First things first, a bit of administrivia: Those of you who have been around for a while may remember that I run an "advent calendar" for the month of December. The winter holidays are two solid months with a heavy emphasis on belonging and family. I have a lot of things to say about those concepts, most of which are not what anyone wants to hear while they're wrapping presents and roasting turkeys. I queue up a bunch of fun things instead and hole up to drink until January.
This year I'm doing things a little differently. While the advent calendar will be running on the public blog -- this year it's folk tales from around the world -- the regular blog entries will be running on my Patreon for anyone who cares to pledge $1 or more. Because I'm sometimes rubbish at posting on a regular schedule, my Patreon runs on a monthly model, rather than per-piece, so if you pledge $1, you'll never be charged more than that.
You are, of course, welcome to give me as much money as you want. I appreciate that. Or stuff. I've been eyeing an adjustable dress form that I cannot even remotely afford, so that I can stop draping patterns on myself in the mirror.
This is particularly important because the shiny new job I got turns out to not be very shiny after all. The actual job is pretty cool; it's with one of those outfits that runs murder mystery parties, among other things. Events are pretty much an evening of herding cats, possibly drunk cats, around and work out to about $15 an hour, which is fine for a part-time gig.
There are, however, a number of problems with this. One is that rehearsals are unpaid. That's normal, to the point where producers will write !!!!PAID REHEARSALS!!!! in the ad if it's the case, and there's only one before an assigned show, but they're up in Malden. Ordinarily I could get up there and back in the Boston Standard Commuting Hour, but right now the MBTA is taking the Orange Line to bits, which means it takes me up to two. In both directions. Three-plus hours of commute for a single 90 minute meeting is right around where I start squawking, regardless of whether the T is your fault.
I am responsible for my own costuming. Again, not normally an issue; there is an awful lot of random crap in my closet. The issue is that these guys do not assign consistent roles. They have ten different shows, each with 4-10 parts (of varying genders) I might potentially be assigned to play at any given time. I'd have to go and buy one or more pieces, without reimbursement, on 1-3 weeks' notice, for at least 50% of these. There is no way to request a specific role when marking oneself available for a show, if you even know what show it is when you sign up. Which you don't always, depending on how indecisive the client was when booking.
The most egregious problem, however, is the literal lengths they expect me to go to work those $15/hr shows. They asked me if I was available for travel when I was hired. I thought 'oh that's fine, I can go to Rhode Island sometimes'. No. They do bookings all over New England, and they do not pay for rail tickets. They expected me to carpool with my fellow actors to Connecticut, for base pay. If you bumped that an order of magnitude, and we are good enough friends that the road trip would be fun by itself, I'd consider going to CT for a show. I don't even know most of these people, so if they really wanted me there, they'd have to go up two orders and shell out for Amtrak.
[I later got an email asking if anyone would be willing to help out a sister troupe by driving down to Baltimore "tonight or tomorrow morning". That is a solid eight hours from where I am. I laughed as I deleted this message. Also the one asking who wanted to do an overnight in Maine.]
It struck me as mildly sketchy when they insisted I sign up for the Facebook group, on the basis that most of the communication took place there. It's not unheard of, especially if the company skews young, but that's the first time I've run into it from an outfit that actually has a professionally-assembled corporate portal site, complete with news and scheduling software. My suspicions have been proven entirely correct. While there is the occasional 'we booked more shows! go check the company page!' message, 90% of the traffic on the group consists of people posting selfies in costume, cheering about having done yet another show, a.k.a., their normal goddamn job.
I have made it very clear that I am not interested in drinking the Kool-Aid, and they are consequently not calling me back even for the local shows. So the job search continues. I had good luck asking my readers for work-at-home positions last time; I landed at Nokia Maps as a geographical researcher and stayed there until they were sold to someone else. Anyone got any leads?
In more pleasant news, I am apparently getting more rats. A friend of mine has two out of three squishy boys who get along with people and each other, but not really other rats. He's going to play musical cages with some new ratlings to get a mischief that doesn't chew on each other (much), and the grumpy pair will come to me for cuddles and spoiling. So I will (theoretically, I hope, if nothing goes wrong) have a proper Ratmas this year, if not Ratsgiving. Critter accessories list on Amazon here. Yay.
