7th day working. 16-plus hours.
1st 3 days, 2nd meal was walk-away. 4th day, 2nd meal was cold pizza. 5th day, 2nd meal was colder pizza. 6th day, 2nd meal was warm pizza completely eaten by everyone else. Tonight? Tonight no 2nd meal. On the clock 11 hours past lunch.
Wrapped out a cable from the mud, in the dark. Had to crack it out of frozen mud. Fingers so callused that they feel like sandpaper. Bruise on my leg the size of an orange. Asked my wife why the world feels like it's swaying while I'm lying in bed, and she observed that it's probably hypothermia. Having been hypothermic twice before in my life, hell yes it's hypothermia.
There's supposed to be an inch and a half of rain tomorrow.
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The show's gonna flip, friends. All that has to happen is IATSE needs to sit the production company down and have a little chat about working conditions under a Union contract. In short, we just need to threaten to strike, and we've all been assured that the Union is very much interested in this show.
Which means your daughter is assured healthcare for another year.
Which means your pension is vested for another year.
Which means you're looking at between a 50% and a 75% pay raise.
And let's be honest - the way the contract works you've been on a 2x wage multiplier for about two days. That all becomes retroactive when things flip. Even without the Union stepping in, your paycheck for last week was probably between $1500 and $2000 higher than you would have gotten if life were normal.
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...the production couldn't get trailers in time because their credit cards were overextended.
...and several of the runs the PAs made today got turned around without buying anything because the credit cards were declined.
...and wouldn't it be lovely if this show turned and the Teamsters came in and said "no, you're not allowed to drive an airbraked 10-ton truck at all without a commercial endorsement, let alone up a winding mountain road of dirt in the pouring rain
but let's be honest. Even the cold pizza tap ran dry tonight. You may never get paid AT ALL.
'cuz let's be real. It may be network, but shows do die. They might just kill this bitch. And then you get to squeeze blood from a stone.
What's your breaking point, Hubski?
I broke about two weeks ago. It was my third straight month of 80 hour plus work weeks and I got the news that a relative of mine blew her head off. I was already feeling a bit disassociated from my life and there was no way I was going to make any type of funeral. I only broke on the inside, didn't really let it show except for the day after when I opened the shop about 10 minutes late and was kind of out if it. Withdrew from hubski, held my daughter a little closed, tried to look at my wife with eyes that weren't as weary. Got my shift back together after about a week of hard (don't have a word for this feeling, it's not depression or at least not the flavor that visits me from time to time, not chemical imbalance but it wasn't a fun time). I wrote a post as a draft a week ago with a shop update where I talked about my little dark time. Maybe I'm back here and I'll look over and post it tomorrow, maybe I'm not and I won't.
I don't even know anymore. Waking up at 3 am in a complete panic everyday for forever? Yeah, maybe that's it. Doesn't matter though. It doesn't end anyway. I once had a life. It had meaning. People actually felt better after being with me. Now? Now I can't even breathe sometimes, it hurts so bad. I'm only alive because I promised my rescued girl I'd never leave her. God, I'm so tired.
I don't know you. I don't know what you're going through. I do know what it feels like to get up, get back to... Not normal, but a functional equivalent. And then to get kicked down again. To get to your knees and be pushed down. To want to put a bullet through your skull just to get away from your own dark thoughts.I am struggling with a depression that continues to find new ways to express itself, even as I do battle with it. But I have survived every moment so far. And this exact one I'm in now isn't so bad. And I can think of some things I want to do in the future. I hope you feel some relief soon. I hope that you get some rest, and take good care of yourself if no one else is. If you're anywhere near Michigan, I'd gladly buy you a beer sometime and listen to whatever you had to say.
