Sharkboy

As DR wrote yesterday, we decorated our Christmas tree after giving the cats one week to acclimatize themselves to the big white new addition to the living room.

This might even be the last year I use the white tree. It is its 10th year and really is starting to show its age. We’ll see what happens next year, I might want a real one, or just get a big fake pink one, who knows. I’m not too attached to the tree itself but it’s another story when it comes to the decorations which I have collected since before moving out of my parents house.

Every year after the holidays are over, I carefully wrap each decoration into specific boxes with enough padding that if I was to move in the following season, none of them would break. I then store them in a big trunk ready for the following November to come. Of all the decoration I use, 3/4 of them were purchased over the last 25 years and still evoke good memories of the location and/or time I acquired them. The rest of what goes in the tree are called semi-fillers and fillers… those are usually placed closer to the bottom of the tree or to hide hole I might have left while placing my “good” decorations first. If the cats were to knock any of them, I’d yell at them so they knew what they did was wrong, but inside I’d laugh at their bad taste in “toys”. Those fillers are all placed in one big box by themselves and without too much care.

That said, I have another category of decorations, this one very meaningful, that I actually do not put on the tree just in case the cats decide to play Call Of Duty, Modern Christmas Warfare in the house while we’re at work. I actually bought a little metallic tree where those decoration are carefully placed on the chimney mantle, praying to the lords of all Christmas that they don’t decide to go explore the new shiny things one of these lonely afternoons.

The most special of these decorations is the one my parents gave me a couple of years before their house was destroyed in a fire. Not only is it special because of the timing in which they gave it to me, but it’s one I remember seeing in our family Christmas tree every year as a child too. My parents had bought some really nice decorations after getting married and throughout the years two of the big vintage balls had survived. My sister and I always had a fascination with them. When coming home for Christmas, one of the first thing I’d do was to go locate them in my parents Christmas tree, and even move them to a better “viewing” location if I thought they weren’t showcased to their advantage.

9 Christmases ago, after arriving at my parents and unloading all the wrapped gifts from the car to their living room, I noticed right away that the Père Noël and the Fée Des Étoiles Christmas balls weren’t there… Ahwhat?????

My mom sadly told me that they had finally both broken after all these years. The box they were in fell while they were trying to get the decorations from the basement and those two particular balls had broken with others… It was a weird sensation, I guess I’ve always been too much of a sentimental.

Later on that night, after all the gifts were open and everyone had watched Minuit Chrétien on TV at midnight, we were about to start eating all sorts of good food when my mom and dad came with 2 more little wrapped boxes. They handed one to Syl and one to me. You just know it, my parents had wrapped the 2 most special decorations we had known since being kids and given the Santa Claus one to Syl and the Christmas Fairy to me (they always had a good sense of humour). As silly as it sounds, there were tears all around.

Fast forward 9 Christmases and you’ll find me and DR last night, taking all the decorations out of the trunk, getting ready to start putting them in the tree… Each box I opened was another memory coming back to life… After sorting the ones who’d end up in good viewing position in the tree from the semi-fillers and the fillers, I decided to start with the special ones for the metallic tree on the mantle. I turned around and saw DR holding my most precious one and, although I trust him completely, I started telling him about that particular decoration’s history and that he should always hold it from the bottom in case it should slip from his finger while holding it by the top and at the same time instructed him which location it should have in the metallic tree, right smack centre.

It was the first one in, it looked good and “vintagy” and precious.

After adding the 6 others glass blown ones, I looked back and wasn’t satisfied with the looks of it and started moving decorations around, always leaving the Fairy in the middle. All of a sudden, my sleeve caught the edge of the metallic tree foot and the whole thing went shaking. I managed to catch the tree before it fell but the one ball that went flying was my so-ever-prized Christmas Fairy decoration.

In a slow motion haze, I tried to save the tree and all the glass blown decorations and at the same time reached with my elbow to catch the runaway ball. I nudged it only and it continue to fall, hitting the mantle, then rolling off it and falling towards the tiled floor 5 feet below. As the “expert” soccer player I am, I then tried to catch it with my knee and then again with my foot, but the ball hit the floor anyway.

Time just stopped.

For whatever Christmas miracle happened yesterday, the ball didn’t break, it landed on the floor and rolled away until it stopped by the couch. DR and I nervously looked at each other. My hands were shaking. My eyes were tearing up. I made sure the metallic tree was standing securely before I took a step back, looking at the unbroken decoration on the floor. I carefully picked it up and placed it again in its centre position and walked back from it. So happy it was still going to be part of another good Christmas.

