It's been a few weeks since the festival ended, and I still haven't got around to describing the antics that went on meanwhile. Perhaps to set the scene it would be best to describe the remaining two of my bosses, as an understanding of their characters is crucial to comprehending some situations.
2) The Organizational Director.
Probably the nicest guy of the bunch. A movie producer and director, producer of various international festivals in Warsaw and all over Poland. His down-to-earth approach and managerial skills made working with him a pleasure. Taking time out of the day to pamper his employees and make sure they were never lacking for everything (even Kleenex!), he was for me an inspiration, although his absent-mindedness and his constant tardiness did sometimes upset my well-planned day. What is most striking about him are the people skills he possesses - never at a loss for a word, a well-timed compliment, or a simple pat on the back. He learns the names of everyone he meets, from cleaning ladies to security guards, and calls them by name whenever he can - a simple enough ploy which literally keeps the cleaning ladies running after him with mops offering to do extra work to accommodate him. His practical attitude ("better work hard for 2 hours getting everything done than spend 8 hours playing solitaire on the computer and pretending to be busy") puts him in direct opposition to HIRD, and his marketing and popularizing approach to theatre ("Art") daily, nay even hourly ignited the wrath of AD (who, acting contrary to his own interests, does not even have an e-mail account). This made for some tense but interesting situations.
3) The Head of the International Relations Department (HIRD).
HIRD is the only one of the full-time culture institution employees, and this is reflected in his work. He does not work because he is artistically motivated (AD), nor yet interested in bringing the project to its conclusion (OD), he works because...he works because... I know not.
Nominally, HIRD was my supervisor in the institute. This turned out to be a good deal for him, since he got credit for the project without actually knowing what it was about. Not that this didn't have its good side - he signed any paper, contract or bill which I would put on his desk, after a peremptory: 'So, this expense was really needed? Is it in the budget?" to which he would always receive affirmative answers (note: this was entirely correct, as they were - it was the first project with a major budget that I was responsible for, so I preferred to underspend than otherwise). However, the last day, when the final performance and closing ceremony were running the risk of being canceled at the last minute due to technical problems (the theatre company had failed to bring their main technician, and the lighting and sound were being done by an actress who had never done them before), this proved to be slightly annoying. HIRD called me from across the impatient crowd (including directors and other VIPS, since the closing ceremony was also a banquet) milling about in the foyer: "Is everything ok?" to which I undauntedly replied: "Of course!" (no use explaining the hitch to him - he would have panicked, adding to an already stressful situation.) "So, Coordinator, what is going on?" "Well, we're having a few technical problems, so we'll be a few minutes late. But everything is fine!" We were 30 minutes late, and everything did turn out to be fine, but no support from his quarter was forthcoming.
HIRD is probably the most interesting of my bosses for a simple reason - for all his staunch anti-communism, he is actually the product of a bygone era in Poland. HIRD is quite young, in his mid-thirties, so he certainly has only distant memories of what life under communism looked like. He professes to be very much right-wing. However, his work ethic belies his beliefs. Let me explain.
In communist Poland, the dream of most people was to obtain what was known as a 'posada' (in English this translates into: job, position.) However, in Poland the word carries connotations of a job position with many benefits: paid vacations, special recreation centers targeted at employees of a certain state enterprise,etc. The most important of these benefits is the stability of the job, the fact of being regularly paid - regardless of the efficiency and results of one's work.
HIRD is what I imagine a state employee (and under communism, most people fell into this category) used to be like. He comes in late, usually around 9.30, sometimes not even bothering to explain his tardiness. He then promptly sets about making himself a pot of coffee, checks to make sure the room is properly humidified, surveys his little kingdom of 3 subordinates and sits down in his great armchair to catch up on his correspondence.
At 12 he leaves for lunch, well-prepared with a stack of newspapers under his arm, and returns at earliest around 2 PM. Hopefully, he has a meeting with the director, or someone else from the institute, or someone with whom he is working on a project. He is most happy if this person is from outside the office, which necessitates officially signing himself out and leaving the office for an indefinite period of time. Lacking official professional meetings, he takes it upon himself to organize 'department meetings', which are a story unto themselves.
If no more semblants of meetings are available, then he is condemned to suffer through another few hours, until he leaves, earlier than 5 PM. He is very exacting about letting himself take days off from work due to illness or otherwise.
What HIRD actually does do in his time in the office (what little of it there is) remains a mystery. His computer screen is set up in such a way as to make it impossible for anyone else to see what he is actually doing. He delegates as much of his tasks as possible to his employees, and when asked about how to fulfill a certain formality, or what is the procedure applicable in a given situation, he stares point-blank to try to make the inquirer feel guilty about not knowing. Failing that, he sends the inquirer to any other department (accounting, administration, graphic design), explaining that this is none of his business.
And his penchant for meetings... that merits a separate post.

