I'm cursed

[Dustincoc]

So far this semester I've had 3 board ops back out or quit for one reason or another.... out of 3 shows I've worked on...

[Logos]

No offense but shouldn't this be in "The Punching Bag."

Are you looking for sympathy or possible reasons?

[Dustincoc]

reasons....

[Grog12]

I've had about 15 back out of show assignments...comes with working in a Undergraduate theatre environment.

[avkid]

If they tried that at my college somebody would find a few dead bodies in a broom closet.
Once you commit, you're in it for better or worse.

Reasons:
no money(greedy kids these days)
not enough credit
the glamorous part never started
hours are too long
etc...

[Dustincoc]

The thing is, none of the other designers have had any problems and the crew is a required class that they are assigned too.

[avkid]

Bribe them with food.
A pizza every now and then keeps the crew from mutiny.

[Logos]

Please don't take this the wrong way, but if the ops are only quitting on you then maybe you need to examine your team leadership style. If it's a universal problem then maybe there is something wrong with the course structure.
Have you tried sitting down and having a one on one conversation with one or more of the ops who have quit.

[gafftaper]

Yeah not to insult you in any way... Heck I don't know you... but it sounds like there is either a problem in the program as a whole that makes it acceptable to quit or there is a problem with your leadership skills. If it's a program wide problem, like Avkid said, you should be talking to the department about giving you some support. If you quit in the real world you might never work again.. and because of that it shouldn't be acceptable in educational theater either. If it's something you personally are doing (or not doing) you should know now so that you can work on it before it damages your career. Logos has a great idea of talking to someone who has quit and asking them honestly to share why.

Quiting has been discussed from time to time in threads. As far as I'm concerned the only time it is ever acceptable to quit is if your feel the theater/performance is so unsafe that you, the cast, crew, or audience is in SERIOUS danger. And you should only quit after you have made multiple attempts to make the show/space safer. You also need to know that it may take a long time for your career to recover from this decision.

[Logos]

Serious illness is the only acceptable reason other than safety to quit a show.