Paying Managers to Be Babies: Why?

Last week, I went to a fashion show at the Dream Downtown in NYC. The week before, I'd personally modeled in a show there for Wicked Threads, a great brand you may want to check out. The designer is awesome & those shows have been some of the easiest I have done due to the lack of pressure and stress involved (at least as non-stressful as being a model in a fashion show gets). I personally had no problems and saw no issues with the venue; in fact, it's a very classy looking and gorgeous venue with ambiance & views. The ladies room is also one of the nicest I have been in NYC.

That week was part of my 4 days of crazy busy since I was in another show the next night at the Empire Hotel, was doing a TV appearance the next day, went to see Bayside! The Musical! that night (it was hilarious but oh, so wrong; don't go if you're easily offended or toting young kids/people who have zero sense of humor) & then had my photo shoot to finally do my comp card. After all that, I decided to take a bit of a breather & no one had asked me to model or posted anything saying they needed models so I decided to go to a fashion show that Friday as a spectator. I'd also known about it in advance & when you tell me about something in advance, I'm far more likely to make an effort to attend.

My husband also had an event to go to (and ended up networking; I told him I think my influence rubbed off on him) so no reason for me to sit at home. Plus, I've been going to events to try networking & build contacts.

You know what's great about going to fashion shows if you're a girly girl? You can get away with a lot as long as your outfit is semi-dressy. I also decided to try putting my hair up & didn't totally screw it up even though I'm nowhere close to good at creating an updo. Since I love a free opportunity to dress up, my going to fashion shows just makes sense for that alone. I also knew someone who was modeling in that show & worked with one of the designers before so I wanted to attend to support these people.

Other people I knew were in attendance so I talked to them & even met some new people. One photographer I hadn't met before actually came up to me & asked why I wasn't modeling that evening. I said "Nobody asked me," which was true.

Turns out it may have been a good thing I wasn't modeling that night. The show I was at was shut down by the venue's manager in the middle of the second show.

To put this in some context, the show that was interrupted was a swimsuit show. Lingerie & swimsuit shows are apparently more attended since people (men, in particular) like to see attractive young women in less clothing. The fact that I have worn less clothing in shows I've done is a compliment in my book since if I didn't have the body, no designer would want me going out on the runway representing his/her brand (especially in underwear or the like). There are also quite a few drinkers in the fashion world. Getting free drinks is a major issue after a show & I've seen people get mad if you aren't doing that for models and people involved in the shows.

Not to mention that fashion people have contacts, looks & some even have money. That would be the crowd any high level venue would want to attract & keep as customers. I don't recall hearing about Studio 54 being horrid to fashion people though they built their business around keeping people out & being exclusive. I have been to a number of fashion shows in my time (even before I was modeling in them myself) & that has never happened at any show I went to or participated in.

Well, for whatever reason, the manager at the venue we were at decided to curse out the designer, shoved a model, banished all the photographers (and I knew at least one who was there) & open the curtain where models were in stages of undress. Apparently, the night crowd was more important than this fashion show or maintaining goodwill at this high level event. I saw the organizer of the event later on (who is a Facebook friend I hadn't previously met in person) & told her if they wanted to look into legal action to contact me since I know a ton of attorneys and happen to be an entertainment one myself.

I also made sure to mention this little failing on Yelp and on their Facebook page along with telling the model I knew that if the girl who got shoved or anyone else wanted to pursue legal action, they could contact me. That really pisses me off since I have modeled myself & this jerk easily could have tried that with me. If he had, he'd have lived to regret it & I surely would have told him he just shoved an attorney.

This was far worse than what I saw when I did the show at the Empire Hotel the week before. That manager, a woman, apparently had a problem with the designer pulling out clothes to show models who were waiting outside the bathroom (since we were told we couldn't stay in the bathroom once we had changed & obviously couldn't go out where the general public was since you can't have people seeing your outfit before a fashion show). We end up getting moved to a darkened area with almost no lighting for anyone to see dresses & with no actual bathroom or formal changing area. There were gaps between this part & the part where we had to come out to model (which was quite lighted & filled with members of the general public alongside photographers, who we're used to seeing & aren't being a bunch of leering creepers trying to see naked ladies for sport). There wasn't really a changing area per se so we were getting dressed in this darkness near the non-curtained windows (though we were at the rooftop on a very high floor).