With all sorts of thoughts running through my head as to how I would’ve felt if I would’ve have broken it, I started thinking that maybe someone from above, maybe the one who actually bought that decoration more than 50 years ago had something to do with it.

Thanks dad. Merry Christmas to you too.

Fée Des Étoiles

Père Noël (borrowed from Syl’s private collection. Photo by Pogo)

Mantle

In my “more mature” years, I find that people around me already have everything they need, so buying a gift becomes a lot more impersonal. I’m also not that much a fan of giving gift cards unless I know the person wants/needs something at a particular store that I can’t afford to buy, therefore a donation to that purchase can be a good idea.

So with this in mind, birthdays and Christmas shopping has become more of a “what material” do I need to make a more personal gift for that special person in my life. My sister’s birthday came and went recently and I decided that a perfect gift would be to use the recipes my father had gathered throughout his life and use DR’s graphic design talent to lay them all out so we could make a cook book out of it. We found the perfect book to use so we could insert all the recipes in. Of course, one cannot be TOO serious about such gifts, so I had to add some of my more humourous recipes. In the middle of the book, I insertedPain Grillé which consist of taking 2 pieces of bread, put them in the toaster and wait. I also added Céréales where you take a box of cereal, pour some of it in a bowl, add milk and eat. You know, fun easy stuff, that I even can’t fuck up.

I also had to revisit some of my favourite recipes from when I was a kid, you know the ones you’d never hear of unless your parents grew up in certain French speaking only area of Montreal… One of those classics I added was Sandwiche au Patates Frites… 2 pieces of white buttered bread, add a thick coating of Heinz ketchup and than cover with French Fries (not the freaking crap you find in the frozen section) or Onion Rings (if you chose that crazy option you must then change to BBQ sauce instead of ketchup of course)… Trust me, it’s delicious. When my mom and sister were here last week, we invested in some Gourmet Burger fries, onion rings and sweet potato fries and made the best sandwiches a luncher could ever wish for… It was DR’s first time and it was my first time since the late 60′s early 70′s… What a “fat” treat it was.

Tonight, for dinner, I’m showing DR how to make Sandwiche Au Poulet Plein De Ketchup. Simple really, take some chunks of cold leftover chicken, put on buttered bread, kill a ketchup bottle over the meat and eat. Yuuuuuuummmmmyyyyyyy. You’ll be back for seconds.

For more on these delicious options, please send a stamped self-addressed return envelope to SharkBoy’s home and you too could delight your loved one with these classics in no time. And as a bonus, if you act before midnight, you will also receive the ever coveted Radish Sandwiches recipe. But it’s not all, if you add a nice compliment, I might include the sausauge link / ketchup rolled-up sandwiches recipes your special events won’t be able to do without in the future. It’s that good.

Today was BEAT ON SHARKBOY DAY. Not only did I get laser zapped in my eye balls to relieve the pressure that is building up in there, but I also go the needle for the H1N1…

My eyes are sore, it will last a few days. My arm hasn’t started to hurt yet, but I’m told it will for a couple of days… Great. At least now I know I’m not allergic to it…

After the play, Da invited DR and I to join him for dinner at Woo, an asian restaurant that marries traditional Japanese and Chinese menus oh-so well… Delicious and very filling.

My fortune was also pretty dead-on: “You have a sense of the dramatic and a tendency towards display”… Humm.. Buddha really knows me well.

Da’s fortune was a tad more funny with: “You will be happiest if you please yourself first”. We both started to laugh, but DR didn’t get it at first as he went on about how pilots and their planes going down or how you’re supposed to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before your child… oblivious of the masturbation joke his dad and I were giggling over. Totally living out his fortune that read: “You tend to draw out the love in others”.

That, he does. He does.

There are days that just work out to be great without planning them. They just happen. Today was one of them.

Great breakfast by Mr. DR early this morning. Some Christmas gifting following that. Then shower and we were on our way to the theatre to see DR’s big brother Michael in Stuff Happens, a VERY entertaining play about the first 4 years of George W. Bush’s administration taking a drastic turn after the 9-11 events of 2001. I wouldn’t think that a political play could be that funny and dramatic at the same time but when you have a solid cast of performers giving their all, you get amazing results.

