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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit |
The first day on my new job years ago came with a directive to take down one of the weird black-and-white "head-shots" from the company wall, for scanning into some brochure that expensively advertised their version of classics from English literature. They were ridiculously pompous about a rather simple business model, which was disseminated by my old work mentor who I ran into at an industry function, into one neatly condescending sentence: "Oh, right. They do domain-free stuff." It was so right-on, I instantly remembered why I found myself grateful years later for her stewardship as an apprentice.
Yeah! Basically, they had some compulsive low-paid editorial assistants work the annuls of public domain in the NYPL for previously-printed material that lapsed from its original legal copyright protection to become free for public usage. Of course, we still have to pull the material into something as beautifully cohesive as a finished bound book in this century using our technology, but that's essentially it: reprinting old works that they paid nothing for, as a company.
The only real investment was upfront in the manufacturing process and labor costs associated with the edition's making, which means that they sold the book to B&N at a profit already, and yet, when I began with them, they had absolutely no profit-sharing programs available to their employees. They didn't even have a decent 401K for the employees to roll-over any of their older plan monies from other businesses into a retirement fund, but as their resident "Art Star", I guess they thought I wasn't supposed to know the business at all, even though their VP of Production and Design had already verified and tested my bona fides in New York City media, and they are real.
My first day was a complete set-up, because no sooner had I taken down the photo to scan, than I was immediately beset by the old publisher's crazy old wife, because their rabid Israeli-born receptionist played games with people all day long, and I guess she thought I was an easy mark for her. Uh uh. After she had her bitchy way with me over some uncommonly douchey photos fashioned after the portfolios of professional actors and most definitely not publishers, I ratted her out to the program manager who asked me to do it. He was a dick, too, so I watched their power struggle from the sidelines of yet another business I would pick apart to put back together properly.
Another day at the office. Ho hum. But, the crazy old man's wife played a key part in their inabilities to handle their business well, because their family pockets always came first, and they married into their family those employees that they thought they could bait on the hook with a guaranteed steady income in uncertain times. It's the same old economic ruse that pulls the chain of every starving would-be artiste who gets their ass kicked by the city. They had a lot of out-of-towners and spoiled suburbanites in their small office, which culturally signified to me that their world was mine for the taking, and their overtly nasty behavior proved to me that they already knew it.
After a few more exceptionally douchey encounters those first days, I got the message quickly. We don't like you: we need you. Okay, fine! I don't really care for any of you headcases, either. This is just a job to me, in your rented office space. My content belongs to me and my brain, and after the old man's bitch got her head ripped off that very first day, she stayed away from me on purpose. I'd hear her jabbering away to their crazy bitch of a receptionist (before she made her move as a false "frenemy" that I played to the hilt) about how to do it, too.
So, they gave me a lot of room for the practiced tactical strategy that I needed to clean up their imprint and own it through their insanely orthodox marketing bitch at B&N, a woman infamous in the industry for being a cold hard bitch. But, she wasn't me, so I played her, too. Eventually, they all figure it out. My program=my rules. No? You want more fucking money? Do it, bitch! It kept me hands-free for the first few years, until the wheels came off their secretary who dared to infiltrate my world by elbowing into it unbidden. People get hurt around warriors, know what I'm sayin', and she most certainly did. I wrecked her for anything else but rehab and a psych hospital forever.
The wife thought she was safe from me because of her husband's money, but I knew too well from my family that money comes and just as easily goes. She played evasive tight-lipped games with me when she was forced to be near me in physical proximity, thinking she was avoiding my careful scrutiny, and she was somewhat right. She's not really important enough as person (or a pampered Jewish housewife) for me to be outright concerned with her deviant behavior. She knew from her husband that messing with me carried a stiff price. Messing with me messed with their money, and they loved money really badly.
It bought them coveted committee seats on prestigious theater boards, so they could press their dip-shit daughter's work on people as some phoney "playwright", and she was a total bitch, too. She treated me like a copy machine once (ONCE), which landed her in her father's office for the next "hands off" speech. I also got their very own son put-out to pasture as bogus IT support who couldn't hack it in the real world of professional publishing, because I introduced our more sophisticated machines into their work-flow properly, and not as some fancy wonky sideline to entertain arrogant art fags with. He blew his lid after a a few months under my tenure, as I reoriented their work queue to be at my scheduling through my production manager, by dividing the workflow equitably between the two imprints. Done! Next!
She'd make scared small talk with me when she had to in the company kitchen or the bathroom, places where her obvious ignoring didn't work because it was too obvious a slight to me. I knew the crazy old man fired a lot of employees on the spot for no good reason because they are a family with serious mental problems, but as rich pseudo-intellectuals, their pomposity suited my purposes fine. The old man outlaid the cash I needed to perform and then out-perform them, which is the poser amateurs greatest fear: discovery.
Marlene would only speak to me in vague little mutterings made to simulate a doddering old lady, until the one day when her act actually took hold for real, because old age catches up with everyone. We had a brief exchange in front of her office, because I showed her how to attach a file for submission to some poetry contest for nobodies, and it wasn't even fresh: it was old stuff from the 60s, after her very first ejection from career life to mommyhood, which she must have chafed against as a pompous Baby Boomer Art Fag. She was the very last person I'd want for a parent, and you've read about my crew.
Turns out, I hadn't noticed the stiff arm of hers that she never used, and she was proud to show that off to me, as recognition of some sort of prowess on her part: "Oh, that's because I compensate so well that you don't realize it!", in a fake sing-song voice that marks a poor teacher who condescends to the very children who sit in front of them. Ah, that was her first ousting from real New York business, then. Okay. Over the next few years, she'd elaborate in small bits that she hoped I couldn't digest into a whole, but I did so anyway.
She told me a good bon mot after I helped her use the paper-clip thingy on her computer's PC-based email software to attach a file to an email (basic, bitch) so I could see that she could type well, too! Wasn't I impressed? Huh, so, yeah, how did you lose use of your arm? She knew by now that I grew up with a handicapped mother, and her MS trumps anything this poor old rich bitch has. Trust on that, peeps. She began speaking to me with her usual vaguely flute-voiced routine "Oh, you know....." No, I don't, and I looked right at her, which their disordered staff hated. More scrutiny, you see. "Well, I had a bout with breast cancer years ago...."
And? What? Bad surgery left you with no arm? That's a libel suit! Well, no....Okay, still no answer. Cough it up, bitch, I have work to do. She had very small time windows with me, by then. What happened? She thought she staved off discovery until today, when I write to you that the crazy old bitch didn't lose the use of her arm from a badly-done surgery years ago. No, that crazy old bitch had paralysis brought on by the "trauma" that must come from successfully surviving breast cancer, just like my mom and her two sisters did, sans limp arms. She had to back-off from me then, because her big winning story about survival was just that: bogus as any day-school business model I could've written in my old black-and-white notebook, back in the day. Booyah, bitch.
When you see disease in one limb, just look to the source. In this case, it was their very own family tree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_disorder
How they did it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_content
Where's your non-disclosure now, huh? Yeah, just as thought. Silence.