My breaking point is when I lose touch with my friends. I work in an industry that has two major crunches a year. I know that's part of what we sign up for and I manage to work around it. But leading up to a big release a few years ago I just disappeared. I missed every social gathering, and was slowly losing contact with my group. They were all really understanding, but that's when I drew the line. I'm pretty good at managing money vs time tradeoffs - if I'm working round the clock, I throw money at healthy food so I'm not eating garbage. I jog at work so I don't turn into a lump of jello. But friends I can't throw money at, and no job is worth missing out on the people I love.
I went through a bad stretch a few weeks back where I didn't see any of my roommates (who are my best friends) for 10 days at all. Not even a passing hello. I would get up earlier and come back after they all went to bed. That put things in perspective, but only after my friend that I work with told me that I was being an idiot and that I should just go home already.
I share what I do with you, Hubski, because I enjoy being surrounded by your thoughts and I can feel the humanity in your posts. This story is mine and I don't share it with many people, hope it doesn't suck the happiness out of you like it did to me. @kleinb00, I don't often hit my breaking point. It could be that my tolerance is high for stress, but it does affect me. Last time I just couldn't handle it anymore was three years ago. And only the next day did I regain my drive to keep on keeping on. My parents have been divorced for 20 years or so, and they've been to court more times than grades of school there are in the US. Which hopefully gives you an idea of how often the floor fell out from underneath my family. Never was there a period longer than a couple months that serious consideration was had over who should have custody of us children or who should pay whom for whatever failure to pay or perform some action demanded in the ruling from the judge in the last case. No worries, I didn't know any different, it's still hard to imagine what roles each parent would have in a two parent house hold. I was 17 and living in the American pacific northwest with my father for the summer and winter breaks. Otherwise, I resided in Tennessee. Things were looking up with no real quarrels between my parents or them and us children. My father was housing sector when the economy crashed, so at this point, he was living with his parents and was doing handyman work wherever he could find it. During the summers when there was work to be found, I had worked long hours with him. At the point he had actually married again out of the blue when he reconnected with a lost significant other. My sister was dealing with urinary tract problems, and had been in and out of the hospital. At some point while we were up there without our older brother, she started to have more problems. My grandfather alone with her, asked where she was hurting. When she couldn't describe it he asked it was hurting here, as he put his hand on her pelvic region but not on her genitals. Sister was not comfortable with this, and called our older brother. He apparently had some info that we did not. When we first started going out there to spend the summers and winters with our father, our aunt mentioned that all things should be fine... but keep an eye on him, because he had molested (I do not know the extent of this which is why I chose the softer word choice here knowing that they have two different meanings) her when she was just younger than my sister then. I didn't learn this until my father put us both back on a plane home out of fear and wanting to keep anything bad from possibly happening. Haven't been back sense. Most of the reason why is because when my mother and the children demanded an explanation, my father took my grandfather's side and said that my sister had overreacted (she has a tract record of being a bit dramatic). We also got older and money got tighter from the following court case, so we couldn't fly out anyway. I believe the original divorce attorneys skipped town after the divorce case because it was so terrible. Not all of the t's were crossed and there was no end date for child support or something like that. About three years after that summer, my father's name was still on the mortgage for mother's house. A quit-claim was filed, and yet the case was continued. I believe the state had screwed up records or the laws had changed sometime before we became adults and my father had paid too much money in child support. I'm not sure to be honest. In any case, some how my father's credit was being weighed down my my mother's late payments for the mortgage when things were hard again. He wanted the house to be foreclosed upon. My sister and I were still living in the dorms and dependent upon my mother financially. It really sucked, for what my inner child felt, that my father wanted to put us out on the street. My relationship with him up till that point was complicated. There were times when I didn't want to be anywhere else but right next to him, and yet there were other times when I couldn't force myself to be in his presence. After the incident with my sister and our grandfather and the reaction from my father and his side of the family, I couldn't pick a side in the argument. I've always been like that; always looking for evidence and trying to remain as objective as possible even at the expense of relationships with individuals on either side of the quarrel. But here, I knew from the beginning