It's over!

My desperate battle-cry of 'The show must go on!" appears to have taken effect. I no longer have 3 phones ringing every few seconds with a group pilot demanding: "There is no taxi coming to pick them up, what I am supposed to do?" or the translator: "My tramway is up in smoke - I won't get to the theatre for the rehearsal in time" or the catering company: "Can you possibly come 15 minutes late? Nothing is ready for dinner yet". No longer do I have to keep track of 25 lost and forlorn artists in all stages of undress, distress and stress. No longer do I have to worry about where they left the 5-kg block of green clay, nor whether the Swiss branches and leaves really are sufficiently fire-proof enough to be placed 5 centimeters from the lit candles, or that the make-up assistant's child lost its favorite toy below the stage.
In a word, the festival is over. Finito. La fin. End of story.
Or rather the beginning - as you can imagine, I have my fair share of stories to tell after this ridiculous week, when adrenaline and a large dose of pseudo-ephedrine were the only things that kept me going from 7 AM to 12 PM eight days straight. It's not easy being one of 2 people responsible for an international theatre festival.
Once the adrenaline and pseudo-ephedrine were no longer in my system, I slept for a whole day. And a few more days for 12 hours straight. Now I feel okay. And I can commence the stories. Beware, some will be truly blood-curdling!

A new definition of telecommuting

So... Apparently there is a chance of coordinating from bed. In fact, it's what I'm doing right now. I have two phones laying beside me, and the laptop, as its name befits, on my lap.
It seems this kind of work is the only choice left, when:
a) the Internet is STILL not working at my workplace, and hasn't been since Thursday
b) the festival started today
c) A few minutes after the first workshop started, I came closest in my life to fainting.
Since then I have been unceremoniously packed away to my apartment by my co-workers and two of my bosses ("She's green! What on earth is she still doing here? Send her home!"). If the flu wasn't enough, other more disabling health problems chose the perfect moment to kick in.
So here I am, typing away and trying to remember where I saved which file and put each document, as one of the two phones is constantly ringing.
Keep your fingers crossed, and pray for me, because this day hasn't been fun at all.

Isn't it ironic?

The sleepless nights and working overtime have done their job - a day before the whole festival is supposed to start, I am in bed with a nasty cold, and no perspective of either getting well quickly or taking time off from work (as my job title states, I'm supposed to be there coordinating).
I guess no chance of coordinating from my bed, is there?
And the most amusing thing is that I am well on the way to losing my voice at the beginning of an international mime festival.
Get it?

The festival is on its merry way!