This year I'm doing things a little differently. While the advent calendar will be running on the public blog -- this year it's folk tales from around the world -- the regular blog entries will be running on my Patreon for anyone who cares to pledge $1 or more. Because I'm sometimes rubbish at posting on a regular schedule, my Patreon runs on a monthly model, rather than per-piece, so if you pledge $1, you'll never be charged more than that.
You are, of course, welcome to give me as much money as you want. I appreciate that. Or stuff. I've been eyeing an adjustable dress form that I cannot even remotely afford, so that I can stop draping patterns on myself in the mirror.
This is particularly important because the shiny new job I got turns out to not be very shiny after all. The actual job is pretty cool; it's with one of those outfits that runs murder mystery parties, among other things. Events are pretty much an evening of herding cats, possibly drunk cats, around and work out to about $15 an hour, which is fine for a part-time gig.
There are, however, a number of problems with this. One is that rehearsals are unpaid. That's normal, to the point where producers will write !!!!PAID REHEARSALS!!!! in the ad if it's the case, and there's only one before an assigned show, but they're up in Malden. Ordinarily I could get up there and back in the Boston Standard Commuting Hour, but right now the MBTA is taking the Orange Line to bits, which means it takes me up to two. In both directions. Three-plus hours of commute for a single 90 minute meeting is right around where I start squawking, regardless of whether the T is your fault.
I am responsible for my own costuming. Again, not normally an issue; there is an awful lot of random crap in my closet. The issue is that these guys do not assign consistent roles. They have ten different shows, each with 4-10 parts (of varying genders) I might potentially be assigned to play at any given time. I'd have to go and buy one or more pieces, without reimbursement, on 1-3 weeks' notice, for at least 50% of these. There is no way to request a specific role when marking oneself available for a show, if you even know what show it is when you sign up. Which you don't always, depending on how indecisive the client was when booking.
The most egregious problem, however, is the literal lengths they expect me to go to work those $15/hr shows. They asked me if I was available for travel when I was hired. I thought 'oh that's fine, I can go to Rhode Island sometimes'. No. They do bookings all over New England, and they do not pay for rail tickets. They expected me to carpool with my fellow actors to Connecticut, for base pay. If you bumped that an order of magnitude, and we are good enough friends that the road trip would be fun by itself, I'd consider going to CT for a show. I don't even know most of these people, so if they really wanted me there, they'd have to go up two orders and shell out for Amtrak.
[I later got an email asking if anyone would be willing to help out a sister troupe by driving down to Baltimore "tonight or tomorrow morning". That is a solid eight hours from where I am. I laughed as I deleted this message. Also the one asking who wanted to do an overnight in Maine.]
It struck me as mildly sketchy when they insisted I sign up for the Facebook group, on the basis that most of the communication took place there. It's not unheard of, especially if the company skews young, but that's the first time I've run into it from an outfit that actually has a professionally-assembled corporate portal site, complete with news and scheduling software. My suspicions have been proven entirely correct. While there is the occasional 'we booked more shows! go check the company page!' message, 90% of the traffic on the group consists of people posting selfies in costume, cheering about having done yet another show, a.k.a., their normal goddamn job.
I have made it very clear that I am not interested in drinking the Kool-Aid, and they are consequently not calling me back even for the local shows. So the job search continues. I had good luck asking my readers for work-at-home positions last time; I landed at Nokia Maps as a geographical researcher and stayed there until they were sold to someone else. Anyone got any leads?
In more pleasant news, I am apparently getting more rats. A friend of mine has two out of three squishy boys who get along with people and each other, but not really other rats. He's going to play musical cages with some new ratlings to get a mischief that doesn't chew on each other (much), and the grumpy pair will come to me for cuddles and spoiling. So I will (theoretically, I hope, if nothing goes wrong) have a proper Ratmas this year, if not Ratsgiving. Critter accessories list on Amazon here. Yay.
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