Now, one thing you should know about being a model is you can't be one of those super bashful girls when it comes to changing clothes. You're not likely to get a private changing area & junior high changing may not work for you depending on the outfit. I'm an expert in junior high changing (this is when you change your clothes in plain sight & do it without any glimpse of private parts) but there are garments you can't do that with. Sports bras are one of them. Pantyhose would be another.

If you've been to Joyce Leslie & tried anything on, you can't be bashful there either since they don't have fitting rooms but instead have one large room that women folk have to change in (at least at the one I went to near 8th Street & I was trying on a bra that day). Being in entertainment or going to Joyce Leslie should cure you of that bashfulness about changing in front of other women; you're too busy trying to get yourself ready & as others would point out "we all have the same stuff" so it's not worth freaking out over.

At the same time, there is a principle at work so I made sure to mention it to someone I knew. Still need to work on that Yelp review but been so busy lately with other things.

All these events irk me for another reason, though. Why in God's name are these managers being paid a salary by these venues to be shitty to guests? There are far more mature ways to handle a conflict than cursing someone out, shoving people, invading their privacy & so forth. I own a business & if I had a manager doing that in my business, I would fire their ass in a second. I don't know if they have contracts for the events but regardless, what about hospitality? These jerks are in the hospitality business; you're supposed to be NICE to people in it. If you hate people, don't work in that field. Come to think of it, there are lots of fields you should stay out of if you hate people. Not those who have done something to piss you off or are liars/jerks/etc.: I'm referring to hating people as your default position.

How many people are unemployed or underemployed in NYC? How many would do twice the work at half the pay & be damn appreciative and glad to have a job in the first place? What business owner would pay a manager to be a dickhead to people who are bringing crowds, alcohol sales & the like to their venue? What did I just say about fashion people & fashion shows? Why in the Hell would you want to alienate those people? You should be doing everything you can to make those people happy & get them to come back, invite their friends, talk you up & have a positive experience.

Not to mention the legal liability involved in making people change clothes in the dark, shoving women wearing very high heels & breaching contracts (oral or written). What if someone had gotten injured & ended up having to go to the hospital? Guess who'd be getting sued? The shitty manager might get named but the venue has deeper pockets so YOU owner(s) would be fucked over in that situation.

So along with bad PR, legal liability, potential backlash in desired demographics (I also don't advise pissing off photographers since they're actually fun people), high employee turnover (since God help the people who have to work for these assholes; the other staff members involved in these incidents were fine, including the security people) & creating a workplace where immaturity is allowed among so-called "professionals," why in the world would anyone with half a brain keep that kind of manager employed in their company? I, as a model, would certainly not feel comfortable modeling at the Dream Hotel Downtown if that asshole was in charge since who knows if that fucker would go invade MY privacy or lay a hand on ME? Where's the safety to models & anyone else providing entertainment at an event? If I'm thinking this, you know others have to be as well.

If someone told me "Oh, they were drunk," that would make me even less happy with a venue. How many episodes of Bar Rescue do you see where Jon Taffer is berating an owner for letting employees drink on the job & lecturing people about drinking at work? That's just announcing your workplace is unprofessional & a lawsuit waiting to happen.

The next day, still fired up from the Dream Downtown incident the night before, I went to Target & ended up calling up the manager to complain about a lazy fuck who refused to provide me with service when I asked for a rain check on an item. He apparently thought I was supposed to go get him an item number from a section when I don't work at Target, wouldn't know where the item number was & there's no real staffing in the section. He couldn't even be bothered to get a circular to look for the item! I would never have done that when I worked in retail & gee, we have phones so he could have called and tried to get the information but just wanted to be lazy.

