For what it's worth...
This is a true story. The names have been changed to avoid hurt feelings. There once was a probationary laserist name Avo. Avo had an interesting history with the company. He was hired by the new President over the express misgivings of the laserist manager. After training in L.A. for three months Avo was sent off the heartland for a 6 month planetarium gig. The original misgivings had grown during the intervening months, but Avo's employment had developed a political component. The president obviously thought he would lose face if Avo didn't work out.
This is where I enter the story. I was sent to perform the premiere, and "put the finishing touches" on Avo's training as a laserist. Avo and the tech on the installation arrived on site a week early to working up the machine. Avo should have had some time to practice too.
I arrived the morning of the premiere and checked out the projector. There were a couple of little problems that had crept into the system at the last upgrade, and I fixed those. Then I found and wrote down the settings for some of the imagery I would need for the show. Then I ran through the show just to be sure there wouldn't be any problems. Everything was fine, so we went to dinner. We got back about a half hour before show time, and in short order discovered a new problem. The scanners had this whole Brownian movement thing going on. When the owner of the company who was in town for the premiere asked me what I wanted to do I said, "Well, I don't want to cancel the Press Premiere!" So to make a long story just a bit shorter I did the worst show of my life that night…
Oh it turns out that the Brownian movement problem was because of a clamp on the scanamp power supply that finally completely burned out near the end of the premiere. So the next morning I asked Avo to show me his show. It blew chunks. I told him in no uncertain terms that I didn't know what he'd been doing in L.A. or here, but he wasn't even on beat much less getting the hard stuff done. So I spent a joyous week trying to teach Avo how to perform a show.
At the end of the week I called my boss and said, "Avo will never be a laserist." My boss wanted me to let Avo go, hire, and then train a new guy. I told him that my backup couldn't cover for me that long. So he sent another laserist out to work with Avo. The next guy spent a week - then called and said, "Avo will never be a laserist." The next guy was told to let Avo go, hire, and then train a new guy. The new guy complained, "You told me I could do the gig in Detroit." The boss said, "I'm sorry but there nothing I can do under the circumstances." The new guy called the next morning and said, "A miracle happened, Avo can do shows - I'll call you from Detroit."
This was the beginning of a two year experience that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that some people simply don't have what it takes. Sorry…
Oh, Avo is short for avocado. I asked why and was told it's because he's green on the inside, green on the outside, and there's a big nut in the center.
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buffo
Originally Posted by ElektroFreak
Right?
