Vent your frustration thread

[Anton177]

I don't know if any of you will need this thread but dammit I do. It's been a real dusey of a week, an act of pure human f**kery, and if I don't do something about letting it out then I may take it out in a less desirable method.

I am living over in a country called Cyprus right now and away from my home of England in the UK. I've been here for 4 months playing in a guitar duo with my friend who lives out here. We had it going real good for two months, we signed with an entertainment agency over here that got us all of our gigs and took a cut and all we had to do was show up and play. We had good nights, bad nights; we got paid, and a pretty decent chunk of change. All of a sudden this bossman agent turns around and says he has us no work. I don't understand that, since so many places loved us and would be happy to have us back - he just doesn't have a pluck where to put us since he doesn't know where to put his finger unless it's up his ass. He apparently has over 300 acts signed under him and they're all getting laid off, too. What a kick in the balls.

So if it wasn't so bad that I fled country to try and pull myself together and maybe spend some time relaxing, only to get a good thing going and have the dark man walk on down the road and have me lose my job with the words: "Oh no, you didn't think you'd sort yourself out that easy, did you now, kiddo?" - if that wasn't good enough, my friend gets offered a bar job and takes it. Now, most of me doesn't mind, since I'd do the same thing in his position. His girlfriend gets in from England tonight and he wants to take her travelling so he needs the cash. Okay, I get that, but I sure feel left in the dark. "Okay, that didn't work, see ya!". He comes in today which is the first I've seen of him in two days and had the nerve to tell me to look for a job since he didn't want to do the two gigs we have left a week. Okey dokey. A-ok. Friggin A. Super.

Now the real irony of the month. I loved this one, happened not even an hour ago. Real side tickler, this one. I'd like to say right off that I'm awful with people - I'm not a social butterfly, as you may have already guessed. I thought I would be pretty bad at doing a bar job and would enjoy it even less, but I thought I'd bite the bullet. So I rode down to a bar on the main strip with a "Staff Wanted" sign on it and asked the owner if he needed anyone. He said he had a girl coming in tonight, he was okay right now, but then passingly offered me a job for 600-700 euros a month. Alright, sounds good pops, what's the catch? The job is being a PR, and for those of you who don't know, it's standing outside the bar and acting real nicely to the couples and the families and the girls wearing short skirts and telling them to come and waste their money on your particular bar. I have always loathed the ideal of that job, and pitied the saps who do it, but dammit it's a job I can't do. I'm not a people person, that's why I read books for God's sake, and if I somehow managed to work up both the balls and the morals to take the job I'd probably get sacked within two days for not being any good at it. Call it social retardation, I don't know.

On top of this I'm a psychological mess who hasn't been able to find a girl for the past 2 years while I still find the time to dream (and wake up not knowing how to get out of bed) about the girl that broke my heart two years ago, of which I've been trying to come to terms with ever since. It's a pathetic excuse of a broken man probably trying to look for sympathy and lick his wounds so he can excuse himself from doing absolutely anything comparable to a life, and I've stripped down my ego and pride just to say it. I don't know where I'm going and I cannot abide not having a plan, I have no clue of anywhere remote I'd even like to aim, I don't know what I want and I'm sure as hell not happy, and for what feels like forever I'm left with the feeling that the ball is not in my court to play. I could have had a lot worse things happen to me in my short life but at times I think I wasn't supposed to do anything else but get my hopes up and fail to mould into the pessimistic cynic I'm becoming who is void of everything that people claim is important to a healthy life. Most of all I miss being able to wake up after a nightmare and have someone there to remind me it was just a dream. Hell, if I am at the point to write such an awful line as that, then I really need some help.

Oh, and after finishing The Stand today I have no more books left to read. I may finally go insane.



If anyone else has the urge to press their fists into the keyboard instead of the wall, the stone is yours to carve.

[PatInTheHat]

Ain't no bidness like show bidness huh?!

Ya know, t's really the same gig as a midway or old timey sideshow talker ("barker" is an incorrect term used by suckers...uhh marks...uhhhhh patrons..yeah yeah, that's what I meant...good decent high quality customers is what I'm sayin') or pitchman, and not a bad gig if your any good at it I think...matter of perception I suppose.
Great way to build up your patter and master the art of sarcasm in way's I can't even describe...gotta make 'em like it, and I swear they'll beg for more..people are so weird!
You can use it as an opportunity (hell, you can use it for therapy), if you look at it the right way (no I said right), and keep your eyes open and ears peeled for info & angles that will help you get to where you want to be.
Afterall, it is in the same genre of business, entertainment, just a different view of the venue.

Got nothin' on gettin' laid in Cyprus...sorry.
Rock On!!!

[tempest]

I do not have any personal experience with the entertainment business. But I have noticed that reading many very talented and successful entertainer have set backs and humble beginings. And often these experiences help the fame that comes later.

