Unfiltered Story #281812

I graduated as a stage tech but the long hours, rude culture, hellish internships and a whole ton of more personal things left me with a burn-out right after graduation, leaving me unable to work full time for quite a while. I still miss the actual job so I sign up as a volunteer at a local club. The staff there has been nothing but nice to me and are aware of my history, as well as the anxiety problems that came with the burn-out package.

This night we’re doing a gig for an up-and-comming big name producer for dance parties, so everyone is quite excited. I’m the light techie for the evening and the producer has brought some of their own gear along, leaving me with a lot more cool toys to play with than our meager, regular setup. I spend the whole afternoon programming their fixtures into our lighting software and designing a show around it. Our software being the cheap, fickle little nuiscance it is, needs to be re-set every five hours before it blacks out. I notice the time, save my showfile and reset the program. I re-open it only to find a blank screen staring at me where my command buttons were supposed to be… and it’s fifteen minutes until the doors open.
I wave our head-of-tech over.

me: “I don’t know how and why, and I swear I saved it before resetting, but I can’t find any of my files!”

head-of-tech. “Nah, they can’t be gone. I’ve seen you save it at least three times in the last couple hours so something must still be there, right? Lets look this over. In the worst case, we just re-program some basics using our default template”

me: “The doors open in fifteen minutes! I spend hours on this showfile, even if you program just the basics, it will still take at least half an hour!”

Our head-of-tech gives up on recovering the file and heads straight to re-programming. I start to panic; he programs things way differently than I do and I’m afraid I can’t find the settings I need.

me: “Look, if we are going to reprogram the whole thing I’d rather to it myself, so I know where all the settings are. Or we could take one from a different show, then we at least have something (the stage is pitch black now), but then at least I know what i’m doing. And we honestly don’t have the time….”

He mumbles something about not caring if the audiance sees a blacked out stage, but I know him for being a hyperfocused worker, so my other concerns don’t get trough to him and I see him just adding buttons that I don’t know the exact function of. I start to see guests pouring in and I feel I’m losing it. I run outside to have a panic attack accompanied by flashbacks of similar situations at my old interships where I got yelled at and degraded. I return to the stage where the lights are fortunately working again, but are programmed way differently than I intended.

head-of-tech: “So I’ve managed to get some basics working, we’re gonna have to work with what we’ve got I’m afraid. And just as a note: walking away angrily doesn’t really solve anything.”

me: “Excuse me for not wanting to break down in front of an audiance as I was having a panic attack.” (H.O.T: “oh that’s wat it was.”) But thanks for at least getting it working again.”

Luckily we have thirty minutes between opening and the first act, which I use to get acquainted with the new settings. Suddenly something catches my eye. Our lighting software runs on a regular old laptop, and the task bar is hidden unless you hover the cursor over it. The taskbar pops up coincidently and I see a minimalized screen. I enlarge it and voila, all my settings have re-appeared!

me: “(head of tech)!!! I got it! So stupid! The window was minimalized!! We’re saved!!!

Head-of-tech runs over, double-high fives me and cheers with his fists in the air.

head-of-tech: “See? I told you it wasn’t gone! Now get this show on the road!”

Despite my previous experiences with the business, this club restored my faith in humanity. And yes, the party was a hit.