It really capped our perfect morning and afternoon.

As we exited the play, I was brutally reminded of a great Pet Shop Boys song called The Theatre where their lyrics go:

While you pretend not to notice
All the years we’ve been here
We’re the bums you step over
As you leave the Theatre

Except we weren’t the bums, we were the people stepping over them so we could go home… If I was a cynic I’d just say that this little organized group missed their calling, they are fairly good actors themselves, in their perfect locations, wearing the perfect clothes, at the perfect time… I’m sure if we would’ve walked at the same place 20 minutes later, none of them would’ve have been there anymore. It looked like an act, way too organized to be sincere. Sorry dudes, you’re not getting the Dora this year. But the fine actors in Stuff Happens just might.

Go see it.

Oh, and here’s a rendition of the Pet Shop Boys song mentioned earlier. Enjoy:

Ok.

It’s like that.

You’re alone in an office space that can hold 6 working stations at its core as well as 2 counter stations at one end of it. You’re waiting for customers to come an pay. It’s the dead time of the morning after the first big rush and the start of the 2nd. All the court clerks whose desks are in this office are still in their respective court room. You can’t get the stupid little radio to work properly so you’ve turned it off. It’s quiet but you can still hear the little buzz from the constant activity of people rushing around the hallways in the distance…

Then, out of nowhere, you start hearing a noise like someone knocking INSIDE the wall by the window. You quickly turn to make sure you are in fact alone and that no one has returned without you noticing… Nope. You are alone. Looking straight at the wall and hearing the knocking. Freaky. Then it stops.

During lunch time, you mention to one of you co-worker from your regular work office about it and she tells you about this ghost that is supposedly haunting Old City Hall… You do a quick search online and find this site and read about the one that is supposedly active in the building you work at:

Built in the late 1890s, and once the head seat of the Municipality of Toronto and County of York, this building now serves the city as its municipal courts. The city’s departments were moved to the modern buildings just west of this ornate building with (for Toronto,) rather unique architecture.

What’s in this old building that interests us? Easy! Stories reverberate of all types of different ghostly activity. The rear staircase has a poltergeist that seems to enjoy tugging at judges’ robes as well as walking up and down the stairs where its footsteps can still be heard.

The cellars acted at one time as a holding centre for prisoners and the moans of the incarcerated have been heard as well. The Northwest attic is also a spot where a presence is felt, but no one is quite sure what it is.

Courtroom 33 is said to be haunted by the spirits of the last men condemned to hang in Canada. This is where the spirits are said to be the strongest and it is almost a tradition for someone in the press to attempt to spend the night on Halloween. In John Robert Colombo’s book Haunted Toronto, he tells of a pair of stout reporters that almost managed to spend the night but gave in by 4am. The reporters told of “cool fogs” and weird noises that left them, at times, glued to the floor.

The old cellars they mention in the article is EXACTLY where the counter you are working at this week is located. It’s an old vault… So you are scared but amused that it actually might have been a ghost you heard.

You forget all about it until today when the whole thing happens again.

Freak!

You are once again alone in the office but this time there is a long line up of customers. You are totally distracted by this noise IN the wall and can’t concentrate on all the complaining in front of you by the whining crowd… Every time you print a receipt you keep your eyes in the direction of the noise… knock knock knock… silence… knock knock… silence… knock knock knock… You’re half excited and half nervous that something might pop out of the wall to tell you to stop sassing back at the crowd that sasses you all day long… You sort of think it might be fun if this ghost was to go and scare the shit out of them so you can have somewhat of a break…

And then the noise of a metal shovel scraping bricks happens. You freeze. You actually stop what you are doing to go see what is going on.. You can’t see anything but there is definitely something weird in the corner of the room…

As you get closer, the noise stops. Still, you walk all the way to the window to see if maybe someone isn’t outside, working with a shovel… You don’t see anyone.

Then it happens again…

Loudly…

You look down and notice this crazy ass old time radiator hidden under a shelf… The noise is coming from there…

So much for your ghost… but in the end you’re glad to know you won’t have to bring Pull-Ups or Depends with you next time you have to come and spend the week at Old City Hall.

