I volunteered for the Brisbane Writers' Festival because I wanted to meet some people and contribute to something fun and positive happening in the city. I also hoped that it would inspire me as a writer, and maybe I could somehow meet up with some writers' group or something to help me along. Maybe if I was lucky I could sit in on some panels and hear what some authors or publishers had to say about their work.
I will describe the experience to you as well as I can remember it. It was a week ago, and since then, I have been quite a busy bee, as we have moved into a new house at the same time. But it still pokes into my memories like a sharp ended stick, so I haven't forgotten everything.
I arrived on Saturday morning, 8:30am, at the Volunteer Greenroom, to check in. I was met by one of the Volunteer Coordinators, a woman named Ally who I like. She was nice and remained calm and easy through the whole event. She had me sign in at the sign in desk. The sign in desk was being run by a skinny girl with stringy blondish hair and freckles whose name I never learned, but I will call her Erica, because why not. Erica was a reason I did not enjoy myself at the Festival, but in truth she was only an example of the sort of person there that made the experience suck.
With the exception of 3 people, the entire Festival is run by volunteers. The paid people, I imagine, need to find the funding and pay the participants. The volunteers do everything else. Arrange the site, get the equipment organized, do all the PR, all the office work, and get more volunteers for when the festival actually happens, and then work the festival, making sure the venues are clean and set up and the PA system is working and the artists are picked up from the airport and have a hotel room and get to where they need to be for the Festival and every problem that inevitably arises. It is too much work to be all done by volunteers. When I interviewed for my position in the Festival, I just figured I would usher an event, maybe hang up posters. When I discovered what needed to be done, I thought, they're never going to get people to volunteer for so much responsibility.
When I met Erica, however, I realized how wrong I was, and then it all fell into place. What I didn't think about before that moment was that there are a lot of people who get off on having power over others, no matter how moderate that amount of power may be. Give someone the authority to tell people what to do and you have just given someone a temporary reason for living. Give someone a headset and you are giving a sense of importance that they just can't get any other way. There are a LOT of people out there who indeed WANT and NEED to be given the level of responsibility that the Festival offers. Erica was one of those people. Erica looked like an overgrown tomboy. Tall and lanky with bad posture and bangs. She spoke in a deep and monotone voice, and was bossy. "I need you to go down to the Yellow Marquee and help out with the chairs." "I need you to take this rag and wipe down the Info Booth and tell Melissa that I told you to do that." "Take this note to the Red Marquee and make sure the Venue Manager knows this needs to stay with her until tomorrow," etc. No hello, no my name is Erica what's yours...just orders. Whatever. I was given my lanyard, which had my name on it and the title VOLUNTEER. In the back I had to insert my Blue Card, indicating that the Australian Government did yet ANOTHER background check on me to see that I have no criminal record, and no one need worry about their children around me. I also had to wear a Brisbane Writers Festival (BWF) t-shirt which was issued upon arrival at the Volunteer Greenroom.
These t-shirts got some hype. "We're really excited about this year's t-shirts, guys. Not like last year's..." Apparently this year they were supposed to be black, with some interesting design in addition to the BWF logo, which isn't bad. We had to give our chest sizes to make sure they fit well, as the ladies' shirts were a different style. This was all encouraging. At least I would have a nice t-shirt to wear out of it all.
Upon arrival at Erica's headset headquarters, a big men's t-shirt was thrown at me, in a light gray color. "Sorry, but we ran out of the smalls..." How could you run out of a shirt that was supposed to be made especially for me? Even if it wasn't, considering about 80% of the volunteers were women, including the coordinators, you would think they would order enough women's t-shirts. For women, a men's t-shirt tends to be high-necked, too wide-shouldered, too long-sleeved, and too slim-hipped. Eh, whatever. It had the BWF logo on the right breast, which was fine, but the design they gushed over was absolutely dorky. It was supposedly autographed by the Big Bad Wolf, Sherlock Holmes, and other characters who are not known for being writers. If you are going to pretend that these shirts were autographed, why not pretend that writers did?
"Thanks for the memories, Brisbane. Don't ever change - William Shakespeare"
"Brissy Rocks! The men are HOT!!! - Virginia Woolf"
- you know what I'm saying?
