'something the public doesn't know about your job' thread.

Bob411

Bob411

thrumming with potential
Carpet installer:

Installing carpet is not brain surgery. You just need to give a crap what your work looks like. It amazes me how many people don't care. Everybody makes mistakes, if you care enough to fix your mistakes, and are talented enough to fix them, and the customer never knows, 5 or 10 years latter, doesn't know, that's the difference between a good, and a bad installer.


WOMEN This is at least half of the job. Understanding women/relating to women. Biggest thing you need to know:

I don't care if a woman is a stay at home Mom, or the president of a bank, The house is her baby. 99.99% of men just don't have the connection to the home. A woman's greatest fear is, she will make a wrong decision about decorating, other women will see it, and talk bad about her to the other women.

How to make my day longer? If both people work, it's always the man that takes off because there is "construction going on". After they make the third call, to ask what the wife wants, they usually just let me talk to her. The other good thing about dealing with the woman, men tend to try to bullshit their way through it. Like I said before, it's not brain surgery, but if you don't have a clue what you are talking about, then admit it. Women will admit they don't know, so I can just start out explaining at square one.
 
It's always the network's fault.

It's up to the network vendor to certify every possible device that can be plugged in to the network.

Even when it is demonstrated that the problem lies within a device that was plugged in to the network, or in the programming of a device's code or an application running on a server or workstation, the network is still at fault.

Even when it is demonstrated that a configuration error was introduced by a human being, the network is still at fault.

Even when it is demonstrated that a concerted attack was made on the network and previous recommendations made to guard against such attacks were ignored, the network is still at fault.

When women see an ugly carpet in a house and talk about it over tea with other women, the network is at fault.
 
Hospitals have some of the worst security.

There is a lot more asbestos out there then you think.

City workers really don't give a fuck. Though the public probably has an idear of that already.
 
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Not sure how much there is that folks don't know about what I do.

A few realities though:

For paying gigs, rehearsal time eats into your bottom line. If there are to be rehearsals know your shit in advance and be prompt and efficient. Working bands don't rehearse weekly and then play once a month.

You can play a gig with any serviceable gear. You buy "pro" gear to make yourself happy.

A band or a music school is SOMEONE's business although it might be your hobby. Please treat that business owner with the same respect you would any other business in regards to payment and communication. The part that the public doesn't seem to know (or care about) is that we still have a commercial lease, insurance, utilities and all of that other stuff to pay and missing a half month of lessons, not paying and then "taking some time off" when the teacher has been holding a time for you that they really needed to be generating revenue in is bullshit. Or paying 3 weeks late when you've signed an agreement to pay at the beginning of the month. Or showing up 20 minutes into a 30 minute lesson and then expecting the teacher to give them a full half hour and/or make the student or the rest of their schedule run that late.
 
We can always tell when the usual 85% of clients are exaggerating their issue to elicit attention and then demand immediate resolution, like it's our fault and we are out to get them. And this diminishes our interest in solving their problem. In other words, we'll show up, eventually, and do what we need to do to prevent escalation, but we think you're a moron and it goes in your permanent record.
 
90-95% of the problems I see in the hospital are from smoking and/or obesity.
 
Mark Wein said:
For paying gigs, rehearsal time eats into your bottom line. If there are to be rehearsals know your shit in advance and be prompt and efficient. Working bands don't rehearse weekly and then play once a month.
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I sort of get it, but then again I'm not in a band. If you're in a paying gig, I would think that the customer has probably heard you play before and thought that your act would be a good fit for their venue. I would also think that playing a show could be considered constant rehearsal, especially if there isn't a roomfull of people. 'Working on' new material isn't something people come to see or listen to unless they are devoted fans.
 
You just don't have time for scheduling make-ups? Neither do we.


Sent from my iPhone at a Tijuana donkey show.
 
parrotheada1a said:
I sort of get it, but then again I'm not in a band. If you're in a paying gig, I would think that the customer has probably heard you play before and thought that your act would be a good fit for their venue. I would also think that playing a show could be considered constant rehearsal, especially if there isn't a roomfull of people. 'Working on' new material isn't something people come to see or listen to unless they are devoted fans.
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Lots of people seem to think that you need to practice or run old material all the time to keep it tight though. And you do have to update your song list every so often since we start getting requests either for new tunes or for older songs that are popular again.
 
A typical licensing exam involves the collaboration of many companies, including dozens of people handling the pieces and versions before it hits the candidate's computer screen or paper. Then the grading usually involves fewer people, but they are almost all PhDs in psychometrics. Good assessments look like just a list of test questions to the candidate, but the behind the scenes mechanics are pretty impressive.
 
Mark Wein said:
Lots of people seem to think that you need to practice or run old material all the time to keep it tight though. And you do have to update your song list every so often since we start getting requests either for new tunes or for older songs that are popular again.
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Makes sense if you are in a cover band I suppose. But what do the big acts do when they have no new material to put out there? I'll use..... how about .38 Special. I have the Sturgis DVD that has been around for a long time. The better half and I went to see 'em live at the Topsfield Fair in the not so distant past. I posted pics up here of that show. I saw them way back in the day too.... very foggy memories of that show. Anyhow, the shows were almost identical, down to the set list. I'm thinking.... at that point, why bother practicing or changing things up with new arrangements? 45 minutes onstage, a 5 minute break, then a 10-15 minute encore. They are done in about 2 hrs and headed for the bus.
 
Graphic design is something ANYBODY can do. Anybody with Photoshop/InDesign/Word or whatever is an instant designer and this thinks, "why pay for something I can do myself."

Or people who have an inkling that maybe there is something to it will post ads like, "do it for free and you'll get a lot of exposure."
 
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