Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Thursday, Jul. 07, 2005 - 11:06 p.m.

I am having a hideously depressing day. The v. good and happy news is that my buddy, the effervescent K1ttykat, is unharmed by assholes with explosives.

On the other hand, I have two, possibly three, very good friends wandering around London (they live there) who have yet to check in. This is not good. :( I don't really want to deal with the whole bombs blowing up busses and subways thing until I find out how they are. I realize that London is a big city, and odds are they were nowhere near the area affected, but I'd really like to know they're okay. And who the hell would have figured in a city that size that Kati was anywhere near it either, and yet. I can't really get into this. I feel for Londoners. I feel for Kati and am glad she's okay, along with her family, friends and coworkers. But if I really think about this, I have to feel about it, and after watching people leap out of 100 story buildings to avoid burning to death, I can't. The rage and sorrow and helplessness are just too much to cope with.

I'm fairly certain I am PMS'g, and I have discovered the older you get, the less pleasant PMS is.

I really wish Takashige Ichise would stop "writing" movies and other people would quit "directing" them.

I met with someone over carrying my jewelry on consignment today, a thing I am adamantly opposed to on many, many levels, but at this point I just need to make some money and was willing to give another human being 40% of my hard-earned money if they would only carry my product. The person liked my stuff well enough, but she said the store's consigment rate is 50%.

Fifty percent.

Of something that I hunted up the pieces for, "agonized" over the design of, paid use taxes on, and labored over to make, not to mention wrapped, labelled, and carted over to the store, which stuck it on a rack or in a case and waited for someone to buy.

Now, don't get me wrong. I understand my product is taking up their counter space, and they have to make a living. But HALF of my effort, time and energy??? I don't think so.

I nicely said no, and she nicely said she'd ask the owner if he'd consider bending his policy, but while I realize the owner is a nice man, I don't think I really want to do business with someone who thinks he's doing me a favor not to take half of my sales while I pay for all of the cost. It's nearly pure profit for him, while I bear all of the cost of production. The more I think about it, the more I want to cry. (And the half of me that is secretly Will Smith goes "Oh, HELL no!").

It's a discouraging thing to try to build your own business, especially when it's something artistically-inclined, and people don't want to pay for your time and energy, they just want it for $6, because that's what a mass-produced necklace from a sweatshop in China costs. It's hard enough to figure out what to charge for stuff, and that's before people start fingering it and then talking about how they could do it themselves, if they wanted, and they can get it at (insert name here) for less. I sometimes make mistakes and have to adjust prices, but by and large, the price I post is based on my cost, and yes, you could make it yourself for what it costs me to make, but I don't see you hauling your ass all the way across town on a fucking Friday afternoon at 4 in Los Angeles, going to 3 different stores because no one store has everything you need, and then spending another hour or more on putting everything together...this after you've spent sometimes as long as 3 hours just figuring out the design (custom pieces can be a bitch). I don't see you spending hours every day for ages trying to locate a particular piece on the web or finding suppliers who really charge wholesale, instead of "wholesale," which is so NOT the same thing. Did you spend an entire day shoving through crowds or being shoved through, getting stepped on, dealing with surly vendors, and eating really crappy, overpriced food in a stuffy, humid building at the Los Angeles Gift Show just to find more interesting "cuts" of beads at a higher quality and lower price, so you could offer a better deal to people? No, you bloody well didn't. So don't try to haggle my ass down or make me feel bad for what I'm charging. And don't skim the half of the price that is nearly pure profit so that I am left bearing the cost and pocketing $5 for my time and labor.

So it was rather depressing, and then on the way home, a big old Hummer cut me off on the wide-open-no-need-for-that-shit highway, and I'm thinking I really bust my ass to try to get ahead and put something away for retirement and maybe have some fun once in a while or buy a decent car with air conditioning, and I never, ever seem to get anywhere, but there are plenty of random assholes in the world who, despite their very assholeness (or because of it, I suppose), can afford to drive $129,000 vehicles that get 6 fucking miles to the two-dollars and-77-cents-per gallon.

I hate this society, sometimes.

I finally got the first callback for a job I've gotten in 9 longass frigging months yesterday, and TB had no pen and asked the woman to please call back and leave a message (the machine picks up on the 2nd ring, so it's not a hardship, though I grant it is an inconvenience), and despite the fact that prior to his picking up the phone, she had called, hung up, and called back at least half a dozen times in a row, she found herself incapable of dialing the phone one last time and actually leaving a fucking message.

Why do people do this? I really frigging hate when someone calls, gets the machine, and instead of leaving a message, calls back continuously until you pick up the phone. What the fuck is that? It's a crappy tactic to force someone to talk to you is what it is, and when I had my own apartment, I would just unplug the phone from the wall. If you wake me up in the morning by doing that, I am NOT nice. I am, in fact, pissed off and uncooperative in the extreme. Those of you who utilize this method of forcing people to answer the phone CUT IT THE FUCK OUT RIGHT NOW.

I'm not kidding.

While we're on the subject of phone etiquette, let me explain something. A phone is a handy gadget which is meant to make communication easier. It is not an open invitation for you to invade my house or elbow in and monopolize my time. If you call and get the machine, leave a message. If I do not answer the phone, there are 3 reasons why.

1. I am not home.

2. I can not get to the phone.

3. I am busy, and having to stop what I am doing to talk to someone else on their terms is too great an inconvenience right at the moment.

Either of the last two will irritate the living fuck out of me if you repeatedly call and hang up when you get the machine, only to call immediately back. And if I am not home, well, you are merely wasting your time. Whichever, I will call you back when it is convenient for me to do so, and not before. Those of you who have this particular control issue know who you are. I know which of my friends have it, and that is why I no longer call them back or pick up the phone when they try to exercise it. If you are rude and pushy, I do not want to deal with you. Ever.

I would, however, like a job. So I did not take it well that TB did not go on a quest for a pen as if it were the holy grail. I probably spent a good 2 hours crying about that, yesterday, so let's all just repress and move on, shall we? All righty, then.

How 'bout them Dodgers?

Peace out,
Katie

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Yesterday's News - Next Stop

In which Katie shares sad news - Wednesday, Apr. 01, 2015
In which Katie returns after a very long absence - Monday, Jun. 25, 2012
In which Katie pokes her head in and brushes some of the cobwebs away - Thursday, May. 06, 2010
In which Katie asks you to write your congressman again. - Monday, Jun. 02, 2008
In which Katie asks you to please click the link and send the message to protect the rights of artists - Wednesday, May. 21, 2008