So I'm on a short flight to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It's a small, 70 passenger jet. I'm in the exit row, in the aisle seat across the aisle from my co-worker. Next to me, by the window, is a young, twenty-something man. About 20 minutes into the flight I turn to ask my co-worker a question, and I barely get two words out when, HELLO! There's a hand in my lap that's not mine!! I turn to look at the guy next to me and he's sound asleep. Apparently he had his hand on the arm rest, and then he flinched, sending his arm off the arm rest and onto my leg. When it happened I must have had a classic look on my face because my co-worker, who saw me remove the dude's hand from my lap, then burst into uncontrollable laughter. Once I got rid of the creeps and the absurdity of the moment hit me, I also lost it, and I laughed nonstop for about 5 minutes, tears running down my face.
Why doesn't that ever happen when there's a young, twenty-something woman next to me?!
dassall
7 comments:
Because we fall asleep with our hands in our laps, not on the armrests :)
So who do you work for, if I may ask?
Ah, come on! Live on the edge! Or rather, on the arm rest, as it were. Give a poor sap like me a little thrill. I fall asleep with my hands on the armrests, my feet in the underseat storage area next to mine, and my head in the aisle, drooling onto the floor!
Anyhoo, to answer your question, I work for an audio-visual/staging company, the main business of which is staging of large business meetings and conventions (we've done about four in the last three years at the New Orleans Convention Center, so I know the town better than I care to). We produce our own support video and graphics elements for our clients' meetings, and therefore by that grace go I. I'm the staff videographer, and I get to shoot about a hundred interviews a year, all over the world. ...okay, North America and Europe so far.... At the conventions for some of our clients, I also shoot and co-produce a highlights video, which is about 30% documentation of their recreational activities and their work-related breakout seminars, and about 70% staged wacky stuff.
Does that sufficiently answer your question? Or do you want to know WHO who?
dassall
That's actually a lot more informative than an answer of WHO who. In reading your other posts though, I was intrigued by the travel and the schlepping of gear.
I'm in TV News, and I'll leave it at that. I'm really even only saying that much because I'm on someone else's site.
My first job was at a small-market TV station, making commercials and being in charge of the production of station promos. I hated sweeps months because suddenly the news department was doing in-depth, hard-hitting "special" reports, and I had to create promos for those reports. It's not that I hated doing the work, but rather that it proved to me that the news programs were focused more on ratings and personalities than on news. It all seemed so superfluous. And it wasn't just us, but industry-wide. And I know it's not the news peoples' fault. Viewers decide which personalities they like. Station management has to make money. Most of the TV news people I ever knew were serious journalists handcuffed by the drive for ratings. So I vowed to stay away from TV news in my career, choosing instead to bend over directly for the advertisers!!
Now, of course, I'm doing video production for video production's sake. It feels more honest than either news or commercials, and most of the people I meet are extremely nice, and happy to see me show up on their doorstep (unlike your average "60 Minutes" camera man!!).
Sorry if I've insulted you and TV news. It was not my intent. The Carol Marin Chicago News Experiment is my shining example, if you'd care to hear about it.
No, you haven't insulted me and TV news at all...
You said, "Most of the TV news people I ever knew were serious journalists handcuffed by the drive for ratings"...that's me to a "T"
Do you ever IM on Yahoo? I'd love to continue this discussion via email, but I hesitate to leave mine anywhere public. I take that whole "don't blog about work" thing seriously, even on someone else's blog.
I have an AIM account, but I've never IMed on Yahoo!. I could start, though. Tell me whom I should look for, and I'll go there, post haste, and open a Yahoo! IM account (I do have a Yahoo! e-mail address which I'll give you if you want it.)
Also, you'll notice that I've activated word recognition to my blog comments section. I'm not sure if I was blog-spammed, but some nutcake right-winger commented on my "Refugees" post, addressing NOTHING I said, and yet blathered on about how incompetent EVERY Democrat is to be allowed to breathe. And I think his one post was longer than all of mine put together to date.
I hope to chat with you soon.
dassall
I noticed - I read people's comments after the posts...sometimes they bring up intersting points as well, but that one was, in the words of Macbeth, "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Don't sweat the word verification - don't know if you've been back to mine, but I actually turned it on too...I got comment spammed in a few of my posts as well.
I'm violetsierra on yahoo - drop me an IM (I'll get it even if I'm offline) with your address. If you have a yahoo address, then you have a yahoo IM identity too -just install the software and you're set.
Claire
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