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We see the final battle between the new gods and the old gods, and Kate and Daniel are trying to keep their secrets hidden, or they risk losing all their allies.
The concept of “burning bridges” has been fascinating to me because it’s such a complex social construct. It’s not just the simple act of doing something that severs contact with another party, damaging the relationship so it’s irreparable. There’s a lot of social hierarchy and power involved.
When I was at Red Storm, I had an altercation with some coworkers who were very negative about my job performance (they were not in my department). They complained about me, complained to me, and were generally hell to work around. I got fed up at one point, and someone warned me not to burn bridges. That shocked me. My coworkers didn’t seem to be hesitating on burning the bridge to me. As far as I was concerned, that bridge was gone.
It’s happened again. I was trying to set up a book event at a local store, as my book is coming out in August. Now, you folks know I can handle rejection. I can understand a “no”. What I can’t understand is ineptitude and rudeness. The person who my publicist contacted intended to forward the email to someone who handles events, adding to the email her opinion of my event. Her opinion was not flattering. At all. Instead, she REPLIED to the email, sending her lovely comments back to my publicist and me. When it was pointed out to her, she apologized for sending it to the wrong person – not the words she used.
Once I got over the sting of the whole thing, I just had to laugh. Then I thought about blogging about it, but I don’t want to burn bridges… and that’s when it hit me: that people in power do not burn bridges. They can afford to treat me poorly because as an author, I’m always going to need them (book store events, publicity, whatever). Them treating me poorly wasn’t burning a bridge, but me calling them out online is.
So I’m telling the story – but not the book store name. If you’re local and you ask me, I’ll tell you offline. And I’m not going back to that store again. I have a college buddy who managed to get an event there this fall. I was going to go, but now I just think I’ll buy his book on Amazon.
(or the other indie book store in the area- I do like supporting the local economy, after all)
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15 Responses to Burning Bridges
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Meh! This person obviously doesn’t realize that authors and writers are, most likely, their best customers. Hope you kick ass at every other event and they regret the bridge they burned.
That’s just *total* bullshit.
You gotta do what you feel is right, but it’s bullshit that they treated you that badly. Also, completely bizarre. Does this person have a personal grudge against you? I’ve never heard of anything like this before.
You’re certainly more gracious than they are.
It always seems to be the “other person”, lower down on the hierarchy, that gets accused of burning bridges. It’s become a cliched statement from those who feel that they are within their right to treat you poorly. However, pointing out that you are being treated poorly and doing something about it is considered an act of “burning bridges”. It’s a nasty double-standard.
I’ve gotten this same sort of attitude from my mother; she can treat me like garbage to the point that she pushes me away, but in her eyes she is in no way “burning bridges”. However, if I work at limiting my exposure to that very same garbage, I’m accused of “burning bridges”.
Well, those bridges have burned down long ago as far as I’m concerned.
eh, fuck ‘em. burn that bridge. you don’t need ‘em anyway. truth be told, in the near future we will all be bowing to the mighty one. if they were smart, they’d stay on your good side. and once you tell me what bookstore this was, i will never go there again!
I second carol’s thought. Fuck ‘em. Fuck ‘em right in the ear.
> They can afford to treat me poorly because as an author,
> I’m always going to need them
On the contrary, this person may not realize it but book stores need authors. Without authors there would be no books for them to sell. And authors will be around long after the printed book goes extinct, thus putting all book stores, including this one, out of business.
Bugger them, books can always be bought off the internet. Without authors, bookstores can’t exist.
I think you’ve done the right thing Mur. On the off chance that someone associated with the asshat that was so rude were to read your comments they would see how professionally you’ve handled it.
Just re-focus your dismay into your work… and maybe name the next Zombie convert the same as the rude individual
R
Honestly, a store owner or employee mistreating anyone is bad business. Author’s might need book stores, but popular ones, and I believe you are very popular, can make or break a local business.
As to burning bridges, I always prefer small tactical nukes.. makes the point better.
