How to Work with Jerks, part 2

One night I was booked to perform at an Irish pub. I had heard of the other comedian I was working with – he was a pretty big name in comedy circles, and he had been doing comedy for at least 20 years. Once we met, he asked me how long I'd been doing comedy. I said 5 years. He paused and said, well, do you think you have 30 minutes of good material for this gig. How insulting! I felt like pointing out – hey, don't get so uppity . . .you've been doing this 20 years, I've been doing this 5, and we're at the same damn bar. But I didn't. I just said yeah, I'm good. Then I went up on stage and rocked the house.

This week I'm talking about dealing with annoying people, and my tip today is to make sure you don't take it personally, and don't lose your temper, but instead just do a top notch job. People tend to back away from criticizing others when they see how good you are.  After I rocked the room, the guy ended up apologizing to me . . .and we actually worked together several times after that and got along well. If I had snapped off, or gotten offended, it would have been tough going for future gigs with him. You most likely will run into those people again, so be a professional, do a great job, and move on.

If you want some ideas for adding in humor, check out my comedywriterblog.com.

That's it for today. Take care and enjoy your journey.