At the end of the day, my attitude is "I earned my position & had to work for my paycheck. You need to be doing the same or getting the hell out of the way so someone who gives a damn will actually do the job." You have no sympathy from me when you're being unprofessional, rude, nasty, etc. & you work in customer service or hospitality. Low wages, my ass!

I worked in retail for 7 years & I didn't take out my unhappiness or attitude about my employer onto the customers (I also didn't hate my job or take one I know I would hate 100%). It's not their fault YOU hate your life or your job. That's a problem YOU need to deal with. Either make an attempt to change your lot in life or accept it; regardless, don't come bitching to customers about it. They do not care. Why is it that I got this lesson at 15 while there are people far older than I am now who don't get it? If you are a manager & you try defending laziness/unprofessionalism/so on & so forth against me & mine, I will give you hell for it. Just a fair warning.

Sample Sales & Thrift Store Shopping: A How-To Guide

Okay, I freely admit that this might be a post that bores the hell out of you straight men & lesbians. However, since it's my blog & I do write it for my enjoyment and amusement first and foremost here we go. Plus there will definitely be some ranting along w/this little "how to."

Today, I was going to do this chocolate tour that took me ages to book but I ended up being late & missing it. Since the meeting place for the tour was at the same area as a sample sale store I knew of, I decided I'd stop in to browse there. My husband also ordered me to take some money out & "have fun."

*No worries, I'm getting a make-up day for the tour.*

One fact about me: I'm not very good at having spontaneous "fun" all by myself. I don't like spending my own money (and I especially hate wasting my own money), I'm not going to cheat on my husband (eliminating one sort of "fun" you might think of) & if I don't know where things are, I don't like to just wander aimlessly since I'll eventually get bored, exhausted, have sore feet or who knows what else (sunburn? bug bites? busted eardrums or a headache from noisy children?).

I also tend to prefer shopping online since I can find my size (a rarity in NYC unless I go to specific stores where I know they carry it), some sites have free shipping as well as returns & oftentimes, I find things online that I can't find in any store remotely near me. Seriously.

A perfect example is a long skirt slip for this long white skirt I have that's ridiculously sheer. Searched online, found a website that had the length I needed & I was good to go. No lines to fitting rooms, no spending a ton of money on transit travel to get to other areas of the city & no waiting in sweaty subway stations.

But I happened to have time on my hands so I thought "Okay, you know about these sample sales. Why not go check them out?"

For those who aren't familiar with them, here's a vocabulary lesson: a sample sale is a store or building you can go to in order to get discounted clothing. It's typically designer stuff that retails for a shit ton of money (we're talking hundreds & thousands of dollars). These are typically items from the last fashion season or so.

Here are more definitions in case you need them:

A thrift store is a place that sells clothing someone else didn't want anymore. If you're smart, you only go to the ones where they wash all donations before they hit the sales floor. Some places don't do this & especially in NYC, you do NOT want to buy something that could have bedbugs, roach eggs, etc. It will cost you dearly if you end up with some infestation b/c of clothing you bought.

Oh, and a vintage store sometimes claims to be a thrift store but it's really an overpriced place where you can buy things from the past. Unless you have a trillion dollars, are lazy or a particular store is the only place ever that has some unique, one of a kind item you'd just die if you didn't get, don't waste your time here. I typically don't.

Now that we've got that out of the way, here's some more general info on shopping outside the major chain stores or outlets for the chains.

1. If you're tiny, you probably won't find anything in your size. Why can't there be a sample sale just for women who wear my size?!?!? It feels like every sample sale I go to is overflowing with clothes that are way too big on me. Every time I see something I like at one, it's usually way too big on me. It's worse when I see something I like & there's no tag telling me what size the garment is. If I can't see a size, I'm not going to waste my time. Got that? You shouldn't either, whether it's for your or someone else.

2. Why was everything I saw at the first sale I went to (which happens regularly) so sheer? Seriously, they had $30-50 tops there & you could see my hand when I put them inside the garment to test the sheerness. In some cases, you could see the color of my hand!!

