Stories from the DNC
Several people from our office attended the DNC since they lobby on behalf of our non-profit organization. One of the women, J, was responsible for helping people with disabilities traverse the various areas of the Fleet Center, and spent much of her time pushing people in wheelchairs (she pushed Maya Angelou!) and standing guard at various elevators, requesting that able-bodied people take the stairs or the escalators and leave the elevators for the use of people with disabilities. Very glamorous stuff. She reported on who were the famous people who were gracious about this and who were pain-in-the-ass divas. Ask me later about who were the pain-in-the-ass divas, but suffice it to say that there was only ONE gracious person that she mentioned, and that was Jim Lehrer. The rest of them J mentioned (a politician, a news anchor, and a popular music group) got all huffy and refused to remove themselves from the elevator. J said that it seemed that these divas assumed that she was a Fleet Center staffperson, and therefore ignant and they pulled the: "You have NO idea who I am" thing on her, and she had to smile sweetly back and say, "Oh, but I do..."

Actually, J also mentioned that the most gracious people about this, the people who never complained over having to leave the elevator area to find the stairs or escalators, were the Fleet Center workers. All of us began talking about how nice that was, and let the warm fuzzies infuse us, when one guy in the room was like: "hey, but they were probably getting overtime! Why rush to punch their timecards?" So cynical, but probably true.