At the end of the day I received an email from DR telling me he’d be running late because of the monstrous subway problem downtown. I stupidly volunteered to make dinner knowing I’d probably go buy a pizza anyway. He suggested fish with rice and corn… Ok, I can do that…

So I got home, changed in my comfy home clothes and started dinner… half way through it I realized we don’t have any more corn here…

Dinner is ruined…

So I spot his running shoes by the door, put them on, grab my keys and run downstairs to go to the convenient store. Once outside, I feel somewhat of a breeze.. I look down, and horrors of horrors, I’m wearing sweat pants in public… By then I’m almost inside the convenient store, so I decide to swallow my pride and go for it…

I find what I need quickly under the ever-so-bright fluorescent lights and run back to the cashier. There’s an older lady in front of me who’s poor English is clashing with the owner’s poor English… I’m about to just tell her to get the fucking DuMaurier cigarettes and move on… they’re all the same aren’t they? But no, they go on and on about different brand and she wants something different this time, blah blah blah… And then the line up behind me grows, and I’m totally feeling all the dirty stares because I’m wearing these stupid sweatpants… I quickly scan the little crowd to make sure I don’t know anyone… it’s all good.

It’s finally my turn, I quickly give her the money and she gives me my change… NO I DON’T WANT A BAG…

Ok, it’s done, I can run home…

I leave the store and walk quickly towards our front door when the landlord comes out and says he needs to talk to me… AAAARRRGH… we start talking and then he quickly realized I was the wrong tenant, he needed to talk to the guy upstairs… so I leave and make it to the door, but the key is jammed now, it won’t turn, there’s about a dozen people waiting for the streetcar all discussing my sweatpants I’m sure, I turn around and the damn streetcar just arrives, it’s full jammed pack with commuters, they’re all looking at me… I know it… they’re all saying: OPEN YOUR FUCKING DOOR SWEATPANT FREAK, GET INSIDE!!!!

And then the key works and I rush in and go finish the fucking dinner that my husband better love…

This week I’ve volunteered to go man our one person office at Old City Hall. This little office is there for one purpose only, to take the payment of the defendants who chose to plead guilty with an explanation and pay on the same day. They are all give the choice to pay right away or tell the Justice of the Peace how long they would need to make the payment, 15 days, 30 days, 60 days, etc. A lot of people chose to pay right away and be done with it, most of them happy they were able to save the demerit points on their driver’s license in return.

So, beautiful Old City Hall, a building I’ve always wanted to work at since getting the job with the City. This should be a fantastic week… and then reality set in.

30 minutes after opening my little counter, the drama had already started… I was given instruction to ONLY take payment for those coming out of the court rooms with their “special” receipt, anything else I was to redirect to my regular office… Of course I could use my judgment to make exceptions, I won’t send a 70 year old person on a 15 minute walk just to make a regular payment, right? Or will I???

Anyway, amongst all they defendants wanting to pay, some sneaky people tried their luck and my judgment was based on their attitude as there are huge neon-pink signs describing what this office’s purpose is: payment from people in court on that same day, nothing else…

1.
Uncool Dude: I want to set a trial for this ticket
Me: You’ll have to go to our administration office
Uncool Dude: Why?
Me: Because that’s what the sign says
Uncool Dude: Where is it?
Me: (handing out a 4″ x 4″ little map with direction from the court room to the admin office)
Uncool Dude: I don’t know where that is?
Me: Go up Bay, turn left on Edward
Uncool Dude: Can you write it down?
Me: I just gave you a map WITH arrows, it can’t be any easier than that

2.
Guy: How do I get out of this building?
Me: Seriously?
Guy: (silence)
Me: The total opposite way you came in… (then pointing to the door across from my counter)

3.
Me: It will be $65, how would you like to pay?
Agent: Visa
Me: I’ll need your card please
Agent: (trying to insert his Visa with the chip in the card reader on his side of the counter)
Me: Sir, I’ll need your card here
Agent: No, no, that’s how “these” work (as if it was a new magical Visa card”
Me: Well, I hope your coffee is still very warm because we’ll be here for awhile
Agent: Huh?
Me: I need to swipe your card on my reader first so you can enter your pin on the one in front of you
Agent: That’s not how they do it at other places
Me: Cool, well, If they accept Court payments at these other place, be my guest, otherwise, I’ll need your card here first

4.
Tall Guy: I need to know when this ticket’s payment was processed
Me: (after typing the ticket number in) It was payed on October 25th
Tall Guy: Are you sure?
Me: I’ll print you a copy (print and hand out copy)

He returns 5 minutes later and cuts in front of the line-up as I’m serving another customer
Tall Guy: Hey! You only told me about this one, I have to know about these other 3 as well
Me: Did you show me this information?
Tall Guy: If you knew how to do your job I wouldn’t have to come back here twice in one morning
Me: None of us are mind readers, we answer the questions we’re asked only. Plus I’m with someone right now and I don’t think she’s enjoying you talking over her head.
Tall Guy: Fucking asshole!

