QoTD: What do you do...

[Grog12]

...when everything you do for a client is "wrong"?

Whether you've gennuiely screwed up...or its really something they forgot to tell you.....what do you do when all you sense around you is negativity?

As always QoTD/W rules apply....

[Anvilx]

Give them free stuff.

[LXPlot]

...when everything you do for a client is "wrong"?

Whether you've gennuiely screwed up...or its really something they forgot to tell you.....what do you do when all you sense around you is negativity?

As always QoTD/W rules apply....

Can you elaborate a little bit? How is this person your client? Are they somebody you're working for on a show by show basis? Somebody who is touring in a venue where you're the in-house tech? Somebody who you're selling equipment to?

If it is somebody who I'm working for on a show by show basis (like as a member of a production lighting crew for instance), I'll try to do my best to work around it. If I screwed up, I apologize profusely, work harder, maybe work a few extra hours. If it's info that they reasonably should have given me, than I'll do my best to fix the mistake and add asking for info like that to my list of things that need to happen every production.

If we're talking about a touring group that I'm hosting, I act a little differently. Most likely it'll be there fault at this point, as the good folks at my work place do a good job of training us to do everything that should realistically be expected of a group. Even still, I try to correct it if possible, and ask more questions, do as much of the stuff they suck at as possible, etc. After they'd left i might leave a complaint or something to the venue manager, but if they weren't that bad i wouldn't. That said, if I did screw up I would apologize and work extra hard to fix it (see a theme here?)

If it was as a dealer, I don't know. I assume apologize and give that person a good deal, but you'd need to be more specific.

[MNicolai]

It's safe to assume that neither party gets into a project together to screw each other. Things may not go as planned, obstacles might be too difficult to overcome, and there may be too much dissonance between the client's vision for the project and the designer's, but nobody sets out to ruin someone else's day.

If it's not possible for the client and the designer to close the creative gap between each other, then the designer should talk to the client about recusing themself from the project. It need not be personal -- nobody set out to screw anyone else; they just both had different opinions about the art and things got off track.

A lot of time people get emotionally connected to their projects so unfortunately these sorts of disconnects get more personal than they should, which is why it's important to remember that when people get frustrated or disappointed in how things are going, it's because they care about the quality of the work and have higher expectations and goals for it -- not because they want to ruin someone's event.

[avkid]

It's safe to assume that neither party gets into a project together to screw each other.

You don't know many promoters do you?

[mstaylor]

You don't know many promoters do you?

Now that's funny and unfortunately true in many cases.

[MajikTime]

I recently had a local group who sponsors concerts by outside artists use my Auditorium.
The talent was awesome, I did everything as to their Tech Rider and they were fine with the changes I had to make.

It was the Sponsor group that I had all sorts of problems with. I recently took over when they old Auditorium Manager retired and they were like "What will we do without John" mind you I was trained by John and have a degree in technical theater, but in their minds I was still "The Kid." They were scheduled to come in at 4:30 but when I arrived at 2:30 for the group that was using the Auditorium before them, they were already here and moved their 9ft Steinway Grand piano. I had to inform them they couldn't set up in the halls until school was out and students gone, they politely moved all their stuff into the janitors closet I opened for them.

Also despite being there early they forgot to mention they needed their own mic other than the performers, which they finally asked for about 10 minutes after we had opened the house. I politely told them that it would have been nice to know that earlier, and went to set up the mic for them, with a smile on my face. The "stage manager", note the quotes, hovered over me at the sound board, I obliged his suggestions by turning random knobs that did nothing. He liked what he heard and sat with his wife during the second half of the show.

[FACTplayers]

This reminds me a show I did last year where I was brought in to coordinate all of the audio equipment. They were using OrchExtra in place of an orchestra and no one had time to learn it so I accepted the duty. I go to college 2 hours away so I could only make it up to their theatre on a few weekends. Anyways, I have my ops in HS so I brought them in and started teaching them how to operate everything after I set it up. Well, hours before the show I'm told there is going to be a keyboard player. Not a problem, I quickly set it up without a word of protest.

Well that night the mics were having the worst interference I have ever seen. My op almost walked out it was so bad. Still, to this day I can't figure out the exact cause of the interference... So I'm trying to fix the microphones, I have an obnoxious audience member telling me wireless equipment doesn't go further than ten, yes 10 feet (side note: this guy claims to be a professional), the keyboard player now wants monitor headphones with only orchextra and her coming through but she wants to be able to control the volume of each, and intermission is only 15 minutes long and I'm working alone....

Forgot to say we don't have the most money so we had two (old) sound boards linked together and every channel is being used. Did I mention everything I do has to be creative and all of our cables were used up? Yeah, figuring out those monitor headphones took some thought.

Now to answer the question: I ended up telling the "professional" off which is very unlike me, but at the time it had to be done so I could begin thinking of how to fix the problem. The "client" kept asking what was wrong, and I kept explaining it's either this or that (I sounded a lot like House when he just makes up diseases...). Eventually I had to admit I couldn't fix the problem during the show and the problems will be fixed for the next night. The "client" agreed because that was all she could do.

In summation: always be polite and as accommodating to everyone as you possibly can. The nicer and more friendly you are, the more likely you will be hired back. If you can handle yourself in a situation of crisis, you give off the image that you can handle anything. Don't try to lie and cover things up if you don't have a solution; however, giving a hypothesis as a possible cause is a better idea than admitting defeat.