If there’s one golden rule that I follow, it’s not letting on to anyone I work with that I’m in a band. When I mentioned I played bass at my last job, I had three different coworkers mansplaining the difference between playing legato versus staccato for my entire lunch break. Needless to say, no one within the confines of this marketing firm needs to know I’m in a grindcore band, unless they want to make awkward small talk regarding writing songs about throwing people in woodchippers.
Which is why, as I peer from behind the stage curtains to see our first audience consisting of more than three people, I realize I’d royally screwed up earlier by inviting my coworkers to my gig tonight because they actually followed through and showed up.
I only invited everyone to the gig as a joke excuse for getting out of staying late to finish up the quarterly reports. Like I literally said, come on down to this dive bar if you want to have nightmares and hearing problems for a week. I didn’t think they’d actually take me up on it! Christ, even my boss is here. Shouldn’t he be more worried about getting those numbers to corporate instead of supporting the local arts?
Of course, the one time I work somewhere that tells me they’re “like a family”, they actually follow through and support me like one. Why couldn’t they be like my real family and say I’m wasting my time? Now I have Cheryl from accounting actually hitting the venue’s two beer minimum and cheering my name. She’s 70 years old and about to retire. I think our band might actually kill her. Am I supposed to thank Megan, fresh off maternity leave, for coming out to support Baby Blender?
Actually, it might be fun to play to a crowd that doesn’t solely consist of the bartenders. Plus, maybe one of the guys in finance has a cousin who works at a record label! What the hell am I saying, we’re in a Midwest suburb! The most intense music they’ve ever been exposed to is Foo Fighters.
All my other bandmate’s coworkers are normal and lied about being too busy to come tonight the lucky bastards. Maybe when I get called into HR tomorrow I can convince them that this was all part of some Youtube prank show.
Ah, who am I kidding? I’m fucking fired.