Jongleurs Day 3

So I wrote the first two parts a couple of weeks ago, about the chaos of working at Jongleurs.

So the boss’s friends kids were not getting any work done, the rest of us were always on the phone or answering emails with computers that froze, then real chaos started.

The Camden Dingwalls venue had gigs on some Saturdays that we weren’t informed of, so we started having to call 200 people on a Friday telling them the show tomorrow was cancelled.

The Brighton venue closed down with no notice, so 40 people showed up to a show that didn’t exist.

When I talked to other comedians about this, they’d moan about their last Jongleurs gig, but they were earning £250-£300 for 20 minutes work, and I was earning £8 an hour to be shouted at by, as well as customers, a lot of comedians calling up and demanding their money.

Processing returns of money was a nightmare, we were being shouted at all the time.

A new staff member was a young black guy who told us how he’d made a lot of money dealing drugs, used it to open a tattoo parlour that was making him a living, had started a family and was lucky enough to not really need the money, but just did this to keep himself busy.

One day when another staff member was in training, he went on a rant telling him how his cousin was gay, and while he didn’t judge him, he was sure he was going to hell. He was saying this in a loud, shouty voice and I put my call on pause and, probably sarcastically and petulantly, asked him to keep it down when I was on a call. He stood up and told me to show him some respect when I talked to him, properly shouting now.

The next day we were both called into the manager’s office, she said she was angry at both of us and asked us what had happened. The colleague said it word for word ‘I was telling the trainee about my gay cousin and how I loved him but thought he was going to hell….’, the manager rolled her eyes, told me I was fine and gave him some kind of meaningless verbal warning.

I had a real respect for the way the other staff member just told the truth, I’ve spent my life pussyfooting around things. I also don’t think he was homophobic in a hateful way, just a kid – 22 or something and a charming guy who didn’t take life too seriously. I only described him as a ‘black guy who used to deal drugs’ cos this was 5 years ago, memory fades, and I couldn’t tell you his name if you paid me. But it was also just depressing to realise I was in a job where you could be the best staff member or the worst and it didn’t matter. I wasn’t the best, but the other ones that were putting overtime into trying to keep the office afloat were fighting a losing battle.

Jongleurs had invested a huge amount of money into the business right before the 2008 recession, looking to re-emerge as a national brand. They were set up by Maria Kempinska in the 80s and she sounded like a good promoter. She booked a lot of female and BME acts, gave it a variety feel, attracted a lot of drunk banker types. From what I’ve heard about the history her husband thought he could compete with the Comedy Store, blew all the money on the britpop Cool Brittania Cocaine and PR style that took over all the arts, and they never recovered. By the time I was there they’d been bankrupt 3 or 4 times over the years and were circling the toilet bowl of finally going out of business, which they did a couple of years later.

I’ll give more details tomorrow.