching and cringing at the fact that i would have to do it again the next day, and you could see people being affected of a weird smell on the train. I was that guy when i came home from work. Smelly train guy. Ugh.

Sounds real cute, doesn't it? i'm telling you this because it prefaces what i'm about to talk about extremely well; people always carry expectations of certain occupations as being filled with wondrous delights, but when it comes down to it, sometimes a job is just a job.

These expectations are things that i failed to understand before i actually worked at a music venue. I would go to shows as a fan and see people who worked at the venues who walked around like they had Atlas' globe for a chip on their shoulder, and while i was still washing the blood of innocent rodents off my hands all they had to do was move the occasional case of beer or, oh, i dunno, sit on a stool for three hours while you get to listen to music performed by some of the greatest musicians in the world. I could not comprehend how you could have a bad night at work when you work somewhere like the Fillmore, or the Warfield, or the Great American Music Hall.

Now that i am one of those people, i can tell you that every night is NOT the greatest night in the history of live music, nor is every band going to suit your musical taste. I mean, to put it another way, i've had to sit through so many terrible versions of sixties and seventies radio hits performed by absolutely fucking terrible wedding cover bands. Or have you ever been to a metal show where all four bands sound like they're playing the exact same song, six songs a set, for four fucking hours?

The other thing that we take into consideration which is always a topic of consternation and conversation during and after the shows is how the general intelligence, showgoing experience, and common sense of an audience can completely change the attitude of the staff. Even though it's one of the greatest, weirdest jobs in the world, sometimes when you're holding a sixty-pound tray of food and you have to maneuver through a dark balcony full of chairs and drunk, dancing idiots who stand in the fire lane after you've told them that they can't stand there and who are completely oblivious to the fact that while they're there to have a good time there are also people in the building whose job it is to make sure that certain societal and federal laws are enforced, it's easy to forget that shit could be worse. Or on your hands. Sometimes the band guys are jerks, sometimes people are stupid, sometimes a job is just a job.

But then there are the times you have to ask Elvis Costello to please get out of your way so that you can deliver a basket of fries...and he apologizes to you. So, you know...strikes and gutters.