A Day In The Life

And now for something entirely different!

A lot of people have asked me lately what I do. They know that I work in television, and that I do something involving logistics, but my actual job is a bit of a mystery to most. In reality, I have two jobs - I work for the same company as both a Studio Coordinator and Technical Coordinator; the former is my primary job and the latter is something that is added to my plate during certain parts of the year. 

But what do I do? Lemme 'splain. No, there is too much. With a bit of inspiration from VT over at pantagruel, lemme sum up:

A Day in the Life of a Studio Coordinator

• Groan and fumble around for my Treo when its alarm goes off at 5:30 in the morning. Try in vain to snooze for a few more minutes while Oscar meows incessantly in my ear that he is staaaaaarving.
• Stumble around the house doing all of the usual morning things. Field a phone call at 6:30am that one of my crew members is sick and won't be coming in. Shit.
• Piss of countless wives, girlfriends, and freelance crew members when I wake them up with my ass-early phone call. Finally find someone who grudgingly agrees to work. (Hello, I am paying you. Ingrate.) Decide that I really need more tea before I face traffic.

• Fly out the door at 7:33am and head for work. On average, it takes me 45 minutes to go 19 miles, less than half of which are freeway miles. Gotta love L.A.
• Dig through my purse to find the collection of magic badges that will raise gate arms, open studio doors, and call elevators for me. Descend into the parking structure and start the hunt for parking.
• Arrive at my desk to find that the voicemail light on my phone is blinking, I have 114 unread emails, and my supervisor is already in a heated phone discussion and halfway through his first cup of coffee. That's not a good sign. I'm definitely going to need more tea. Perhaps with some vodka.
• Retrieve tea (no vodka), plus a selection of free beverages from one of the talent who has been sent "a metric assload" (his words, not mine) of free stuff from the Coca-Cola company. Appreciate the fact that he's willing to share.
• Sit down to listen to voicemails and scroll through emails only to be almost immediately interrupted by the studio manager. Jot down notes while he downloads the contents of his brain and begin to form a picture of which fires will need to be put out first.
• Discover that one of our trouble-making crew members played Mom against Dad and managed to get today off even though I'd denied his request. Agree to deal with the weasel crew member first thing tomorrow.
• Glance over my unread emails and flag the ones that look like they'll need to be handled first. Ignore the ZOMFGWTFBBQ emails from a PA who marks every single thing she sends "URGENT," even if it's regarding a shoot that won't take place for two months.
• Log into IM and greet the few friends who are also at work before 9am.
• Turn to pick up phone (since I still haven't listened to my voicemail) and am rewarded with a ring. A crew member has gotten lost on his way to another location and has no idea where he is. Pull up Google maps and spend 15 minutes on the phone with him, trying to get him headed in the right direction.
• Voicemail. I am going to check my voicemail.
• Realize, both from the messages I've finally retrieved and from conversation with the studio super, that the entire day's schedule has to change in one of the studios. Scramble to make changes and get the new daily posted before the crew comes in. Run the stairs between my desk and the studio level for the first of what will probably be fifty or sixty times.
• Am interrupted halfway back to my desk by the insistent buzzing of my Treo. Meeting reminder - damnit.
• Spend a large chunk of the morning in various meetings discussing planning, logistics, and crewing. Keep a running list of all the things that I would be doing if only I could stop having meetings long enough to do them. By the time I return to my desk, my "To Do" list covers two and a half steno pages.
• Manage to knock a couple of things off the list before one of the younger crew members comes to my desk to talk. He's really bright and very ambitious, but a bit mystified by the "big picture" so I'm mentoring him. Inwardly sigh at his timing and devote 30 minutes to a conversation about the importance of choosing your battles.
• Realize that I've barely seen the studio super all morning. That means he's been in different meetings than I have and that's probably a really bad sign.
• It's just after 11 and I finally feel like I can get some actual work done. Try to log into the tracking & databasing program I use to monitor personnel and time allotment. Realize that it's freezing up. Again. Call IT. Get voicemail. Curse.
• Give up on that and open the crew lists for all of our non-studio events. Start making phone calls to put people on hold for various projects. Because it's important to form a relationship with all of the people with whom I work, this takes a significant amount of time as the first few minutes of every conversation are devoted to catching up. I keep detailed notes in everyone's file about spouses names, children's ages, etc so that I can jog my memory when I call people I only hire once or twice a year.
• Get a text message from The Fireman that makes me laugh and eases my stress for a few moments. Respond in kind.
• Run back downstairs to give a studio tour to some eager interns; spend far too long answering questions.
• Sigh as another Outlook meeting reminder pops up on my screen. Wait, this one is for lunch with a friend! I vaguely try to recall my "friends," most of whom I haven't seen in a few weeks. Nearly skip down to the lobby and out to the restaurant.
• Consider lunch a success when I actually manage to both converse and eat my food. This is a vast improvement on my usual habit of "eat with one hand type with the other."
• Return to my desk to find the studio super looking very grim indeed. Have an impromtu meeting about the rapidly-approaching deadlines of one of our productions and the physical impossibility of the engineers meeting them. Vodka sounds good.
• Spend an hour or so making Plans A, B & C for how to work around the deadlines that other people are missing. Email to VP, manager, and super. Feel like Wonder Woman when VP responds that "Plan A is brilliant, we're going with that" after only ten minutes.
• Finally find a few solid hours to get some actual work done and plow through more than half of my running list. Budgets and schedules and workflow, oh my!
• Pause to throw things at one of the talent when he tries to include me in the "behind the scenes" special that someone is shooting about him. Confound the camera crew by pulling the hood of my sweatshirt over my head.
• Call and offer 5 days a week of work to a relatively new crew member. I love it when I can deliver good news!
• Head down to the studio to check in on two brand new crew members who are training. Take them back upstairs to discuss rate and have them sign away their souls fill out the hiring paperwork.
• Look at the clock and discover with some shock that it's nearly 5pm. Where did the day go?
• Enjoy the peace and quiet that descends after most of the office has left. Go through all of my notes for the day and write up a "To Do" list for tomorrow. Only one and a quarter pages so far - score!
• Hurry to get my phone forwarded and my computer locked before anyone needs anything else.
• Catch up on personal phone calls while traffic crawls homeward. Answer a few more work phone calls while I'm at it. Say a silent prayer of gratitude that I get paid every time the work phone rings.
• Home again, home again, jiggity jig. Now there can be vodka! Except I'm out of vodka. Bourbon it is, then!
• Mmm, bourbon.

Comments

[ninja rad]

but but but.......you never checked yrr voicemail :P

[Adri]

Y'know, my mom asked me just the other day what you do and I could not answer her if my life depended on it. You ARE superwoman.