Life and Soul

Ecuador -Part 2

Lets be honest it’s the people that get on my tits, right from the top table of directors, through management & down through the staff. I have sat through about a billion conferences, working as a sound engineer, most designed to motivate or to promote a new product or new management directive.

They are all giving similar messages, they are all trying to grow their market share, control overheads & please their shareholders. That is about it,

To be honest from what I see, and it’s the same situation with the government, these so called leaders, heads of the game don’t have a clue, their past principals & values & their understandings are all based & from Victorian, Empirical, ideals of the world. The wealthy control & have all, the rest are nothing but slaves to the wimp & fads of the so formed elite society.

After around five years working in the conference sound business I feel like a slave, expected by these oh so important business folk to sit & wait ready to jump when they finally decide they are ready, most production people are too scared to talk straight to their clients & organise a sensible timetable for the day, one which takes all into consideration; “Oh No” they might take offence & heavens forbid we could loose the contract for their work.

“Don’t you know how much that is?”

I have put up with so much bullshit, I can hear you saying already “That what your paid to do” its not, I’m paid to set up, operate then de-rig the sound equipment used for the event or show.

I treat everyone I meet with the same happy warm smile vibe, I don’t differentiate or pre judge, well ok I try not to, it’s very hard sometime.

Hard work is not the problem, none of the crew are opposed to working hard for their money, it’s when it is expected that you will just sit there waiting for 13-19 hours a day waiting on unorganised production with no thought to your food & watering.

Working as we do freelance, we find that we only see certain friends, other engineers, on certain gigs throughout the year; gigs become very social.

You don’t really know when or where the next gig is coming from or who you will be working with next, the tendency is to say yes to every gig your offered if you have space in the diary; only later do you realise you are doing 20 straight days with the possibility of ridiculously small amounts of sleeping hours.

On the other hand you may go through weeks of nothing, no sign of future work & no calls, people only call you when they need you.

Come payment the companies you have worked for take differing times to come through with your wages depending on how the financial situation of the company is at the time. Sometimes we have waited over three months for payment, usually kept waiting with promises that they would pay soon or the check needed to be signed.

I once even offered to take the unsigned check to wherever the MD was at the time for him to sign so I could guarantee payment on that day, I got the check, it was already signed.

Nowadays when I’m at work, yes I do my job, yes I’ll take the money but more & more I’m not interested, I’m on autopilot or space pilot. I find this leads me to mischievous ways; boredom brings a need to entertain oneself, bring relief from the boredom, humour is a marvelous tool if you use it subtly & wisely as to not cause offence, after sometime working with the same crews you built up a wicked sense of humour, a quick cutting banter that’s short & subtle but so to the point.

At times I wish go return to mixing bands, as an engineer it’s much more fun but you have to take on so much bull from the record companies, management & agents that it also turns into a particular experience.

There will come a time when our lives are not pressurized by the values & concepts of money, we will move on from our current greed & unhappiness to a place where all is shared & loved.