Thanks everyone for your understanding and empathy. It was a rough night, but now its over and everything is pretty much back to normal.
rachel46 wrote:
whatever the Harry Potter thing is?!
For a moment I thought you meant that you didn't know what Harry Potter is. Haha. Or was since it is now over. Pretty much at Barnes and Noble, where I work, or at any bookstore there is always this big release party. Pretty much it was a big Harry Potter Party which culimatined in buying the book. After seven books they have gotten quite organized. They give out wristbands ahead of time which put you in certain groups which will be checked ou in a certain order. The lines at midnight aren't really that long. Like I said before they were quite fast.
rachel46 wrote:
They think standing in line for hours to get a book that WILL be available the next day is bonding or somehow a meaningful experience. ... It's just a book and in the end I think some of these people who got so hyped up feel a let down after getting so overwrought with excitement.
Yeah, in theory, a book is a book is a book. But they want to wait in line because for the last four books they have waited in line. Because they love the series and there is a whole party and it is a badge of honor and because it is fun to them. There were games and food and all that other crap. It is something that only happens once and you can't get that if you just buy it the next day. I am only trying to explain what I understand of the whole party hype stuff and why people would wait in line and such at least why NTs would. But I am not sure about being let down, this has happened before and I think people would have stopped reading it if after waiting it was such a let down. This whole thing isn't like waiting for a Playstation Three or for an iPhone. From what I know about those waiting lines was that there was just waiting. At least where I worked the only line real line there was was for the bracelet which came and went in spats and spurts hours before midnight.
Pretty much people were there for the party I think and spending time with other people who liked the book. Personally, if there ever was a release party for my obsession book, well... hmm I am not sure I would go. If it was like a discussion forum for it, yeah totally, I love talking about my obsession book but I would not stand making fake wands for it though. Haha.
Its not like I wanted something great either, it was like I just want to be free to have fun. I wanted to have fun, I couldn't. Sometimes I wish I had the courage even to do stupid stuff. Like sing karoke or dance or make lame jokes, tell someone off, go to a party and laugh at people as they get wasted or something. I just want to be free to enjoy myself. Bleh.
alexbeetle wrote:
I work really hard and put in very long hours including nights and weekends to try feel a useful and accepted member of the 'team' but it never works and others who do less and have less ideas are the valued people - I just feel like I am always on the outside and taken for granted.
I was even refered to as 'the back up' making me feel like the spare thing you use when nothing better is available. ... I'm sure everyone here has has the experience of when you join a room/group and they have been talking and laughing but immediately shut up and seem embarassed when you join them - makes me think they had been joking about me...
I just got really upset on friday night and all I want to do is cry.
Me too exactly. It is interesting about how our jobs are probably drastically different bue we have the exact same situation. I work hard, I don't slack off, I didn't even want to take bathroom breaks, but I have started to use that excuse to get away and walk outside for a bit. I work in a bookstore cafe half of the time, and I know I am the best at working support, which is preparing all the food stuff, well heating it up and getting the pasteries and such. And if there is nothing on support I help make drinks if they are being a bit slow. But the moment I get one little paper bag ordering a simple cookie and my manager sees it, she bans be back to support as if I am not doing my job right or good enough and that I am useless at trying to help. And everyone, get so much slack. They can just stand around and talk talk talk and talk with the manager and she doesn't care and they all gossip together, but if I hobble out my hole she just tells me to do something else as if I am lazy or something.
Wow, I am getting angry. Haha. But with the whole seeing people talking and they you come in and they all get quiet. I get so paranoid with that, too. I find that if I start at someone they shut up pretty much. Even in school, I was listening to someone talking about a show or something, but I didn't realize that I was starring so hard, and the person turned and saw me and just stopped talking and just said "Sorry." and turned around. My boyfriend once explained to me that alot of people (NTs) are very uncomfortable around quitet people. But I just wonder about the whole flow of the social dynamic. Its like a chemical reaction or process. If you and A plus B you get an active chemical reaction but if you add X it halts that chemical reaction. And what people bring socially is just another chemical. We are just chemical X.
But yeah, friday really did suck didn't it.
Spot17 wrote:
Harry Potter has been one of my obsessions and that's why I was excited about the book coming out. The mass hysteria kind of annoyed me though. I went to a 24 hr grocery store and got my copy at midnight - no crowds, no waiting. I drove by Barnes & Noble on my way home though and it looked like a madhouse, line around the building and masses of people just milling around. I really don't understand why anyone would put themselves through that.
Furthermore, I bet the majority of them know far less about the books than I do, it's more about jumping on the social bandwagon. The same thing happened when the Titanic movie came out. I've been into the Titanic since I was a kid (I practically peed my pants when Robert Ballard found it in 1985) and all of the sudden, everyone else is into it too. I almost felt like it was spoiled for me.
Yeah, I work at a Barnes and Noble, and I can honeslty say that it was absolutely crazy. We even had a band called the Scurvies, like this loud heavy metal band. You could hearit loub and clear all the way across the store plus they piped their music through the speakers all over the store. All of the girls I worked with loved it and sang along. I have no idea what possessed my store manager to hire a heavy metal band.
But with hype, I am really put off about hype. If there is a movie or something that can genuinely be good, but there is alot of hype I just back off. Like Titanic, when I heard that girls were watching the freakin thing twelve times forwards and backwards and such, I couldn't watch it. My parents ended up buying it and I did watch it a total of one times. Haha. It was a good movie but because of the hype I will never watch it again. I just don't want to be associated with those prissy girls. Same thing with Pirates of the Carribean, good movie, but I will not watch it ever again. And if something I enjoy becomes hyped, I will be very very angry and feel like my thing has been cheapened.
Therefore, I probably won't read the last Harry Potter for a few years yet, maybe when I have nothing to do and I am bored. My boyfriend, who is like me with the hype and stuff has never seen or read any harry potter books, yet he found out who dies, and he won't tell me. He thinks that it will ruin harry potter for me, but really it won't. But I don't need to find out that bad so bleh.
Thanks again for listening.
22 Jul 2007, 4:56 am
