grinner
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Oct 17, 2009, 9:38 AM
Post #1 of 1
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Jugglin’ just aint easy. That’s why people watch people do it. When done well, it looks very easy, making it frustrating for anyone who’s thrown three of anything in the air at the same time. I’ve been doing a lot of juggling lately. I don’t know how well I’ve been doing it but I’ve been doing a lot of throwing and catching.
I started my own business almost two years ago. Year one, I simply had to work ungodly hours to make what I was making on salary the year before while paying off a good sum of gear and getting out from under a non-compete law suite that hit a month after I went on my own. This did two things. It allowed me to crawl out from under the iron fist of staff jobs and it created really bad habits for my clientele. I’ll explain.
I’ve been programmed to jump when told to. I got really good at it. Nights, doubles, weekends… no hours were beyond what I’d do to get the job done and secure another.
If you read my how to get and keep a client article, you know what I’m talking about. The bottom line is I did whatever it took whenever it took it.
Now, I’m tired, caught up on debt and missing my family as much as they miss me. I’ve been trying desperately to taper the hours down to a realistic work load for one man. I’ve found it impossible to do without making some angry. After a while, as the very goal tends to be, the producer/editor relationship evolves into a friendship. Trust is built and respect is constant. This is a wonderful thing. The best things in life are the easiest to take for granted and in this case, things just became less appreciated and more expected on the part of both parties.
It’s been building over the last two weeks but with one client it came to a head today when I simply had to turn him away. A capital sin in the post world and it doesn’t come without reprimand. This is when people settle in elsewhere. Its most likely how you and I ever got a client the first time and there I was doing it. It’s math and physics though. I was booked solid for weeks to come and couldn’t give a project of the size of this one the justice that it needs. I would have had to spread not only that project very thin, but having not much left in me, compromise the quality of the projects already in the works. Surely if he would have called ahead to book it, I would have found a way to accommodate but even with a project the size of this one, he didn’t call to plan it out or book a single day, let alone the handful of days it would take. I couldn’t even allocate drive space to squeeze in the footage. I had to tell him I couldn’t do it this time. A part of me felt like a total failure while another part felt like I had just stood up to the school bully. As he made plans to edit elsewhere it felt more like I broke up with a girlfriend in the ninth grade. I sit reflecting on the day searching for the moral of the story and I come up with only this:
Priorities are the meat and potatoes of life. Work or play, catching one item out of order can result in others thrown falling on the ground. It takes not only rhythm but knowing one’s limit of items to juggle.
I don’t think for a minute, I’m headed for a nine to five lifestyle. I’m just a glamorized freelancer and when gigs are there I gotta take em because I may go weeks at a time without a single project. I’m learning I can take it easy on myself though. Tell myself good job while laying in bed at night instead of shoulda woulda coulda. I’m learning to walk outside during the day and look up at the sun. I’m playing with my kids more and holding my wife longer. I’m ordering desert and even seconds if I feel so inclined.
I’m in the entertainment industry, not the medical field and there just aint nobody gonna die if I duck out every now and again.
Live this thing we call life not to conquer, but to savor.
;)
grinnerhester.com
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