A client approved the final cut of a video, only to rescind his decision and state that he wanted more edits. After a lot of back and forth figuring out what those edits were, he put this at the end of his instructions:
Client: “It is imperative that we have all of this ready to roll by the time of my April Newsletter, which I wanted out by April 10th. So, please expedite this as much as you can.”
The email was sent to us on April 13th.
I am working with a coworker, and we’re both experiencing a couple of blessed minutes of downtime. We’re both big anime fans, so we’re chatting about the recent episodes of a show we’re both watching, “Attack On Titan”. The show is known for being quite intense and putting its characters through a lot.
Me: “Can you believe everything that they’ve been putting up with this season?”
Coworker: “I know! I keep saying, ‘We just can’t catch a break!'”
As we’re talking, an older customer is walking past and is glaring at us.
Customer: “That’s the problem with your generation! Always complaining about how hard you’ve got it! You always need little breaks! I don’t know what you think you’ve got to complain about, but back in my day, we just got on with it and didn’t expect a pat on the back for the privilege.”
Coworker: “Oh, sir, we weren’t complaining about our jobs. We’re just talking about a show we watch where the characters have to endure a lot, and we were feeling sorry for them.”
Customer: “Let me guess. They’re struggling because they have to work a full eight hours and they’ve run out of mental health days?”
Coworker: “No, they have to fight man-eating giants who have just consumed all their friends and family in increasingly violent and disturbing ways.”
Customer: “Hmph! Sounds stupid! Back in my day, shows were about real things! Starsky & Hutch! Hawaii Five-O! And the real one, not that new one where everyone is Asian!”
Me: “Sir, did you need help with anything in the store?”
Customer: “No! I can do it myself! You should all just stop moaning!”
Coworker: “We will… try, sir.”
And off he went, looking for new things to grumble about.
I work in film and television. We were shooting in a pretty upper-class neighborhood, and the woman living beside the house we were filming in decided that she hadn’t been paid enough.
A few hours into our day, she started playing opera music as loud as she could with all of her windows open. After an hour or two of that, she ramped it up and started mowing her lawn. Then, she just sat right on her property line with the mower going full blast, until a producer went over and kindly asked her to stop.
I’m not high enough in the production to know how much she was asking for, but apparently, it was too much because he walked away shaking his head and told the sound guys there was nothing he could do.
Once night rolled around, my boss had had enough of this lady and decided to annoy her right back.
We got some 10k lights — which are pretty g**d*** bright — and pointed them directly into her windows. It was basically midday sunlight blasting into her house at 10:00 pm. They’re designed for cinematic-level cinematography, so we were able to direct them tightly enough (and the houses were big and far enough apart) that no other house on the street would even notice they were there… just her.
That’s when she called the police, saying that we were filming illegally. (It was a full union show with permits, and on-duty police were also there.) A cop pulled up and saw the other officers already around to block traffic for us. They went to the craft table, got a snack, and left.
We did turn off the lights around 1:00 am, though, because we’re not animals.
A group of us in the office are having a fun discussion in the kitchen before work. The topic we’ve waded into is the tropes you see in TV and movies that never happen in real life.
Coworker #1: “When they pull up to the club and find parking literally right in front of the entrance!”
Me: “Oooh, yeah, that’s a good one!”
Coworker #2: “Oh, or when they leave the club, and a taxi is waiting for them right outside.”
Coworker #1: “Sometimes in the same movie! Like… didn’t we see them drive there?!”
Me: “I personally hate it when I see these huge elaborate breakfast spreads with like fruit, pastries, cereal, bacon, and all the works, but the main character only has time to grab, like, half a slice of toast, and then they’re out the door. And they never brush their teeth! I mean, I get that you have to get the message across to the audience that ‘It’s morning’ and breeze through it really quickly, but come on!”
Coworker #3: *Snorts* “Yeah, that annoys me, too. Like when they show them showering every morning. Yeah… like you shower every day…”
We all stop and stare at [Coworker #3]. He’s a young man, new to the office.
Coworker #1: “Uh… I shower every day. I shower twice a day: in the morning and before bed.”
Coworker #2: “Same, although I shower when I get home from work.”
Me: “Me, too… [Coworker #3], how often do you shower?”
Silence…
Coworker #3: “Never mind.”
[Coworker #3] darted off suddenly, and we didn’t see him for the rest of the day. The next day, [Coworker #3] appeared freshly showered, his hair looked a lot cleaner and neater than we were used to.
A few months later, after we’d gotten closer, [Coworker #3] explained to me that he’d only been showering on the weekends because that’s what he used to do as a kid, and he thought it was totally normal. He asked me to run through a few other things he did as a kid and help him to not embarrass himself again.
The rest of the list was pretty normal, including, sadly, having cereal for dinner!
I’m a video editor. I was working on a project for a client who is an amateur videographer (which means he films his family’s weddings).
I sent him the first draft, and instead of sending back comments, he re-edited the entire video and changed all of the graphics to white text on black.
Client: “Edit it just like that.”
Of course, at that point, not only had he created tons more work for me, as I had to go through and figure out what he’d cut, but also, why did he even have me do this project?