where I stood, and it hurt my father tremendously after the trial, that I witnessed with an ever sickening stomach as did the judge who presided over the case, to not hear an "I love you too" from me. Clinging to his wife's arm in one hand and white-knuckle clutching a cane, his eyes shed tears as he said I love you again. All I could say was, "I know." And it tore me up on the inside to know the pain that I caused him. I looked upon him when he clearly felt like he had no other alternatives but us or him. Years of kneeling in the mud and working in the burning sun put him in a such a condition that he had to give blood to rid himself of excess iron in his blood and that he had to move about with a cane. "Sink or swim." What else could he have done? Do I really think he should have bitten the bullet for a little while longer? I had watched my mother on the witness stand, feeling like a soldier rushing into battle knowing death is the only possible outcome. She cried as she said her home is her workroom and business. Taking that away robs her of the chance to make it in the world. What once was a determined and emotionless mask that was the judge's face had turned into a grim, defeated expression. There could be no winners in this fight. Mother did not lose the house, and I got a warm place to sleep for an extended time, a time after which if she had not gotten her mortgage refinanced the house would certainly be foreclosed upon. I was back in school after winter break, but the only bits of knowledge I hung on to were how to survive in the wild. I learned how to make fire, how to spot food, how to build traps, what kind of clothes are necessary to not freeze, what kinds of shelters are the warmest, eventually how to make cordage, a little urban survival as well. I watched and rewatched Survivorman, and online videos, and I browsed online forums as well. These were the most stressful months of my life so far, and it's entirely possible that I'll never be able to top them. If you want to know how it turned out, the mortgage was bought by a family member and foreclosure was avoided. Yet money is still tight. Some months, I pay my bills and some of hers too. It's been three years since that court case, and I'm looking to graduate in a year. My brother has a child now. My siblings have opened up communications with my father again, and he wants to talk to me too. It makes me shake thinking about it. Have you ever heard the common saying that family is forever? Have you ever thought that you might be better off without whomever that person is? In the 3 years since the last court case, I've come up with and understanding that I can forgive him, but I don't have to forget or let him back into my life. But, now he's pushing even hard to get in touch and resolve the tension between us. Most times when I think about it, I'm calm now. But every now and then, the anger reddens my eyes again.
I think it was Irma Rombauer that said "family is when, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." I'm not sure where that puts you. I didn't speak to my mother for about three years. It was therapeutic. Now that we're on the other side of it, she's a lot more civil. I also don't spend very long with her. I think you'll find that the dynamic between adults and their parents is very different than that of children and their parents. Not better, not worse, but better. I won't give any advice other than to remember the past but don't be chained to it. Good luck.
My breaking point for my last job was when my third cheque bounced. They'd all been compensated for, but I decided I was sick of the financial worry. You gotta get some warmer clothing, dawg. Got any newspaper/other scrap paper around? crumple it up and stuff it in your jacket/sweater/whatever. It works. Also, change your socks on the regular, and whenever they get wet. the last thing you need is cold wet socks on your body. Keep your core warm. You probably know all this but it bears repeating. stay safe out there.
Wearing the Cabela's camo ensemble, actually, overpants, eddie Bauer shirt, wool socks and a wool stocking cap. Problem is, my boots needed sealer and Cabela's had none and 4 hours later I got the call and 16 hours later I was on the road. My feet never dry out. And the mud is a living, breathing thing. A hose does not impress it.
To add to this, wet and cotton is as bad as wet and nude. Wool and synthetics are the only way to stay warm when wet.
For 90% of the crew, their travel day was Saturday, their first day of "work" was yesterday (although every crew - to a man - thought that yesterday was a "get on the plane and go to the hotel" day when in fact it was a "leave your shit in the tent there's cable to haul for the next 6 hours" day), and their timecards won't even be due until next Sunday. These folx have a known star hosting and the head of Fox Reality has been walking around bitching up the place for the last three days. She failed upward after this. To date, however, their biggest show is Pawn Stars, which I could do out of the spare gear in my closet. Our current catastrophe is a cross between Big Brother, American Ninja Warrior and The Biggest Loser. We really should have one of these: We have one of these: I have seen no Malkovich. However, the buddy who got me on this thing (who feels bad, for damn sure) looks eerily like a cheerful, friendly Gary Oldman. Gotta go. We need to go put that truck up that road without keys because one of our crew lost them on the road last night when they bumped out of his pocket as he drove the gator through the sleet.
