Sidenote: Promo Lane

This is a sidenote post as to something I mentioned in the previous post. I didn’t want to make the previous post any longer than it already is.

Promotional Lane Fiasco

Promo lane is a first-come, first-served type of situation. You put out your promo in the first available spot and make sure it’s filled. I found such a spot and laid out my baskets (2) full of stuff and Monica Burns’s stuff (she mailed me her stuff to put out).

Now, here’s the deal: I found a spot that had five little stacks of business cards and nothing else. It was a huge empty spot so I thought, “Woot! Here’s a spot.” I moved the cards over (which according to RT Con rules are supposed to be in a container of some sort), keeping the formation, and put out my stuff then left.

I came back later that day to see if I needed to do a refill and my baskets were moved to the edge of the table, almost falling off. I didn’t know what the deal was until a guy wearing an EC model t-shirt (because he’s an EC model) came up asking if I was Zenobia Renquist.

My first thought was he was a reader who had sought me out. WRONG! The conversation went something like this (paraphrased since my memory isn’t that great).

Guy: Are you Ms. Zenobia Renquist?
Me: Yes I am *smile*.
Guy: Why did you move my wife’s stuff? Don’t you think that was rude?
Me: *smile drops, replaced by worried look* I kept them the way they were laid out and just moved them over a little.
Guy: And you don’t think that was rude? We had water bottles set out.
Me: There were no water bottles here when I got here just a big empty space.
Guy: We were going to refill them but your baskets were in the way when we came back. You can’t just move people’s stuff like that, it’s rude.
Me: Okay.
Guy: *walks off*
Me: *wants to bash him over the head with a heavy blunt object then stuff his body down the laundry shoot*

Instead of giving in to my want since I’m a wimp, I’m left standing there feeling like crap because I pissed this guy off and I didn’t mean to. His wife’s promo (I’m leaving her name off ’cause I don’t want this jerk or his wife hounding me over the internet) consisted of unmarked Deer Park water bottles and her business cards. It’s my theory, since they left the water in the 24 pack trays, that one or two people just made off with the entire tray. But that’s just a theory, I never saw it happen.

So I refilled my stuff, repositioned the baskets so they didn’t fall off the table and went on my merry way. I found Flash and Eve Vaughn and told them about the situation, hoping to put it in some perspective. They got pissed on my behalf, which I was happy about. I thought I was being too sensitive, but I had a right to be mad. It was that guy being rude, not me. I made an honest mistake but his handling of the situation was beyond rude.

There was NOTHING on that space that said it was hers and she was breaking RT rules by not having her stuff in a container. There were just business cards and that was it.

The next day another table showed up and I claimed it. Camille Anthony put some of her stuff out too. The water bottles were present in the their usual spot with those business cards but I didn’t pay them any mind.

But you want to know something funny that I thought was amazingly karmic and made me feel better about the whole thing:

One of the times I went to refill my baskets, I noticed that not one, not two, but THREE other authors had done the same thing I had. They moved that chick’s stuff over and put their stuff out since (like me) they saw a huge empty spot with nothing in it and took advantage of the opportunity. I wonder if her husband hung around lurking to fuss them out too or if he saved that just for me.

And as a sidenote in the sidenote, that chick and her husband spent the majority of RT looking pissed off. I know because they kept walking past me (I think it might have been on purpose since they glared at me every time they saw me). Why would you spend that much money to go someplace and have a bad time? That makes no sense to me.