Oh The Joys

Have you ever volunteered for something only to find out later that significantly more was expected of you, and your services, than what was originally thought?
My day kinda went like this: to bed at 1 am after arriving back at Moody from a hilarious "haunted" corn maze. (its true that I haunted that corn maze way more effectively than the spooks they hired). I slept for 4 hours and woke up at 5:15 to hurry and get to work at the Catering kitchen and make coffee, O.J. and ice water for the people watching the Chicago Marathon. I was told originally that all i had to do was make the various drinks, drop them off at the specified location then peace out and go back to sleep until noon, at which time i would go back and pick it all up.
Now, anyone who has spent, oh say, three minutes with me on any morning knows that i am NOT a morning person. (i repeat, NOT a morning person). but i overcome this periodically to make money. (read: go to work). So when Mr. "i'm in charge of this party" walks over just as Austin and i were about to head back to bed and says: "So where's the platters? Your boss said you would plate up all the bagels", you can just imagine how happy i was. not only were there about 675 bagels in three ginormous bags, but ten dozen donuts and various boxes of random (and i mean RANDOM.) pastries. (we're talking wheat-based products i've never seen before)
But it gets better. Mr. "I'm in charge of this party" continues. he realizes that we are not exactly on the same page, and i have no doubt he caught my chilly, not-so-friendly, grouch gaze, and realized i had not planned on anything else than delivering his drinks. (and for good reason...THAT WAS ALL HE ORDERED.) He says: "Your boss also said you would stick around and replenish the drinks as they get empty...until noon."
This is where i became rather upset. before it was a minor inconvenience, he had only deprived me of a half hour of sleep by asking us to plate the bagels. now he was ripping away an entire morning of precious rest.

Mr Catering supervisor was NOT happy.

I really dont appreciate people taking advantage of the service we offer. and dropping my bosses name to make me do stuff for you aint cool either. So what did i do? i did as i was asked, not because the customer is always right (they're not...they RARELY are, most of them dont have an iota of a clue as to what they are talking about), but because i knew that when a customer asks us to add to an order the day of the event we get to itemize the list of the extra things and charge them extra for them. =)
is it revenge if its standard policy? I might not care.
Poor Austin had to work with me all morning as i took my anger out in passive ways, like muttering sarcastic comments at the WMBI guy standing on a platform by the street screaming into a microphone at the marathon runners saying the same thing over and over... "Go, go! you can do it! yeah! Go go! you can do it!..."
...i mean seriously...shut up.
Radio people need to say on the radio–where i can turn them OFF if i want. i seriously doubt any one of those runners was like, "you know im gonna quit now at mile marker 11.......oh wait! i've been invigorated by the annoying man on the microphone who just loves to hear his own voice! i can now continue running and finish!"
honestly? i mean, seriously. If they are tired at mile 11 when they run by Moody they deserve to drop out. didnt they train for this? call me pessimistic or fatalist but the Kenyan's win anyway. they run by a full half hour ahead of everyone else. I understand its a personal accomplishment to run the 26.2 miles of the marathon, that is not lost on me. But i just dont think that any man screaming on a mic is going to encourage them any more than anyone else. Now he might make them run faster to get AWAY from him. that might be an advantage for them.

Anyway, that was my day.
i finish with a quote that i think is quite applicable to this situation, and as Austin said, sums up the entire job of catering as a whole:

"Poor planning or communication on your part does not necessitiate an emergency on mine."

words to live by my friends.