I know I can find prostitute clothing for much cheaper than at a sample sale. If you're a woman that gives a damn about not showing her bra or the color of it for the entire world, that hand trick is a good way to determine if something is too sheer. Think of it this way: if you can see your hand contours & certainly if you see your hand's color, that's what your bra will look like under that shirt.

I'm not even speaking of things that looked like club wear. This was stuff that if it had less sheerness, you could wear to work. But God forbid we women get options that don't make us look like whores.

Is this training for the new Romney led world order? Are some fashion designers taking payoffs we aren't aware of? Maybe clothing makers should hire some super frumpy women to make sure things aren't too damn sheer; then they could have something constructive to do instead of annoying the rest of us by calling for censorship of movies, television shows & shoving their mores down our throats.

3. If you are not fashionable, do not waste your time at a sample sale. You probably should also avoid thrift stores that carry lots of different types of merchandise. For those with no fashion sense, this is where that gay friend who knows how to dress comes in handy. Things usually aren't in order, there's lots of bright colors & it's easy to get overwhelmed. I realized today that I leaf through clothes on the racks like my husband leafs through comics in a cheap box. I can go through quickly & assess what would or wouldn't work for me. If you're not that good, you really shouldn't attempt it without help from someone with a fashion sense. These places do not have an abundance of sales people & chances are, there isn't going to be a sales person who can give you personal attention in your clothing selection like you'll find in a more expensive, fancy store.

Granted places like Target don't have those people either but it's much harder to mess up there. You don't need great fashion sense for any retailers that mostly sell the basics. There are tons of stuff at sample sales that are (at least in my view) so not my style & way too flashy or just doesn't look like something you should be wearing in public.

Remember, things that look good on fashion runways are not necessarily things you should wear to visit family or flirt with the UPS guy (sounds cliche, I know but I have heard of women actually doing this; I'm not one of them, though). Listen to that fashionable friend, family member, whoever you bring if you haven't got a sense of style; ideally, that person is honest & won't let you buy a fashion disaster (and I have seen a few, trust me).

4. Try things on before you buy them. If the place doesn't have a fitting room or even a curtain that fully covers a platform, you shouldn't waste your time. I realize Joyce Leslie (at least one location I know of in NYC) has a wide open dressing area for women & if you had a gym teacher you didn't like changing in front of for fear she was checking everyone out, you may be the expert on changing clothes without having to show private parts but I personally have a real problem with a place that can't be bothered to have a changing area. No self-respecting woman would buy ANYTHING she couldn't try on first, especially if she had to then take a train ride back to the store to return that item if it didn't fit her.

When I ask for a fitting room & you say you don't have one, you've officially lost my business unless I'm getting a vest, sweater, coat or something I can try on that doesn't require me to perform a strip show for you & everyone else in the store.

5. Finding things at sample sales & thrift stores is an art. It takes a lot of time, patience, knowing what looks good on you & what doesn't, knowing what you need (since I have so many clothes, I try to buy things that are different from what I already own or that will look great with at least one thing I have already), etc. You don't do it when you're in a hurry & I wouldn't recommend buying gifts for people in this manner unless the person you're buying for pointed out a specific item & said "I want that" or you know the person well enough to assess his/her taste in clothing. This is not something just anyone can do.

The second & third sample sales were better but some of this stuff did come up (things I wanted not being in my size, sheerness or something new in a piece I liked spoiled my interest). I had great luck at one sample sale but I don't think it's around anymore. Sadly, I saw yet another piece there I would have gotten but felt like it was bringing the total too high. I also once saw a white skirt at a sample sale that I still kick myself for not getting since I have yet to see another one in the same style.

The last piece of guidance I can give on thrift store & sample sale shopping is that if you see something that you absolutely MUST have, get it since you might not see it again. I seriously still kick myself for not buying one of these really cute 80s style prom dresses I saw at my local Urban Outfitters in Atlanta before I moved. I didn't want to spend $50 on one (I was trying to save money since I had to quit my job to go to law school) but then I never saw them at any other one & didn't find an 80s style prom dress until years later at a thrift store in NYC. If you think there's any chance you'll be kicking yourself if you don't get something, that means you need to get it.