5.
Regular Looking Man: I need to know what fine is suspending my license
Me: (punching his info in) There are 3 tickets suspending your license. You can either pay all three of go to the different locations where they were filed and apply for a reopening of the cases. Unfortunately, yours were filed the Scarborough AND the Mississauga office, so you’ll have to go to both places to apply for reopening
Regular Looking Man: Why? Why can’t I do it all at the same place?
Me: A justice of the Peace will assist you with your request only at the office where the tickets were filed, they need the original ticket.
Regular Looking Man: (pulling all 3 tickets out of his pockets) I have the originals right here, can’t just one person help me?
Me: These are your copies, the ones the officers gave you at the time. The original copies, the white ones, were filed at their respective courts.
Regular Looking Man: Where are they?
Me: Sir, look at the back of these tickets. All the information you need is there. It’s really important you read what the officers give you otherwise you’re stuck like today and your license has been suspended because you just ignored the tickets. (then pointing out the different address he needs to go to written at the back of his copies)
Regular Looking Man: What time are they open?
Me: (moving my finger one line below to show the times they are opened)
Regular Looking Man: I don’t know why they make is so hard for people to fight these tickets.
Me: I think it’s because they don’t want you to get another one.

6.
At 11:00 am, after waiting until there was absolutely no one in line for 2 or 3 minutes, I put up a sign in my window saying I was on my break for 15 minutes and would returned at 11:15am. Then I close the blind leaving just a little bit of space at the counter level.

Housewife: Hello?
Me: (On ignore)
Housewife: Hello? I can see you. I know you’re there
Me: If you can see me, surely you can see the sign on the window too.
Housewife: Yes, but I only have a quick question
Me: It will have to wait until I return from the restroom
Housewife: (huge sigh) That’s ridiculous!
Me: Well, we could send you the cleaning bill or you could wait until I’m back.

Ah… Beautiful Old City Hall… Can’t wait for tomorrow.

Recently I spent an entire day at the St-Lawrence Centre in a class called: “Dealing With Difficult Customers and Complaints”. I had signed up for it a long time ago as I thought it might have some insights as to how to defuse situations at the counter and also maybe some tips on how to keep the energy up from the first customers of the day to the last. Let’s face it I deal with difficult customers and complaints for the larger part of the day.

The room where the class was held contained 8 large tables with 5 chairs around them. I took a seat at the back left corner, two other people joined me in the course of the morning, but the tables closest to the doors where the ones filled up to capacity and some of them taking an extra chair from a neighbouring table so they could sit with people they knew, as if they thought the closest to the door, the faster they can be on the sidewalks at break time or to the subway at the end of the day. The class started at 9am and went until 4pm, the instruction had us arrived a few minutes in advance as the programme was really charged and the class would start promptly at 9am.

Promptly, as promised, the facilitator introduced herself, threw in a few cute/funny anecdotes about her experience, did a quick count around the room and announced that 7 people were missing. She then went around the room and asked us to introduced ourselves with name, what department from the city we were in and what were our expectations for the day. Then the fun started.

One by one, the late arrivals came in while she was in mid-sentence and she’d make sure to ignore them until they had found a seat and then she’d ask the person: “Was it the traffic? Was it the subway? Was it the fact that you just wanted a day off from work and didn’t think that being here on time was that important?” I liked her instantly.

