Cultural Sensitivity The House of Chops Way

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 06 December 2005 04:14:56

I am not sure why exactly but I think I am fairly culturally sensitive. I don't just mean ethnically but to sub cultures amongst the yoof and such as well. I can sometimes not be all that sensitive but it usually is not on purpose. For instance we did some things that are sensitive to the culture of my Church that are not that much part of my native culture.

Recently the House of Chops was home to a concert of a certain ethnic culture. We had hosted it before on several occassions. The funny thing about the House of Chops is we are all about being the venue for your event what ever shape and form that may take. But you very much have to play the game on our terms or we can get a little grim. Most of the reasons we do that is not that we are lazy but it is more efficient for us as a large scxale operation. We can sometimes not be flexible because of operational limitations. For instance you have a extra 50 people want to come to dinner and you tell us at 4pm that is a little bit of a problem for several reasons. But sometimes we are inflexible just because that is the way we do things. Even though we ignore what has happened several times before.

So we had the concert I believe it was the 3rd of 4th time we have had. It always goes late and not just like 20 minutes late it is like a full hour late. I had the head usher and the box office manager on my back asking why things were not starting on time and suggesting I should make the client make the concert start because it did not match with the paper work. But people we are dealing with bigger issues than just starting times. The concept of time can be a deep current running through cultures. I am sometimes jealous yet sometimes frustrated by the pacific island concept of "island time" but I understand there is not much I can do. So these two ladies didn't want to give up. Why aren't they on stage yet? What are we going to do? Gentle Reader my answer was not much more than "What do you want me to do force the performers on stage?". They replied with looks that said sure why not and voices that said "Don't be silly". Well why ask questions like that. Infact my question to them was "This happens everytime why not warn the ushers it could go over and not to plan anything for between 12 and 1 am because they may still be here". That's the thing in my head is the client understands and is willing to pay for them going over so why does it freak our Managers out so much. The staff is here anyway so they may as well make more money out of it. It was scheduled to finish after midnight anyway so it's not like you can go out and do much after work. Unless you are a total party hard usher and our ushers are not like that much.

As it is the client has that woderful tension as a second generation type person. He was frustrated at the turning up late thing in his parents culture but he was stuck by it as well. So we battled on and I try and kept the crazy people away from the client.

So Tell Next Time Just Roster Everyone a Extra Hour Late Anyway,

Chops