The audio bomb I helped clean up a little over a week ago reminded me of this hazard, because "Mr. Fucking Rock Star at Front of House" was the creator of the worst of the mess.
Mr. Fucking Rock Star is the guy who brought me into this business. Mr. Fucking Rock Star trained me in the basics; how to read a stage plot, how to properly coil a cable, how to stay safe on a call, "why carry when you can push?", and other basics that a stagehand needs to know.
Mr. Fucking Rock Star at Front of House is not a bad guy. He is just hard to know how to "handle" him sometimes when he is at work. He is this electronics genius and when he is focused on work, his people skills become rather nonexistent.
Mr. Fucking Rock Star's sometime boss/sometime partner is always in charge of monitors and the stage when we are all on a call together, and I was generally assigned to that part of the call. So I had learned how the bossman (as I call him) did things. I knew where he wanted his shit set up. I knew how bossman wanted his monitor set-up done, and I would often direct the stagehands where and how to put things over in monitor world.
(Keep in mind that the bossman is the most laid back guy on the face of the planet. It's like nothing much gets him out of sorts, and he never raises his voice. Ever.)
Well, one day, being in a "control freak" kind of mood, Mr. Front of House brings his happy self to the stage and starts moving our monitor setup the way he wants it, countermanding my directions to the stagehands, placing things the way he would place them were he in charge of the stage.
Where the bossman was, I do not know. I couldn't stop this clusterfuck, try as I might.
Thank heaven the bossman showed up before it was so fucked we could not "unfuck this". When he saw what was going on, he began directing the stagehands to put things back the way I originally had them putting them. Mr. Front Of House began a discussion of why he was doing whatever it was he thought he had been doing. Not his smartest move. Bossman explained that Cindy did indeed know what she was doing and that he needed to leave me to do my job. Of course, Mr. Front of House had explanations and reasons why he should have been doing what he had been doing. The bossman then looked at Mr. Front of House and said something I will never forget:
"you are a front-of-house engineer. Get off of my stage and go set up front-of-house."
Mr. Front of House headed to front-of-house, mumbling, muttering, probably griping. The bossman just looked up and gave Mr. Front Of House a nickname that will forever stick in my mind "Mr. Fucking Rock Star at front of house".
To his credit, Mr Fucking Rock Star at Front of House is good at what he does, and when there is a problem, he and the bossman never fail to solve it.
It's just that, sometimes, these front of house guys get this idea that they control the entire audio load-in, and that is when it gets hazardous for all involved.
Ah Cindy. From this piece I am pretty sure you are a much nicer person than I will ever be, even if I work at it (and I do).
ReplyDeleteI would have been storming at and about Mr. Fucking Rock Star's self-appointed "fixing" of things. It would not have been pretty.
This is why, when I am done my self-created medium-termed unpaid mat leave, I am going to have to employ myself.
So I don't pop an arterial vein.