Acquiring still more new skills

When I interviewed for this job, I never thought I'd be doing all the shit they never told me about adding all of these new skills to my resume.

Today, my day revolved around two very different tasks: (1) tasting food and wine, finalizing with the caterer the selection of offerings in my lounge; and (2) laying carpet. While the former sounds more glamourous than the latter, let me tell you why I'm waaaaaay more excited about laying carpet than getting drunk at lunch sampling food and wine.

In every city we visit, my tent gets set up and the site crew installs a wooden floor. On top of that floor, we have a carpet that helps to make the place feel like less of a tent and more of a lounge. Now, we've been traipsing around the world with a carpet that was purchased last March and is definitely showing its age. Heck, what can we expect with eight to ten shows a week where hors d'oeuvres and desserts are being passed around, wine and beer is flowing, and plenty of boxes of popcorn are being given to wee little kid hands. Naturally, there is spillage. Gawd, sometimes I feel like I spend hours and hours on my knees. Oh ya, and I spend a lot of time cleaning carpet stains, too : )

So before getting to each new city, we contact a local carpet layer and try to explain to him how we have a 500 square metre tent that requires a big honkin' carpet to be laid. Sometimes trying to get the carpet layer to understand who we are and why we need carpet laid can be quite interesting, to say the least. I swear, this isn't an atypical conversation that we have to try and find a carpet layer.

"Oh, you haven't heard of us? OK, well we're a circus. No, no, not an animal circus, we're a circus with people. Well, maybe we don't have elephants, but people are pretty cool animals, too. Anyways, that's beside the point.

I'm calling because we need some carpet laid. No, we don't really need carpet in the Big Top, cuz that's kinda silly. But we have another tent that needs to be carpeted. Yes, it's a fairly simply rectangular shape, about 500 square metres. We supply the carpet, we just need you to lay it. Nope, it's all cut to size and everything. You just need to lay it and tape it down.

Well, we'd actually like to offer you tickets to the show instead of paying you. Oh, you don't do contra deals. Particularly for clowns. Well, actually, clowns are only a small part of our show. You see, it's a combination of acrobatics, theatrics, music, and......actually, that doesn't matter. So you don't do contra deals. OK, no problem, we'll work something out and get you paid. No, we actually have an accounting department that will coordinate paying you. I won't be paying you in cash from our gate receipts or anything.

Now, the only big thing is that we NEED you to lay the carpet on January 13th. It's realllllly important that you be available to do the job that day. Ya, it's important because we need the carpet laid before we can finish setting up our lounge. Well, yes, actually it is a tent, but it transforms into a lounge when we're done setting up. We host our VIP guests in thee and make sure they have a great time with us. Well, actually, I'm not sure if Regis has ever been in the lounge. Yes, he certainly is a VIP, but I'm not sure if......well, I know things just haven't been the same since Kathie Lee left. Uh huh. Ya, I can understand why your wife doesn't like watching the show anymore. No, I haven't met Regis, but he seems like a likeable guy. Oh yes, I'm sure he's a good singer, too.

So anyways.....we host parties in the lounge and that's why we need to get our carpet laid. But the thing is that we only have a few days to set up the lounge before our Premiere night. No, I don't expect that Regis will be at Premiere. Maybe, but I don't know if he's been invited. Then again, I may be wrong, of course. By the way, are you sure you don't want tickets instead of being paid in cash?! Maybe you'll get to meet Regis. OK, OK, I understand -- cash, not tickets.

So, you know that we NEED the carpet laid on the 13th, right? Well, that is if the tent is set up and the floor is laid by then. Unfortunately, sometimes there are problems with getting the site set up and the tent is set up a day later than we're expecting. If it's not ready when we expect, then we need you to lay the carpet on the 14th. But that's for sure that latest day that the tent would be ready, so that shouldn't be a problem, right?

Oh, so you don't work on weekends. Bummer. Well, I'm nearly 100% sure that the tent will be ready on the 13th. Ya, definitely, the 13th will be for sure OK cuz I definitely know the tent will be ready. I mean, I'm pretty sure it will be. Let's just go on that assumption and cross our fingers, OK, cuz if you don't work weekends and can't do it on the 14th, I'm pretty much hooped and the 13th really needs to work....."

So you can imagine how fun this conversation is to have on the phone with a Hong Kong carpet layer who has limited English and really has no clue whatsoever what our circus is. But I digress...

We repeat this schtick before getting to each city, and then we actually meet the carpet layer guy and endure another time-honoured tradition. After hauling the 12 sections of carpet out of our sea container, he'll inspect it, make a face, show the stained sections to his assistant, have him make a face, lay all 12 sections on the floor, and make a comment (or ten) about how we should take better care of it and store if flat. Then we explain to him that we store the carpet flat, but in a sea container with a whole bunch of other stuff that shifts and moves and sways back and forth as the container is put on a boat and floated between countries, and that we don't really have much control over what happens after we've stored it in the container. And then he'll look at the entire carpet after he's laid it out on the floor, and sigh a really big sigh, and then try to work on undoing all the damange that happened in transport, and then start taping it down with double-sided carpet tape, and use that cool carpet jamming tool that you kick with your kneed to get all the joints tight, all the while complaining about how we realllllly need to do whatever we can in future to limit the damage to the carpet in transit, blah blah blah.

Yup, I've gone through it all, but NO LONGER! We now have carpet tiles that are perfect for the lounge. And I ain't talkin' about those small squares that you might buy for your family room or high-traffic hallway. Mine are heavy-duty one-metre by two-metre industrial quality carpet tile squares. They're freakin' perfect! And furthermore, we now control out own destiny by....

LAYING THE CARPET TILES OURSELVES!!

Yup, instead of working around the carpet layer's schedule and wasting most of a day as we wait for him to finish the job, today me and a few other people laid our carpet tiles and: (1) got it done in way less time that a carpet layer would have taken to lay the old carpet; (2) we saved about $1500 in the process. So you can imagine how stoked I am! Sure the wine and food tasting was cool, but the new carpet tiles? Well, that's just wicked!!

Carpet layer: one more skill to add to my resume! Along with manual labourer, forklift driver, public address announcer, and catering captain.