I had to put on the t-shirt and head down to the Information Booth. There I met Eric, a nice gay boy from Malaysia, who moved here to study marketing 2 years ago. He had been volunteering all week, and only in the Information Booth. "Have you been able to see any of the Festival?" I asked him. "I haven't seen anything. I don't know, I'm not really interested..." "Are you a writer?" I ask. "No. I just like to volunteer. I've done a lot of volunteering. Umm, you need to tidy up these pamphlets..." He was wearing the headset, and though a nice enough person, was a control freak. He would often just hand me a pile of brochures as soon as someone walked over to the booth, and say in a clipped voice, "sort those," or "just find someplace for these things, would you...this side of the booth (my side) is a little messy". It was just understood that for my time in the Information Booth, this guy was my boss, and one that didn't have to be nice to me. And didn't pay his employees. And all the while, people were asking questions. Questions which most of the time I couldn't answer, because I was not told ANYTHING, even though I had to attend 3 volunteers training meetings. I could tell people where the bathroom was, and where the different tents were located, but all you had to do was look around. They were surrounding us, with big signs on them! YELLOW MARQUEE, RIVER MARQUEE, INFO BOOTH...someone came up to me and asked where the Info Booth was, honest. Most people who came to the booth were nice; but a few were grumpy, and spoke to us as if we had already annoyed them before they got there. The Director of the whole thing, this guy named Michael, one of the paid ones, would walk by and take programs or meet someone in front of the booth, and not even acknowledge our existence, except maybe to say to one of us, "I am expecting a Sally Mottleburn at the Greenroom, call up there and see if she's there would you, and if she's not, I need you to relay this message if she stops by here..." Eric jumped to attention and got nervous, like his career was on the line. At some point in the morning, after replenishing everything on the table and lying to passersby about how fantastic he thought this session was or that writer was, Eric turned to me and said, "I hope they don't fire me."
Pieces of the puzzle, how they get so many people to do this kind of thing. They get people with ISSUES THAT MAKE NO SENSE.
Like me? Well...
Anyway, I told Eric, "They can't fire you, because they didn't hire you! They should be relieved that you are here!"
That was the feeling that was missing. No sense from the higher ups that they were grateful to have so many clueless University students and bored old women and abyss-floaters (like me) to volunteer. It felt like they thought WE were the lucky ones. It all put me in a bad mood.
At 1pm, my shift ended in the Info Booth. I was hungry, and my legs were aching from standing for such a long time without much movement. But, there was no break. They were already calling for me on various headsets to get to the Writers' Greenroom for my second shift.
The Writers' Greenroom was a place for the writers to relax and chat and have coffee and check emails. We had a master list of all the writers, and were supposed to ask everyone as they came in who they were, so we could check that they were present. That way, if anyone over someone's headset wanted to know if one of the Writers was there, we could say yes, they are. Sounds fine, except that our table was not set up well. When you walked into the room, you could easily not notice the check in desk, leaving us to have to constantly say in a slightly loud voice, "excuse me...hello...may I have your name?" People got annoyed by that. And the writers wanted things that I wasn't trained to do, I wasn't always sure was appropriate to ask of a volunteer, and, frankly, I didn't want to do, because adults with access to technology can do things themselves. Like arrange a taxi for them, or remember when so-and-so arrived to tell them that so-and-so will meet them at such-and-such a place...don't these people have mobile phones? Isn't email and texting all the rage these days? Why ask hopeless volunteers to relay messages through the chaos? That Director, Michael, came by as well, and told - not asked - but told a volunteer, to call a woman on the Michael's phone to see where she was and when she was going to be at such-and-such, all the while Michael is standing there, in front of the volunteer, ungratefully waiting, like the volunteer was his secretary. The Writers' Greenroom was being run by a volunteer named Johnson, a guy on a headset, who appeared stressed but exhilarated by the stress. There were too many of us working in the Writers' Greenroom, and I was tired and hungry and thinking about just leaving when Johnson sent me on a break. I got some food, and when I returned he sent me to the River Marquee for the rest of the afternoon to usher some sessions. I was happy to get out of that greenroom.
