Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
So I'm just going to come out and say it: My favorite episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation is "Conundrum." It's episode fourteen of season five, and I just deeply love it.
I don't know if it's because I literally just assumed Erich Anderson's Commander McDuff was a random Enterprise officer of the week (which we saw quite often during the show) when I watched it as a kid during the original run, so the twist actually worked on eleven year old me. I don't know if it's because I just like a good "everyone has amnesia" story. I don't even know if it's just because it's a good Ro Laren episode. I don't know if it's just because we learn that Starfleet doesn't give a crap about lasers.
I just like it. It's neat.
And I rewatched it last night, and feel that it holds up -- which is why I found it deeply weird that the folks who wrote the episode actually think it's not that good. My favorite episode of the entire seven season run of the show was a failure according to the folks who wrote it.
And maybe, as a writer and creator, I should remember that.
Like the hardest part of releasing creative works to the public is that often, after a while, I'll start to judge those things far more harshly than when I first made them. Or I'll compare it to the potential I thought an idea had in my head. And if I don't reach that potential, I'll think of it as "bad" -- when it might just be slightly different than that idea. I have one hundred percent published stories that I thought were just sort of okay and later had someone tell me how much it meant to them to read it.
*cough*I Hate November*cough*
So I should make sure I remember Conundrum. That one of my favorite things to rewatch is considered one of those failures by its creators. That the things I make might have value, just not in the way I originally thought they should.
It's just sort of how things work out.
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Now see, that’s why I like Sarah – always thinking. Get murdered AFTER you spend your money at the con, please.
And she’s generous…he’s not going to be spending money at HER table, so she’s letting him spend it at other tables. Also, she’s so polite about it, merely offering it as an optional modification of his daily schedule.
This is how customer service should be done. Were I a con-goer who happened to overhear this conversation, I would be very tempted to go buy a couple buttons from her.
I understand his frustrations at not finding what he’s looking for among the vendors’ wares; but neither his tact or animus
You ever watched a vendor table for a while? That kind of crap is sadly not entirely uncommon. Cons draw some people with interesting gaps in their social skills, sadly enough. Doesn’t make it make sense, no – but I understand it happening quite well. Some people are just looking for someone to at least metaphorically yell at – the actual issue involved is tangentially important at the absolute best. You get a lot of nascent “I paid for this… I can act like a jackhole! For once I can be that annoying guy instead of being the target.” goofballs.
This is not just a con thing. Plenty of people seem to think that all retail workers are robots who should be happy to clean up spills or get yelled at for stuff completely out of their control. Empathy, sadly, seems to be a lost art.