I used to work at a major chain bookstore and our event manager would never treat an author poorly. Each store had to do everything to make sure it did well in the area and author in-store events were always the biggest events (next to anything with Harry Potter themed), especially local authors. If that is how this employee works, I would be surprised if they were still there if you ever feel the need to contact the store again.
[...] Mur Lafferty on burning bridges with idiot bookstore owners (Ask me about this some time – Matt) [...]
You know, as much as I’m a fan of just spraying napalm and kerosene all over the place when I -do- burn my bridges, I have to say that it’s classier to handle it by NOT starting a pissing contest online. In the end it draws all kinds of negative attention to both parties involved, and in the end, nobody wins anyway (much like arguing with a 3 year old)
Sure, it might -feel- better to get all the venom and bile out… but in the long run, it’s just bad ju-ju.
Goo for you, Mur.
Mur,
I appreciate the information that is being presented to us. I have recently gone through similar situation, so i can relate.
I look to my friends and associates to tell me what places they have received good service, bad service.
There is enough competition out there for my dollars, why should I waste my money with bad companies?
If Mur’s not the right kind of stuff material why would I go there?
However is not necessarily a “online pissing contest” (see murkey coffee story that is going around the web).
It is unfair for us to ask Mur to tap into her imagination, her thoughts, her feelings to bring us her great work, and not to also share in some of the “venom and bile.”
Otherwise Keepsie and next adventures will be helping Doodad destroying all the bookstores in Seventh City.
Mur could of provided us in detail the contents of the emails , what this person thought, and the name of the store.
But she didn’t, she took the high road and the responsibility so that the full power of the Murverse was not unleashed.
Heheheh… well I’ve burned my share of bridges.
The most recent one being my old workplace of a small Shell Oil gas station, right before my last shift there and hopping straight over to their biggest competitor in the area, a Hydro Texaco gas station.
After about a year of them steadily loading on more and more work to be done during a shift while lowering the amount of work the daily managers had to do there, also removing more and more of their workers’ different rights… like being able to listen to anything other than the drone of the refridgerators and drunkards coming through to get their seventeenth daily two bottles of beer and small bottle of liquor. Also we got hell every single time someone would drive away without paying for their gas (happens more than you honest people would think, what with the prices being so high), but whenever we recommended actually putting up some cameras, to keep an electronic eye on the people filling up their vehicles, we’d be told that that wasn’t a priority in the company policy, despite the stickers telling customers otherwise.
Anyways, after a year I’d had enough and during my last two shifts I left a little 3 page message for them describing my feelings toward people who thought it reasonable to be rough about enforcing their no-music policy on workers while not really minding the no-smoking policy.
Apparently it’s okay to do something that relaxes you at work if you can’t actually work while doing it… and I guess that it also help if it stinks up the back-rooms for everyone else and causes cancer.
To be honest, I’m happy they drove me away like that, since I now work at a much better gas station where I actually get honest to god benefits for working there, where there’s absolutely no smoking AND we get to listen to music during the workday.
All that aside, burning bridges is never a smart thing to do, but if you happen to be sure you can live without any links to these people, there’s definitely a certain glandular pleasure in getting a load of your chest at a deserving butthole.
The whole “burning bridges” issue is absolutely appalling and usually, as previously mentioned, a term utilized by those in authoritative positions. I too, have burned a professional bridge….I worked for a company as an engineer, but was treated extremely poorly and was denied training and promotions allowed to males in my field because I gracefully declined a positioned offered to me in the Environmental department….nothing against Environmental engineers, but the manager made the job repulsive…. I was eventually offered another position as a production engineer with a different company and upon exiting the company…filed a complaint with the EEOC against my former manager. Now, the guy bad mouth’s me to every vendor, every recruiting firm, etc. he can get to listen to his crap…. It’s the craziest thing!!! I took a stand against this guy, who is notorious for threatening and harassing employees, particularly females, and I’M the persecuted and labeled as “trouble-making employee.” I sometimes question whether I made the right decision, and then I remember that although the guy was not reprimanded…at least there is a running record of his behavior and maybe that will help the next woman employee he bullies.