The River Marquee was being run by a peppy girl who told me to tell people to sit up front and in the center. Telling people, especially older, pseudo intellectual types, that they can't just sit wherever they want makes them mad. Inevitably, they stubbornly sit on the sides, toward the back. Most of the people attending the festival seemed to be retired and cranky and didn't want to sit in the middle, for fear they won't like the session and will want to leave, or they may have to go to the toilet. Other people had canes and/or were very heavy. Other people were too shy to sit up front. As a result, very quickly people had nowhere to sit without asking these stubborn assholes to move in toward the center to make room, which of course they wouldn't, which of course makes the people who want to sit down angry, and it's your job as an usher to make everyone accommodate everyone else. By the end of the second panel, I just hated everyone. I was tired of telling people to move in while some ornery woman was yelling in my ear that people should move in. We had 3 seats in the back of the tent marked "Reserved", so we, the ushers, could sit down during the session. Out of the 300 or so chairs, guess where the old ladies want to sit? I need to make a list called "What Not To Do When I Am An Old Lady". The older a person is and the more free an event or service is, the more entitled people seemed to think they are to be entitled to be assholes! At the end of each panel, there is question and answer time, where an usher runs around and passes a mike to people to ask a question. You think it would be easy. But when people get a mike, it's like getting a headset. A VERY SMALL AMOUNT OF POWER FOR A FLEETING MOMENT. They want to ask long winded questions to show how smart they are, and tell you about their writing project or about how they know so-and-so personally, and have a conversation with the writer. You try to get the mike from them after they ask a question, and they will say to you, "I'm not finished yet." Oh yes you are. With one lady I had to actually pull the mike out of her hands. She was not happy, and yelled her comments instead. Jeez louise!
Finally, my day ended and I had to return to Erica Headset to sign out. She said to me before I went, "We are asking all the volunteers to give 5 dollars to buy a gift for the coordinators, because, like, they've been working 60 hour weeks and we should thank them because they don't get paid." I was flabbergasted, said maybe tomorrow, and left.
On my way home, I thought, has my spending so much time in front of a computer created bad people skills, or was I attracted to the computer world because dealing with people is just a thoroughly obnoxious experience? Chicken, egg, headset, headache, I went home and had some wine.
The next day, I was scheduled to be in the Info Booth again, but with a different person, and then I was supposed to spend the afternoon in the Volunteers' Greenroom, meaning I was to become a servant for Erica Headset. So, when I signed in, I said I couldn't volunteer in the afternoon, something had come up. At first there was a sense of panic, but lucky for me, there were a lot of minions scheduled for the afternoon, so there was no grief.
When I got to the Info Booth, I discovered that I was working with Angela, a really cool woman with a calm manner and good smile. She had been volunteering all week, as she had the week off from University. We shared our mutual amazement at the gall of certain people, all the while cheerfully informing people of things we may or may not really know about. It made such a difference to work with someone who is relaxed and friendly! The time went quickly. And, as if reward for being good the day before, I was given the privilege of wearing the headset.
Having the headset on was very funny. Hearing Erica and Johnson ask for this or that, and hearing the coordinators tell each other dumb inside jokes reaffirmed my theories about why some people would take on such a responsibility with little reward, if any. Angela and I realized that in fact there were no benefits to volunteering for the Brisbane Writers Festival. Most of the events are free, so if you weren't volunteering, you could attend without paying anyway. As a volunteer, you actually deprive yourself of seeing the Festival.
I did abuse the privilege of wearing the headset. Anytime someone asked me a question I didn't have an answer to, I would ask over the headset, so much so that finally I was told if anyone had a question I couldn't answer I was to tell them to check the website in a couple of days. If I had told people that the day before, when I was Eric's peon, they would have said something condescending to me and huffed off. But because my information was being streamed to me via headset, somehow it reassured people. Maybe I will wear a headset all the time, and respond to people after "conferring" with the headset. It just might give me the cred I need to get respect.
After the Festival they kept promising of a Volunteer afterparty, but after all the cheapness and finding out we were all just supposed to meet at a pub, I quickly realized that it was no party at all, and as long as I could buy my own drinks, they were happy to thank me for being a volunteer. So, when my shift finally ended, I signed out, told Erica Headset I would NOT be contributing 5 dollars to buy gifts for the coordinators, and did not look back.
The next day, I saw Erica headset and another of her caste walking back to BWF headquarters, carrying boxes and laughing. And I could see in them the camaraderie you get when you work on a project together, the camaraderie I guess I had been hoping to experience. Much like when you work on a play in high school, or maybe when you spend your senior year working on the yearbook with people. It feels like you are privy to something special, and your relationships in the group are easy and fun, and you feel confident because you are accepted by a group, and you are excited by the common goal. But then, alas, it all comes to end. You graduate. The curtain comes down on the last performance. You must move on. Which, in truth, is good.
I am going to have lunch with Angela tomorrow. If I have made one friend from the experience, then it was worth it. In which case, I take back everything I said.