Hope things bounce back for you. Hang in there

[FlakeNoir]

I'm so sorry your heart has been broken, Anton. Life can be so hard sometimes, it's true. Somebody once taught me a trick to use whenever something really bad happens to me. Try to imagine that your life is a metre long ruler. (You're English, right? So the metric thing will work.) Zero being the time of your birth and one hundred cm being your death. Go to the number on the ruler that you first began feeling so bad. Trace your finger forwards to where you are now. Notice the size of that measurement. Now, look at all the time that came before this heartache - there is quite a lot, isn't there? Take your finger and move it from where you are now - all the way down to the end of the ruler - see how much more road there is yet to travel? It's all unmapped right now and yes, there may be other trouble ahead from time to time... but there is a real possibility that the rest of your 'ruler' may hold the best times of your life.
The young adult years are so tough, (((Anton))). But try not to lose heart - you seem to be such a nice person and I think if you keep giving all that you can, then good things will come to you.

Flake.

[themadone06]

Its hot and humid, and I am in college and can't afford to turn the airconditioning on! Plus the dog wakes me up every morning at six.

[BlackThorn]

I love those types of greeters. I love anybody who's forced to deal with me in their job. My theory is this. "You're gettin paid to serve me, so smile big, and get ready to deal."

I had an incident with my bank recently. Let's just say, their machine is extremely greedy when it comes to bouncing fees. Simply enough, if one check bounces in one day, instead of paying off the $2 purchases first, they line it up so the biggest is first, second biggest goes second, etc... therefore, if something bounces, like, if a company with your card numbers decides to gather some money from your account during an unusual time of the month for them... then if the $100 dollar check bounces, then all the $10, $5, $2, purchases you made that day, also each earn you a $35 dollar bounce penalty fee.

So, as I was dealing with these bank creatures on the phone, listening to them try to tell me I deserve to pay over $100 in fees for three days worth of bouncing (by the way, they inform you of problems by snail-mail letter, so you're already accruing lots of fees by the time you even get the letter)...

And at one point, the woman (escalated support I think they called her) said to me, "well, all you're doing is being sarcastic and attacking the fee policy of our bank, so we're done with this conversation, right?"

Immediately, I settled down. I calmly asked her to go over what was wrong. Again. "So, explain this part to me. Okay, now this part. Hmmm, I'm an engineer, so let's look at it from THIS angle now too..."

I was prepared to keep her on the phone for another hour, or two, or five. You want that $35 out of me? Fine. I'm gonna get it RIGHT back out of you. How much do you make an hour hun? You don't mind if I call you "honey" right? Since we're STUCK on the phone together now...

Same thing with ignorant police tickets. I got a ticket the other day for not wearing a seatbelt, in my buddies old truck that probably had skanky old gum and pine needles caught in the seatbelt itself, and wouldn't even work. I didn't wanna reach down in that seat... and we were only driving four blocks away...

You wanna give me a $120 ticket for that. Fine. I already objected it once, I'll appeal a second time, and I'll make you pay for an entire jury trial, if I get a fraction of the chance. There's no way in hell those two trials are gonna pay for that hundred dollar fine, and hell, I might even get it thrown out too. JUST by pushing it to trial, the State Trooper has to take time off from his busy schedule of handing out hundred dollar tickets trying to be our 'nanny', and come to the courtroom, and fight his case. How much is that for drive time? How much do they get an hour? And if they don't show, hey look! It gets thrown out. Awwwwwwwwww, you didn't follow through kitten. How you gonna help pay your greedy gov salary that way? :'(

You wanna screw me, FINE. Let's all go down together. I had nothing better to do than be vindictive anyways.

[BlackThorn]

I told the first guy, before the aggravated tech support, when he kept insisting "you can fix this. Just go pay the $208.28 in fees that will bring your account back to the positive."

I told him, "Look. I feel like I'm talking to a piece of wood, and I can't continue this conversation without being physically in your presence. I need to see your neck in front of me if I'm gonna listen to one more moment of drivel on how to solve "my" problem...

They ended up refunding every fee too. Mmmm, Money.

The last one was like, "look, just so you don't have to call aggrivated technical support again and spend an hour on the phone with the, over thirty five dollars, I'm just gonna refund it now, I'm gonna write in our branch, and write it as 'bank error'.

Yeah, maybe it's only $35 dollars, and I make tipple that an hour sometimes... but it's MY thirty five dollars. And blood will flow over trying to take what isn't yours from me, buddy. Count on it.

[Emdee]

[QUOTE=Anton177;304695]

I'm not a people person, that's why I read books for God's sake, and if I somehow managed to work up both the balls and the morals to take the job I'd probably get sacked within two days for not being any good at it. Call it social retardation, I don't know.

QUOTE]

SAME-O

It's really frustrating to be a not-a-people-person. Everyone demands that you should be talkative and extrovert and I honestly can't be.

[CorbinKale]

Anton177,

If you haven't read The Shawshank Redemption (yes, I know that is not the complete title, don't flame me ), now would be a good time. I wish you the best.

[youngfibre]

I vented this in a thread a few minutes ago. Can you imagine those f..kers at CNN timed it to announce Micheal Jackson's death at 12 midnight?

They have been having a bloody wake for him over an hour since i turned on my TV.

Breaking news my behind!

sorry ms Mod i cant type straight with tears in my eyes