What a day yesterday! I usually do morning shift when I work at the fish tank (my new nickname for the Aquarium) because it is a lot quieter and I can spend time with guests answering questions in more detail than repeatedly just pointing to the Giant Pacific Octopus hiding under some rocks. (And people asking me incessantly why I can't make the octopus come out.)

I thought I'd try something new yesterday. There was a "special event after hours" that they needed people to man the various galleries and engage the guests. I went in for a shift beforehand to make sure I'd hit my 100 hour goal for the month (which I've now done).

Unfortunately, I was having a monumentally bad hair day. Since the traumatic hair-cutting more than a month ago, every day has been a bad hair day. (I didn't mention that I tried chemically straightening my hair afterwards which left my short hair the consistency of dried straw despite daily hot oil treatments, moisturizing masques on the hair, and various other deep-conditioning treatments)

So I'm sent out to the abyss of the outside Sea Lion exhibit. It was a lovely day and normally it would be great to be standing outside except the sea lions are noisy as hell. Barking. Incessantly.

And our local weatherman was doing the live weather reports from in front of the sea lions. Live. He was attended to by the fish tank's PR person. I've encountered this guy before in some other work capacities. Two words can sum him up - condescending and arrogant. (Can't you tell I think he's the cat's pajamas?) So I tell him a few facts about the sea lions that he can share on air. He totally gets them wrong in the first broadcast.

So he suggests to the fish tank PR person that he should interview me for the other feeds. Ugh. Now I'm trying to make a super-duper volunteer impression, so I can't say no. I don't have issues with the interview itself. I'm comfortable with appearing on-camera. Done it many times. But did I mention I was having a monumentally horrendous hair day? And that I really don't think much of this weatherdude?

PR person and weatherguy are happy to have the interaction with me. I play along. LOTS of downtime. Having to make idle chit-chat with him. Plus we had dribble of guests coming out to look at the Sea Lions. They'd ask what the camera equipment was for - I'd point to our weatherguy and they'd ooooh and ahhhh all over him. Then I'd share info about the Sea Lions.

I was tied up between 5 - 7:15 with the interviews. Word got around the floor that I had been on tv. There's this one girl that volunteers that always tries to 'one up' me. She's young. Has some sort of theatrical background. Has that sort of snobbish naivete about her. She heard about it and was utterly green. (Loved it! LOL) She wanted to know WHY they hadn't picked HER instead of me since I was new. blah blah blah.  I'm so sure that an appearance on the Friday evening weather forecast would project her career to the next stratosphere (like local community theater? LOL)

The event was starting. I thought it'd be cool because there wouldn't be kids, so I could interact with adults that could appreciate the aquarium.

Wrong.

Two words.

Open Bar.

Although most were nice and extremely interested, there were some that kept making a lot of inappropriate comments, trying to reach into the tanks, etc. One early 60's-ish dude kept banging his class ring against the tank. I repeatedly asked him to stop. Normally we are told to NEVER touch a guest. I finally grabbed his hand and told him to stop or we'd have to escort him out. A lot of really bad versions of trophy wives. And some of the womens outfits were H-I-D-E-O-U-S.

The funniest was when I was talking to a group of 5 men about the sea otters. Then I realized that they didn't speak any english - they were German. I had been rattling off information that they 'seemed' to be engrossed in listening to - when I guess they were searching for any tidbits of words they could decipher. A woman came over a few minutes later and started translating. I felt like a dork.

That's enough rattling off by me for now. Have a good weekend.