This last week has been very, very hectic for me. Being the coordinator of an international mime festival and having to juggle between afore-mentioned bureaucratic procedures resulting from the fact that I work in a regional self-government-financed institution and the demands of my three bosses has basically taken over all of my time and most of my thoughts.
My bosses are, respectively:
a) the Artistic Director (henceforth referred to as AD). A well-known mime artist, actor, stage director. He spends his time between attempting to oversee all the technical details of the festival (which should be left to the coordinator and organizational director, methinks). He manifests his supervision by inquiring one week before the festival if the invited artists have a hotel reserved and airplane tickets bought, and oh my goodness, what about transportation?
He also is known for insinuating that the Organizational Director and Coordinator (my humble self) are scheming against him. His latest accomplishment was a long sermon in which he expressed his worry at the 'negative energy' he felt emanating from Coordinator., which negative energy was no doubt no way related to the fact that the said Coordinator has spent the last three weeks working overtime and hence has had her personal and emotional life reduced to a bare minimum.
AD is frequently accompanied by his stage designer, an elderly lady who is known to add on her insightful comments to contracts she signs, comments in which she stipulates amendments which are simply re-wordings of conditions already set forth in the said contract. She also occasionally doesn't realize she didn't hang up her cell phone while perorating about the deficiencies of the Coordinator to the AD, who is her bosom friend, and then is guilt-stricken. Her guilt lasts only long enough for her to induce her to limit her stormy visits to Coordinator's office to one a week, not three a day.
AD also has parented multiple artistic offspring. The students of AD are class unto themselves. They have inherited all the 'artistic' behavior of AD with only a fraction of his talent. Their unannounced visits to Coordinator's office are always badly-timed, and frequently also stormy. Not content to have their names alongside great mime artists, they blame Coordinator for not having 10 tickets each to give away to their adopted daughter's ex-boyfriend's mother's Hawaiian yoga instructor. AD's students are oblivious to the fact that the reason there are no tickets or places in the audience results from their beloved AD's artistic vision, which limits seating to 80 places. They are known to call three times a day with the same question and then visit Coordinator's office in the hope that they will receive a different answer.
My other bosses are slightly easier to handle, but also very characteristic, and their portraits will no doubt appear in my next posts.
I am completely saturated with pantomime these last few weeks, which is somewhat surprising in the sense that I have, as of yet, never witnessed a 'true' pantomime performance (which, as they tell me, is something very different from the gold-ensconced motionless figures standing on street corners in all European capitals and breaking their stillness at the drop of a coin).
My saturation level has reached the point where my boyfriend appears in my dreams only to argue with me... by pantomime. I wake up, paralyzed, begging - "Please, God, NO!"
But today I think that even if these nightmares are recurrent, in 10 days this will all be over.

Announcement!

Dear avid readers of my blog - I am sorry to announce that for reasons beyond my control (mainly a somewhat paranoid actor who happens to be my boss) I will, for the next few weeks, regularly fail to update this blog.
Do not worry - if I survive the onslaught of work and hosting the festival for which I am apparently responsible, I will let you know.
Meanwhile I shall be gathering material for my posts. Lots and lots of material. Whole scores of anecdotes about slightly nutty actors, bureaucratic procedures and the like.
Stay tuned.

Pollyanna would die a sudden death in Warsaw

One gray Monday morning, my co-worker and I spontaneously decided to change our approach to work. In order to do this, we held a 5-minute long pep talk during our short walk to the neo-classical building where we spend 40 hours a week, either attempting to dissuade Swiss performers from bringing 2-meter long branches by plane as props to their play and soothing the frayed nerves of artists (my job) to phoning the members of museum committees in Slovakia (her job). We enumerated the various positive aspects of our jobs, the enormous gain for humanity from the actions we undertake in the workplace, the feeling of satisfaction we have after having convinced the festival's artistic director not to have a heart attack from seeing his name spelled in yellow rather than gold (apparently, anything that appears in the color yellow has no relation whatsoever to art. Pity Van Gogh and the rest of the pack.). We delighted our eyes with the prospects which surrounded us and rejoiced over the fact that the electricity had decided to comply for once and we were no longer obliged to turn off computers in order to boil water in the electric kettle. (Neo-classical buildings have the slight disadvantage of being on the National Heritage list, which means even slight repairs must be approved by authorities, who have apparently better things to do than decided whether the building can have an extra electrical socket or not).
We continued in this vein for the better part of the day, never letting up even during our lunch break, when we expressed our admiration for shop-window displays and lauded the delicious taste of the donuts we had purchased.
The reaction we met with, as two, young, bright and cheerful girls fascinated by surrounding reality was remarkable. It was only the general apathy of autumn-fatigued, listless and morose Varsovians which prevented us from getting committed on the spot. Surprise, fear, uncertainty, disbelief and indignation encompassed the reactions we elicited from the Varsovian public.
Prim grandmothers with strollers, preoccupied businessmen yelling commands into their cell-phones, teenagers shuffling their feet in their apparent hurry to return to school after lunch break - each and everyone of the incongruous characters we met with during our 10-minute walk would have gladly banded together to remove our cheery and enthusiastic comments from their range of vision.
Even Pollyanna would have given up.

