The office: Chatter about your job

Lerad: Wow that is pretty shitty. Hope something works out for you soon.

edited 24th Jun '16 3:39:01 AM by TuefelHundenIV

Boy I just got punted between the rock and the hard place. Let me describe my position as of my check in. All the responsibilities of a supervisor with none of the authority and benefits.

My immediate field supervisor who was my one good shot at advancement to a better position in the company was terminated from the company today. The fun doesn't stop there. With him gone we have zero trained back up for the site. Not only was I first person at this site to know about this but by being the first I wound up with the fun duty of having to inform the Chief of Security about this. Not only is this the guy I report directly to at my job site but there are exactly two people in his department that are above him. He is the right hand of the Security and Information VP who is only second to the Exec of the section. So basically I had to go deliver this guy some bad news that he was already unhappy about.

What wound up happening, was to my shock and dismay, a litany of frustration and a dead serious threat about finding a new vendor if they didn't start communicating what the hell was going on. They were supposed to be in contact with him about back up coverage. He hasn't heard anything in over a week. This has been an ongoing issue so this made him hopping mad. I was told straight up that if they won't talk to him I needed to talk to them. This meant finding a way communicate up further the chain then I normally would because I am now down field supervisor to kick this over to. Thankfully one such person was now watching the phones and since he is covering for my now gone supervisor I called him. This is a pretty big mandatory jump in the chain of command.

Lo and behold they were actually doing something about it or supposedly were. They just hadn't bothered telling their client who had been sending them emails requesting information for over a week but hadn't heard anything back about the key issue. I had the joy of telling him that I had just heard from said client point of contact that he was hopping mad. The shitty part is they knew he was probably upset and why but hadn't bothered to tell said angry client what they were possibly working on to fix the issue. I had to ask the much higher up to please send the angry client contact an email and let him know what was going on.

The kicker to this is the guy who keeps us in the loop was the guy who got fired from my company. The client was not exactly pleased that they were finding out about his termination from me. Never mind the fact that I was the key point of information and contact with the office.

In terms of information flow and dealing with the powers that be angry and otherwise, I should be standing in a gentle breeze. Instead I am skirting the eye of the hurricane. I am not a reed bending in the wind, I am a damn leaf in gale force winds.

edited 24th Jun '16 4:49:05 PM by TuefelHundenIV

I get to be acting CFO and accounting supervisor for the next three weeks while my boss gets a knee replacement. No being deliberately grumpy, no brushing off other people's problems til later, budget meetings, actually having to talk (nicely) to people instead of bunkering down and doing reports... UGH. GET WELL SOON, BOSS!

So for the last nearly two years, I've been doing stuff for this production company. Coming in and helping out on my days off in an internship-like position. Sometimes that's turned into paid work, but I can count on one hand the number of times I've been paid for doing things for them.

They paid me a total of a few hundred dollars last winter to transcribe interviews for them. A couple of times they asked me to do things directly because of that work, and I said yes before money was discussed, so I did them for free.

They just asked me "how much time in the next two months would you be able to devote to transcribing stuff for our new crash project around your work schedule"? I just sent them a projection of how much time I could be available, and included an innocent "do you have a budget for transcriptions? Per-footage-hour rate like for (other big project this is probably going to dwarf)?"

Seeing how this goes.

Para: Good luck.

Bur: Oh the joys of authority oriented responsibility.

Well my employers may have really pissed off our client. He hasn't heard from them in two weeks and decided they would be getting a phone call. I have a sinking feeling my time at my current job is going to have run its course in the next few months.

I'm now told this project is going to be $25/footage-hr.

Going to make prorating partial hours a bit messier (last time it was essentially $5/15min-footage), but more money is good.

edited 7th Jul '16 4:05:06 PM by TParadox

In addition to auditioning for a showcase of short plays next week, I've also applied for a costume designer gig which would pay a month's rent. Here's hoping I can get both. None of the normal jobs I've applied for have responded yet.

The costume design crew responded!!!! They said my portfolio was VERY helpful and I'll be getting a call soon~ AHHHHHHH I'M SO EXCITED!!!

My interview is tomorrow and I had to juggle my schedule around. Oh if I get this gig it's a month's rent AND I'll be a professional costume designer!

Good luck Lerad.

That sounds awesome! Good luck!

Knock 'em dead dead, mate!

The director wants to interview me in person and I think it's the last round before they choose a designer. My monologue for the audition is coming along nicely. And a former classmate from my acting program literally called me last night to ask if I could do a table reading for a few roles in a script of hers.

This week is an acting week!

Break a leg Leradny.

Just finished up callbacks for THREE characters! I felt super excited about one in particular and devoted most of my energy to prepping for that. And I got many intentional laughs! So I'd be happy with just that one. The others I performed a bit lukewarmly, due to one's complexity and the other's subject matter, so I wouldn't feel bad if I didn't get them.

That's great, Lera! I hope you do at least get the one.

I just scheduled an in-person interview for the costume designer job, finally!

A vet clinic and a cafe job both called me back yesterday and scheduled interviews for this week, so my day job prospects are finally picking up too! The vet interview is today. I really want that one, since it gives discounted pet insurance as well as having not-insane hours, and working with doggies. With the cafe gig, I wouldn't get any benefits and I'd have to stay till midnight, which may conflict with future rehearsals anyway

Still waiting for official casting announcement.

In the last two years, I've occasionally had a front row seat for the kind of money involved in filmmaking. Particularly the business, deal making end of it. While a production can balloon out of budget due to the amount of talent and equipment involved, there's always a decent amount left over for parties, drinks, and taking care of their people. So it's started to look like a pretty good scam.

The folks I'm working with seem to have noticed that I've been doing good work for them mostly unpaid (a couple of 50 dollar PA days and transcription assignments paid by the completed footage, which eventually adds up, but the work hours faster than the dollars), and have offered me $20 an actual hour to do part time research around my day job for them on a documentary they have a rush deadline for (more than twice my day job wages) . I earned $400 from Sunday to today. Getting paid decently for something you do well is the best scam.

The problem with freelance work is there's no consistency in the demand for your skills, so I'm not quitting my day job yet. Opportunities tend to dry up in the winter, so we'll see how it goes once this doc is done .

I had a pretty productive day, but my co-workers made it a lot better by throwing me a 40th birthday party this afternoon.

That's pretty cool. Happy birthday, by the way.

It was very hot in the workplace today, so my boss went out and came back with surprise slushies for everyone.

So it would be great if I didn't get two and a half hours of interviews in my inbox five minutes after I plan to be done for the night with the message "would be great if these could be done by morning for the editors. Appreciate it!"

For reference, an extremely conservative estimate for how long it would take to transcribe a project is twice the footage length.

Today I had sign a bunch of trade, stock, securities, trade and holding disclosure forms. As of today according to FINRA all guards and cleaning staff that work here have to do it. Now the primary deciding factor for this sudden requirement? In the 1987 film Wall Street starring Charlie Sheen, Sheen's character disguises himself as a janitor and steals some info for insider trading purpose.

Not because he was a janitor but because he disguised himself as one. Right hand before God that was the key part of the official reasoning.

edited 28th Jul '16 6:10:01 PM by TuefelHundenIV

...

They do know the difference between Real Life and these things called "films", right?

Euo: It is FINRA the industries "totally capable of overseeing the big financial industry sans government input thanks much" organization. They are known for harebrained requirements like this. To top it off as far as we know it is only for our company.

That's not scary, then. o.O