orchestra fats So much fat hate and irritation in my life right now and not much time to vent or read your wonderful stories and comments, but I must finally share a little slice of how Fats Ruin Everything. I'm semi-retired, but recently took on a beast of a job because the money, people, and material were all too good to pass up. Trying not to be super specific here, but basically I travel with a very small group of musicians and we provide the music for a main attraction. At each destination we work with a larger group of musicians who've been hired and given the music ahead of time.  Putting it together at each venue is done very quickly and there's no time for screwing around or for things to go wrong. One of my tasks is to oversee setting up the orchestra space before the musicians come in and to make sure I can see everyone and they can see me. There are traditional positions for certain instruments, my personal preferences, and space limitations in each scenario. Every single orchestra set-up in every single city has been a cluster fuck because of how fat the musicians are now. The three people traveling with me are human sized, but with very few exceptions, the locally contracted players are whales. I live in a semi-fit part of the country so it's a shock to see so many huge fats together in one space. We waste so much time trying to fit everyone and it totally screws up the various seating chart possibilities because they need so much space. AND they need space for all the miscellaneous crap and SNACKS they carry with them, even though most orchestra pits don't allow or at least discourage food and drink (except water). A normal row of 4 people has to become 3 people (sometimes 2!) and they still complain there isn't enough room for them to play. In fact, they complain about EVERYTHING. And they're slow. And stupid. And never ready. During the very limited rehearsal time we have they take minutes to do things that normally take seconds, they spill things, they're late coming back from breaks, they have poor grooming standards, they wear faded inappropriate clothing, they forget to turn off their phones, they have poor attitudes, they're childish, and I could go on and on. The afternoon rehearsal before the show is 3-4 hrs with a couple of breaks and there are several hours between the rehearsal and the actual performance for people to eat dinner. All the fat musicians now (try to) eat DURING the rehearsal and even DURING the show. Sometimes I'm able to put a stop to it, sometimes I can't, or I'm too late. Last week I forced a string player to get rid of a tuna sandwich she was eating while playing. TUNA. While playing. In a confined place close to other people. She actually cried. After the dinner break she complained to others how mean I was and how distracting it was for her to be so hungry during rehearsal. I don't know if I'll sign up for this kind of thing again.