Thursday, October 11, 2012
"Ground Rules and Norms" in practice
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Reasons for a professional name
"Oh sure!" I say, "I'm sure they'll be thrilled. Here, we can look it up right now."
We go to r/earthporn and I find the picture in minutes. The person's username is "TurdsMcpoopsalot*" My eyes widen. The bosses look at each other, wince, and look back at me.
"On second thought, we'll just go with the other stock image that you were telling us about."
Your username is seen by all sorts of people. Some whom you'd never even think of.
*I edited the username a little in an attempt to give ole' Turds some anonymity but, yes, that's essentially what it originally was.
Friday, March 16, 2012
A note for new models
You'll buy clear or nude shoes because some photographer will emphatically tell you that they're, "a modeling essential". You want to be professional, so this sounds serious. You'll cart them around everywhere but you'll never wear them. Eventually you'll leave them at home, where they'll gather dust in your closet. Only a short while after that you'll show up to a shoot where the photographer will assume that you have clear or nude shoes with you. He'll be upset and will seem personally disappointed in you that you don't have them. When you tell him that he should have told you to bring them if he'd wanted them that badly he'll stare at you agog.
"You're a professional model! You should always have them with you! They're a modeling essential!" he'll say in a way that's just as know-it-all and just as emphatic as the first guy was.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
On being laid off
Hey look! It's the corporate version of, "baby, we have to talk."
Interlude, if you've just joined the party here's the deal. I took a job from a friend a few years ago when I returned to Richmond to finish my degree. I would help her by adding another web designer to her temp agency, she would help me by giving me a stable source of income I could rely on while I couldn't travel for modeling because I was taking classes three days a week. It was the perfect situation! I had a stable income and health insurance!
Oh health insurance. I'm going to miss you so.
Anyway. My job was web design and maintenance. Lots of small companies need a web person but can't afford to or have no need to have a person on staff full time. The agency would send me out to them and I would work howeverlong they needed me to. Usually they wanted someone to update or create their site and then didn't need me again. Some of my favorites (like the one where the boss commented frequently about my footwear being too sexy) wanted me once every few weeks to update the site, keep backups and/or do security updates. So that was what I did. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
So this email. The company is being rolled into another, larger company that does similar stuff. I don't know whether the owners sold it or the other company offered to buy it or what. My friend left the company a few months ago so I can't pry the answer out of her with margaritas. The office I kept my stuff in will be closed by the end of January and the employees the boss negotiated to keep will be moving on to permanent positions in the larger company. The larger company already has its own web people so me and the other designey-type tech are outta there.
My boss was really nice about, "I'll try to keep you on however I can! All the former clients already know you and they'll want you to work on their sites." He says that he knows for certain I have one more website to finish and at least three hours of work a month for one client. The other design tech we have has already sent me an email asking if I'd like to work together doing freelance work "on the side".
Of course this all comes after I've found that I do -in fact- owe my college almost 6 grand and took out a loan for a new car. I'd gotten used to the stability of the day job, having some place to be every Monday and knowing that I'd most likely have at least three days of work in a paycheck at the end of the week. Not having to canvas up modeling jobs and travel all over the place was nice.
...But I was getting bored. Antsy, restless. It was hard to concentrate on anything so I stopped doing everything. I was falling behind in my website work and my modeling work. I was starting to resent the day job. Starting to feel boring.
Maybe this is good. Perhaps I can use the skills I learned in the day job to add structure and time management to my freelance modeling and do better at modeling this time around. Time to spread my wings and soar? (in a more controlled manner than last time) she adds, under her breath, picturing a dove sailing out over the valleys with a watch on one feather and a briefcase full of actuary tables in the opposite claw.
...Hm.
Well. Anyway! I think this is a good thing. I think I was getting distracted. Doing something because it was easy and felt like a grown up thing to do. It's time to take stock of what I really want to do and chart a new heading. I'm open to ideas!
Monday, December 27, 2010
How to lose the job
"I can help you with all of your needs - but I'm looking closer to $25/hr as $10 is entry level to work in a kitchen or something like that and with 20 years of experience my knowledge and experience is worth the price of admission."
I respond, "Thanks for your interest in the position but that's [25$ pr hr] over double what our budget is. If that's what you require, this opportunity isn't for you."
He replies, "I understand budgets and also know what my worth is to a company when I assist them."
Nice. Way to stay classy there with your attempt to bully me into hiring you even when I've said twice (once in the posting and once in my reply) that I can't afford such a rate. Hang on, let me think about this a little bit. For it to be worth it to me to hire you, you'd have to bring in -from the work you do- double your wages. So that's 50$ pr hr, 800$ pr week. How exactly will you be able to do that by editing photos and video, helping me with the scheduling and posting those updates on my sites and clips stores? You wont. That's why I'm hiring someone at a lower rate!
I just think it's incredibly egotistical to respond to a job posting with qualifications I'm not looking for, demanding a rate that's double what I posted. Perhaps in the future I would be looking to hire someone for higher level web work and search engine optimization but I would hire someone with experience in the adult industry and it certainly won't be this douche bag now.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
I'm only 12 inside
Amusing, to be sure, but it had to be changed. A few minutes later and we had our new masterpiece.
The original artist had left a half-completed face made from the rest of the bucky balls on the freezer. Not one to leave a task half complete I fixed it up for him. I'm quite proud of his little erect dong sticking out from the fridge. That actually took some doing. It's the simple things, really....when one is still 12 years old inside.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Don't make me go all Vanilla Ice
"I'll say, 'she's ferocious.' and she'll go nuts and scare them off!"
"Nah, you want something you don't use otherwise like, 'Vanilla Ice'."
"What?! How do work 'Vanilla Ice' into a mugging conversation?"
"I think you're allowed a certain leeway in a mugging situation. 'Don't make me go all Vanilla Ice on your ass!' ...and then it would be what everyone was saying the next year."
He promptly launches into an involved story about how the mugger would tell his friends and then they'd start using it and Vanilla Ice would eventually hear it "up in his mansion somewhere and then he'd be all offended, 'I don't know where that came from! I'm a really nice guy! I mean, I would never go all Vanilla Ice on someone. Oh no! I said it!'"
Yes, I posted this solely to see if I can make that actually happen.