A few years ago, I realized that reality TV isn't totally unlike quantum mechanics; as soon as you have observed the system, the way it behaves is necessarily different. Sorry dude, sounds like a real shitshow. Hope you get some compensation.
Ask and ye shall receive. We were going to move the truck today, even though it would have been illegal to do so. Unfortunately there was a pickup parked in front of it. Which Transpo didn't know who owned. So we waited half an hour, then said fukkit. Ironically enough, it turned out to be Transpo's truck. My other buddy on this show went to the emergency room today. The third time he took a header off the frozen tailgate of the truck he ended up limping. After a couple days it swelled up like a grapefruit. After a day shot at urgent care with x-rays, it turns out he has a sprained kneecap. So he's on crutches now. Me? I had yesterday off. Visited my wife, hung out with my kid, bought waterproof boots, ate real food. Today was cold stuffing and orange ham served under a pop-up in 29 degree weather.
I have a 10:30 call today. That means I got to sleep TWELVE ENTIRE HOURS. And yesterday? yesterday was semi-repeatable. We could do that shit again. I suspect I reached my breaking point, did not break, and will come out the other side in a much better place.
I'm only 21, so I don't think it is safe to say I have a breaking point yet. I've gone through some tough stuff, but I always managed. The only time I could ever thinking about coming close to a breaking point was when a dude who was supposed to be a great friend kept being a douche and threatening to fight me everytime I called him out for it. Eventually I couldn't take it anymore and told him to step. He didn't, and it ended things almost completely.
My breaking point is a bad supervisor whose supervisor doesn't care. If my boss's boss knows he's terrible, it's a scenario I can work with. But when the department is falling apart and nobody cares because employees are working their butts off to hold things together, it's time to go. One project I was handed was to study how to prevent X from happening. X had happened and freaked a bunch of people out, so someone said to study preventing X. When I sat down with it, it was obvious Y was just as bad as X and much more likely. Fixing X did nothing for Y, but nobody cared. If you can accept Y, you can accept X. If you can't accept X, we need to talk about Y. It was ridiculous.
This sounds more like an OSHA thing than a union thing. I don't know anything about OSHA regulations with respect to big trucks except that they exist, but since they exist I'm willing to bet "shouldn't be driven by drivers without a CDL" is in them. Edit: asked around and it may actually be FMCSA that would object, but they are "notoriously slow about responding to complaints."...and wouldn't it be lovely if this show turned and the Teamsters came in and said "no, you're not allowed to drive an airbraked 10-ton truck at all without a commercial endorsement, let alone up a winding mountain road of dirt in the pouring rain
From a very lay perspective. OSHA is more about like, pathogens and shit (health concerns, basically, lots to do with regulating chemicals/solutions and exposure) but could potentially also address things like sleep/time allowed to work nonstop (like truck drivers). CDL license is definitely gonna be a Department of Motor Vehicles/cop thing - if the driver of a truck were pulled over and didn't have a license I assume both he and his employer would be in deep shit for essentially driving w/o license, etc. As for the safety of the truck or how the truck is being used (safe vs. unsafe conditions), not sure about that. Could maybe be OSHA, but feel like there should be some other set of regulations that covers it. Course, out in the middle of bumblefuck with no cops around to catch road safety violations, probably pretty easy to violate without consequences.
I have not had a breaking point yet, not like @kleinbl00 definitely but maybe feeling something like that these days. Had a fall out with my closest friend, who is supposedly my diary and vice-versa. I have been trying to get back to terms but it's just not happening from the other side. Kind of a breaking point because I don't even know what the deal is. Hope you atleast get remittance!