Public transport in Warsaw, part 1.

Yes, you read me right. Public transport in Warsaw really does exist. And the fact that we have only one subway line makes us no worse than any other large city in the world. Why do you need more than one subway line anyway? If you want to get lost in long, dark and oddly-smelling corridors with suspicious characters looming up at every turn, Warsaw also provides that in the very city center, no need to pay for a subway ticket for the experience.

Besides, the standing of a city and the ratings of its transportation should not be based solely on the number of metro lines. Take Marseilles, the third largest city in France - it has only 2 subway lines!!

Now that Poland has won the bid for hosting the Euro 2012 Championships, the infrastructure is going to develop. Or at least, it should. We need another metro line that would cross the Vistula river and connect the left side of Warsaw to the right side, Praga. Indeed, Praga IS part of Warsaw, although some left-siders adamantly refuse to admit it. In their minds Praga is at least as far from Warsaw as the capital of the Czech Republic. Once I took one of my out-of-town classmates (who had nevertheless studied here already 2 years by that time) to sightsee Praga. Perhaps the decaying pre-war buildings are not particulary attractive, and groups of youths loitering on street corners accosting scantily-clad young maidens are not particularly inviting, but it's a historic part of town (and not only because my older brother was baptized in the cathedral there). Unlike the Old Town, which was rebuilt after the Second World War, so the buildings you see are technically not old at all, Praga is authentic. Its authenticity is somewhat frightening, at times, yet there you have it...
It seems I have strayed from the original topic of this post.
Public transport in Warsaw has been, for me, the source of many interesting encounters and sociological observation, but I'll save that for another post.

The reasons behind my failure to update this blog regularly

The avid readers of my blog will surely have noticed that I don't post regularly (in fact, my long silence may be the reason there no longer are any avid readers of this blog.) Part of this stems from the fact that I feel much less creative when confronted with a blank computer screen than, say, with a gleaming white sheet of paper.
Another, and probably more decisive factor, would be my perfectionism. Although it may not seem so from, for example, the spatial organization of my room, I am quite meticulous when it comes to things such as writing, which is why I take weeks to reply to e-mails (yes, that's the real reason) and months to publish a single post on my blog.
For me to feel something is well-written and worth submitting to the eyes of the general public, I have to like the look, the feel, the sound and the smell of the words.
Yes, I am obsessed with words. Otherwise, why would I be spending the best years of my life hunched over copious dictionaries, descriptive grammar and past subjunctives of four languages?

Lately I was reading the fine-print on a box of perfumes my friend had received as a Christmas gift. The Polish version read: "Uzywac zgodnie z przeznaczeniem" which can be roughly translated as: "Use only as intended" . Every normal person knows that perfumes are used to mask the smell of unwashed bodies (French usage) or to seduce men (the usage of the rest of the civilized world). So what does the English fine print say? "Do not inhale!"
Yes, in some cases it certainly is better not to suggest to Poles the original and creative usages they may put things to.
Reminds me of one of L.M. Montgomery's stories (I believe it was one of hers - correct me if I'm wrong.) where the mother/caretaker/ leaves the children at home and for some reason tells them at parting not to stick their heads through the gate. Up until then, the thought had never entered their minds - but once it was implanted there, it took strong hold and of course they end up doing the very thing they were warned against.
Polish non-conformism in these times of relative peace, when there is no longer any organized, absurd system of reglementation in place expresses itself in interesting ways. But that's a topic for another, longer post.
I would like to conclude with the remark that reading labels on boxes, clothing etc. can be very amusing (although some of my friends refuse to approve of my penchant for reading cereal boxes) and also informative. Like the time I checked the label on my bathing suit only to find the washing instructions limited to this admonition: DO NOT SOAK.