Wake Me When I'm Over It
Sometimes I wonder what kind of evil I perpetrated in another life to make me deserve this one. Yeah, I know. I should count my blessings. Today I met two people who fled their homes with only the clothes they were wearing and lost everything they left behind.
Yeah, I know. I have all this stuff and this money in the bank and family who cares about me and the cutest kitty cat I ever did see and all I feel is so sick and tired that I want to go to sleep and never wake up.
The Gulf project is blowing apart. The company that sent me here (Company A) was contracted by another company hired by the government (Company B) to create TV programming designed to keep evacuees updated on the recovery process. But company B never accounted for the incredible headache involved in getting anything through the government bureaucracy.
Company B never sent us the proper equipment to complete stories, even if we had somehow managed to work the scripts through the labyrinthine approval process.
What does Company B do? Blames us for not getting anything done (though we had shot and written five stories) and fires Company A.
So here we are. Dead tired and maybe dead in the water. Company A says it fears that Company B won't pay for the work we did. Now I fear Company A won't pay me.
Yeah, I know. If I don't get paid I didn't lose my life, only a week of it.
So far. Company A says it might have another client that can use the work we're doing so we're going to stay and keep working. It's unsettling not to know what you're doing or for whom you're doing it. When you have a TV camera with you people ask who you're shooting for. What do we say?
"Well, we don't exactly know right now but we hope someone will figure it out and let us know. Then we'll get back to you."
What do I keep doing to get myself into situations like this? What am I doing wrong? Why can't anything go right?
Even tonight. We had left a piece of equipment in the main federal headquarters for the relief effort in our state. Our boss at Company A wasn't sure if the government would want the credentials back that allows us to get to some of the more heavily damaged areas. Maybe he was just being paranoid but it spread to us and we felt like we were going on some kind of spy mission to retrieve this tape player tonight.
There's a city cop working security at the door. We flash our credentials to get in, I tell him why we're here and we go pack up the tape player. We get almost out the door when the cop stops us and wants to double check that we're allowed to take the player out of the building.
That was something we had to get used to when we went through the main entrance. Guards check bags on your way OUT of the building. Bring whatever you want inside but you better have documentation that it's yours if you want to keep it when you leave. We hadn't faced that kind of checking coming or going from the media center, where we'd been working, so we didn't bother to get paperwork from supply certifying that this was our company's equipment and not something that belonged to Uncle Sam.
I guess the feds realize that the background check they do before issuing you a credential doesn't reveal whether you've ever stolen anything. It only tells if you've ever been caught.
Now what? The case we're carrying has the Company A's name, address and telephone number on it but we're only freelance employees so it's not like we can produce a company ID badge. We explain ourselves and he says, "OK, I believe you. I was just checking." and we turn to go.
"Hold up," he says. Whether it's us he doesn't trust or himself, he decides to call someone on his radio for a second opinion. I'm thinking they're going to send some more inquisitors down. But they're probably thinking it's late on a Friday and they don't want to bother. They sign off on it and the cop reiterates that he was just checking and this time we actually exit the building.
We don't hurry but we also don't waste any time putting the case in the car and leaving before the cop can have another change of heart.
What kind of nightmare have I gotten myself into and how do I wake up?
Or never wake up. Whichever works.
Yeah, I know. I have all this stuff and this money in the bank and family who cares about me and the cutest kitty cat I ever did see and all I feel is so sick and tired that I want to go to sleep and never wake up.
The Gulf project is blowing apart. The company that sent me here (Company A) was contracted by another company hired by the government (Company B) to create TV programming designed to keep evacuees updated on the recovery process. But company B never accounted for the incredible headache involved in getting anything through the government bureaucracy.
Company B never sent us the proper equipment to complete stories, even if we had somehow managed to work the scripts through the labyrinthine approval process.
What does Company B do? Blames us for not getting anything done (though we had shot and written five stories) and fires Company A.
So here we are. Dead tired and maybe dead in the water. Company A says it fears that Company B won't pay for the work we did. Now I fear Company A won't pay me.
Yeah, I know. If I don't get paid I didn't lose my life, only a week of it.
So far. Company A says it might have another client that can use the work we're doing so we're going to stay and keep working. It's unsettling not to know what you're doing or for whom you're doing it. When you have a TV camera with you people ask who you're shooting for. What do we say?
"Well, we don't exactly know right now but we hope someone will figure it out and let us know. Then we'll get back to you."
What do I keep doing to get myself into situations like this? What am I doing wrong? Why can't anything go right?
Even tonight. We had left a piece of equipment in the main federal headquarters for the relief effort in our state. Our boss at Company A wasn't sure if the government would want the credentials back that allows us to get to some of the more heavily damaged areas. Maybe he was just being paranoid but it spread to us and we felt like we were going on some kind of spy mission to retrieve this tape player tonight.
There's a city cop working security at the door. We flash our credentials to get in, I tell him why we're here and we go pack up the tape player. We get almost out the door when the cop stops us and wants to double check that we're allowed to take the player out of the building.
That was something we had to get used to when we went through the main entrance. Guards check bags on your way OUT of the building. Bring whatever you want inside but you better have documentation that it's yours if you want to keep it when you leave. We hadn't faced that kind of checking coming or going from the media center, where we'd been working, so we didn't bother to get paperwork from supply certifying that this was our company's equipment and not something that belonged to Uncle Sam.
I guess the feds realize that the background check they do before issuing you a credential doesn't reveal whether you've ever stolen anything. It only tells if you've ever been caught.
Now what? The case we're carrying has the Company A's name, address and telephone number on it but we're only freelance employees so it's not like we can produce a company ID badge. We explain ourselves and he says, "OK, I believe you. I was just checking." and we turn to go.
"Hold up," he says. Whether it's us he doesn't trust or himself, he decides to call someone on his radio for a second opinion. I'm thinking they're going to send some more inquisitors down. But they're probably thinking it's late on a Friday and they don't want to bother. They sign off on it and the cop reiterates that he was just checking and this time we actually exit the building.
We don't hurry but we also don't waste any time putting the case in the car and leaving before the cop can have another change of heart.
What kind of nightmare have I gotten myself into and how do I wake up?
Or never wake up. Whichever works.
posted by jack at 10:01 PM
1 Comments:
It sounds incredibly frustrating now, but you are also recording history. In a few months you might be able to look back on it differently. Who knows, maybe even fondly.
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