Right now I’m on the plane somewhere over Russia. It’s 6:30 am eastern standard time. I’m in a window seat without a window. That’s fine because for the 6 hours I was trying to sleep, only the undead couple behind me has had their window shade up reading for the past 8 hours. The whole plane had its shades down. Lights were off, everyone was sleeping and the bigbang is was over on my shoulder. I hope jetlag fucks them up hard. There is another old guy that keeps farting.
Yesterday was my last day teaching at the studio. Well I was actually directing for the past three days. Yes directing my students in a real project for the studio which they may or may not able to use on their reel. If anything they should add that they animated for the NFL on their resume.
The good news is that I did not choose who was hired. Yeah I wish someone would have made that clear 3 weeks ago so I wouldn’t have been a maniac. The studio chose from the ones I passed. The ones I fail were not considered. I about asked this several times and only Friday-my last day- was I told a real answer.
The whole day my boss was asking for my evaluation sheets with “pass” or “not pass” marked. The Big boss told me “Well the other lecturers handed theirs in on Wednesday or at least a few days before the class was finished. And we need most of today to interview them.” So what the fuck? They have only had two lectures before me. If they were comfortable giving unpaid work to a student they had already failed that is their business. I don’t believe it to be ethical and I almost told her that last Tuesday.
She kept sending in people from the office. People that I really like but I had to walk them out of the room. I know she was only doing what the boss asked. I don’t know if I have to explain how protective I am at times and my animators are my responsibility. I made a deal with them. The project was due at 3:00. I would give them their grade for the class (the project was not part of the grade) and then I would let them fill out their evaluation of me. The office was not going to change that. Finally as I was still calculating grades when the Big Boss made her entrance.
B “Can I see your student evaluations?”
Me “I’m not finished with them.”
B “Why not? The other lecturers handed theirs in on Wednesday or at least a few days before the class was finished. And we need most of today to interview them.”
Me “I haven’t finished grading them. I can’t complete the evaluation until I know if they passed.”
B “Well don’t you know how well they did overall? Just evaluate how well did throughout the six weeks. Don’t base it on this project. What about their evaluation of you?”
Me: “I haven’t given it to them yet.”- I was still trying to do math at this time.
Boss: “Why not? It will only take 5 minutes.”
Me “They’re on deadline. I’m not going to stop them from working when they have a deadline.”
Boss “When’s the Deadline?”
Me “3:15”
B “Ok” then she walked out.
Then I reminded them that the deadline was still 3:00.
On Wednesday I handed out the project. The Golden Test. I was down 5 files. So I ran to the office and asked to use more files from the folder. They were all assigned. They were taken by freelances but the studio would gladly give them an unpaid trainees.
Then the Big Boss came in and said that they needed characters built for their new show immediately. It’s a tv show. The animation is supposed to look fluid and as traditional as possible. The characters have brushstroke lines. They had until Friday to produce built characters. They wanted to give that job to a student. I was stiff in my chair, in fact I wasn’t going to sit down until they asked me to. I think I was in shock because I don’t remember saying anything I just let it play out for a bit. Watching the little boss and big boss manage an imaginary schedule that all ended on Friday. They could have thrown in redirecting the Panama Canal by Friday and it wouldn’t have sounded out of place.
Finally I said, “I already told them about the this project. I can’t give 5 people characters to build. I told them this project really counts for a lot because it’s a real project. I can’t spring a new project on 5 of them.”
B “This was sprung on us. We didn’t know this was coming in. That’s just how it is. If they don’t do it this week they will have to next week.”
I was thinking to myself “WHAT? Then just tell them it’s not possible or quote them a very high price for a fucking rush job and give it to a professional to build.” Then I wondered how much a build character like that is even worth? If it’s a good build they could use it for the whole season and maybe more? You can’t have everyone animating the character the same way unless somebody built it. That has to be worth a lot. There was no way I would let someone do that for free. The big boss left the room for a business call. Then the little boss proceeded to convince me with how important it was.
LB ”Do you not think they can’t do it?”
Me ”I would have trouble with it and I haven’t prepared them for this. Can I give them the NFL project? I already went over it with them.”
LB “We have 3 more projects coming in next week. If they don’t work on this project, next week they will be overloaded.”
Me “But next week…they will be paid.”
LB “Would you like to tell [big boss] that?”
Me “Well, ok…” I stood up and thought shit, I can’t walk into her office she’s on the phone plus that’s like her territory.
“Uh, I’ll wait until she comes back.”
LB ‘You gave them the NFL project, why won’t you give them the character builds?”
Me “Yeah and I feel bad about that, but I told them that it was their most important final.”
Ok just the way she said that sounded like something a molester would say. You did that…why won’t you do this? Oh god, speaking of molester I think I was totally flirting with one my students when I tried to demonstrate how to find the North Star. I didn't mean to really but I totally creeped myself out.
Anyway, the other NFL files came in. I was let off the hook with the Character builds. And my animators were finished by 3 on Friday. Afterwards I had another plan. I graded them and technically everyone passed. Some with D’s but still passing. I don’t think that’s what the bosses had in mind. They wanted a handful I could name off the top of my head. The cream of the crop. But something else was troubling me. Whoever passes must sign a contract for one year. Perhaps it was a contract that any party could terminate at anytime but I don’t think so. A few asked me not to pass them. So I handed my evaluations to them, reminded everyone of the deadlines and hours they would have to put in, and to ask themselves if this was something they wanted to do and knew they could do it. Then I told them to check pass or not pass. 2 checked not pass. I had hoped for a few more.
The office interview the students and selected 6. Only 6 students because that’s how many positions they had available. Yeah that pissed me off later. If the office knew that only wanted 6 new employees why did I assign an actual project to 10 extra more people?
Ok aside from that. My students gave me some great gifts. I was so surprised. And I could finally hangout out with them as people and not as my students. But only for their graduation dinner because I my flight was the next morning.