During the day, she went through a lot of theory as to how to defuse difficult situations and I realized that I was already practicing a lot of them in my daily routine, but there was one thing that she preached that I knew for sure would never work for me… Her most important tip was to let someone have their say (read yell) and continue to listen by adding “Is that so?”, “Really?”, “You don’t say”, etc and then when they were out of breath and nearly finished with their issue, you’d just introduced yourself and let them know they had come to the right place to fix the problem… Thing is that might be so if you work in a bank, if you work in a store or something of the sorts where a product or service is in question, but it doesn’t work so much when it involves a speeding ticket or by-law infraction. There is nothing I can do to fix that situation if the person feels they were given the ticket wrongly… All I’m there to do is explain the options they have on how to fight it, I can’t fix it… so introducing myself and telling them that they are at the right place isn’t going to make it anywhere close to better for them. I said so to the facilitator and she put me to task to prove that it applied to everyone, including my line of work. Oh fuck. Roleplay…

She asked one big burly guy to play the unhappy customer who just received a parking ticket and I was to be the guy at the counter. She made us stand up at the front of the class with an audience of 26 onlookers. Great. And Action:

Burly: &$%$^ parking ticket $$#%#$ stupid fuck ^^$&$^$ not paying $#%&@*@^
Me: (putting her theory to use) Hu-huh
Burly: &@#*!%!% never had a ticket %&&@*!% I want him to lose his job $$%%@&!@@&*
Me: Really?
Burly: &@@#*@*@ you better fix it %###*# I’m not paying %@@*@&^@ you’re all lazy &@&&@$@
Me: Is that so
Burly: @*@&&@^@& he had nothing better to do &&@&!*%$@ why was he picking on me
Me: You don’t say

And it went on and on… This was acting 101, not a real situation, based on her theory we could’ve gone on and on like this for another hour, he was roleplaying, he would’ve continued to swear for another long time and I would’ve continued to just listen. It certainly wasn’t real life.

She said I wasn’t trying to do anything I was just listening, so I mentioned that based on what she said I had to wait until he was done. She said I could try and stop him to say that you needed to get more facts and ask questions.

Burly: $@#*@&@% ticket &@%#&@^ waaaaah waaaaaah &@%#$@
Me: Ok, so you say that you got the ticket at this place?
Burly: ^@&#$ yes, can’t you read *#&#^#
Me: I can read but I want to hear your side of the story (which in reality I couldn’t give a flying fuck about, but I’m roleplaying to the theory I just learned)
Burly: &@^$(@* fix it &#^$*#
Me: I can’t fix this, your opti…
Burly: *#&^$*# fix it you stupid *#*#&$^
Me: Let’s just look at your options (it’s becoming annoying and embarrassing now, I’m feeling my ears getting hotter which means my face is getting red. I’m not an actor, I’m not here to perform)
Burly: @%@&^ FIIIIIX IIIIIT!!!!
Me: (turning to the facilitator) Huh… this isn’t real life!
Facilitator: He’s doing this because you’re letting him do it, you’re not intervening the right way
Me: A-what?
Facilitator: You haven’t introduced yourself, you haven’t taken control of the situation, he’s still in charge…
Me: It could be but I don’t work in a bank where customer service is a must, I’m at a counter where we have to go through 800 customers in one day with only 4 people working at a time, we don’t have time to listen to their stories, they either fight the ticket or pay the ticket… and the fight happens in court with a Justice of the Peace not us.
Facilitator: Ok, you’re getting anxious, you’re letting the customer walk over you… Let’s do something to calm you down, to center you.

And with that, she literally joined me at the front of the room, made me stand straight, opened my hands to the side of my body, lifted my chin and told me to take 3 big breaths in and out… WWHHAAATTTT???? I took the first one and then felt totally embarrassed that I was in front of 25 other people doing this. I looked at her and said:

Me: this is really not what would happen in my situation, it never gets to this level because we never let it get there. My idea for this course was not to act in front of a class, it was to find out how I can start with energy at 8am and finish with the same energy at 4pm after having seen 200 people complaining. Maybe I signed up for the wrong class
Facilitor: Ok, what would you do in that situation?
Me: (looking at Burly) Sir, you can scream all you want but until you start talking to me at the same level I’m talking to you, you will be speaking to an empty counter because they don’t pay to babysit, they pay me to take your money or your request to go to court.
Facilitator: And that works
Me: Everytime. And if they complain, my lead and supervisor after that will tell them the same thing. It’s a right to demand a court date if you feel you’ve received a ticket unjustly but it’s not your right to act like a jerk. Plus if they don’t calm down, there’s a couple of manly security guard who will come and remind them to act in a civilized manner. We don’t have time to shake someone’s hand and tell them there in good hands now…
Facilitator: Ok, let’s try someone else now…

It’s weird, I really liked her up until that embarrassing “roleplay” moment but I left knowing that I really hadn’t learn anything and that I hate performing and ad-libing in front of a full room. And I said so in my review too. Hopefully it might work in someone else’s favour in the future.