Learning Kids Photography: Take Three
After leaving my photography job in June, I actually returned in September for another month. Previously, I had worked all around Melbourne and in Darwin. My return took me to Brisbane and surrounds. All in all I worked in twelve different shopping centres, on four different sets and with ten different teams. I clocked up over five hundred hours in just over three months, drove three different cars, and dealt with hundreds of screaming children. As always, here's the pros and cons...
Pros
• Pay: The hourly wage was pretty good and, although I was taxed enormously, I could still earn a decent amount each week. Weekly mid-week pay was also a plus, it meant I could treat myself to a Wednesday Icecream (depending on the weather) that would help me get through until the weekend.
• People: Especially when on the travelling sets, I made great friends with the guys in my team. We were working together and living together, but it worked. It was lovely to spend time as a team outside of work, watching TV, cooking and even going to pub quizzes.
• Banter: Kind of leads on from having awesome people to work with. Being able to mess around when we weren't busy and take the mick during and after shoots was great. I would find myself in hysterics sometimes at the things we would do just to get a smile.
• Free Stuff: As mentioned in previous blogs, I had access to a car when on the travel team. Sure, we couldn't really use it for non-work stuff but it was amazing to be able to drive again. I loved driving through the Australian countryside and into the small towns, it gave a completely different perspective. I also had free accommodation to come back to after a long hard day. I mean, a free bed - and a nice one at that - is just the backpacker dream.
• DIY Skills: A weird one, I know. But, when you are setting up and packing down metal framework and measuring distances for cabinets etc, you get an appreciation for nuts and bolts. It felt good to get a sweat on and pretend I was doing exercise.
• Travel: Although I was working in shopping centres, I was still seeing parts of Australia that I never thought I would. Rural towns and cities with real Aussies just living their Aussie life. Working with and talking to Aussies all day did give me a bit of a twang too.
• Kids: Before this job, I'd only held a baby once or twice. Suddenly, I was dealing with them everyday, and some actually liked me. There would be days where one or two children, sometimes all, were a dream to work with, they were polite and cute, and just did what they were told. Those kinds of kids were the best.
• They Let Me Come Back: Kind of self-explanatory, but I was very grateful to be welcomed back. It saved me the hassle of finding another job.
• Pay: The hourly wage was pretty good and, although I was taxed enormously, I could still earn a decent amount each week. Weekly mid-week pay was also a plus, it meant I could treat myself to a Wednesday Icecream (depending on the weather) that would help me get through until the weekend.
• People: Especially when on the travelling sets, I made great friends with the guys in my team. We were working together and living together, but it worked. It was lovely to spend time as a team outside of work, watching TV, cooking and even going to pub quizzes.
• Banter: Kind of leads on from having awesome people to work with. Being able to mess around when we weren't busy and take the mick during and after shoots was great. I would find myself in hysterics sometimes at the things we would do just to get a smile.
• Free Stuff: As mentioned in previous blogs, I had access to a car when on the travel team. Sure, we couldn't really use it for non-work stuff but it was amazing to be able to drive again. I loved driving through the Australian countryside and into the small towns, it gave a completely different perspective. I also had free accommodation to come back to after a long hard day. I mean, a free bed - and a nice one at that - is just the backpacker dream.
• DIY Skills: A weird one, I know. But, when you are setting up and packing down metal framework and measuring distances for cabinets etc, you get an appreciation for nuts and bolts. It felt good to get a sweat on and pretend I was doing exercise.
• Travel: Although I was working in shopping centres, I was still seeing parts of Australia that I never thought I would. Rural towns and cities with real Aussies just living their Aussie life. Working with and talking to Aussies all day did give me a bit of a twang too.
• Kids: Before this job, I'd only held a baby once or twice. Suddenly, I was dealing with them everyday, and some actually liked me. There would be days where one or two children, sometimes all, were a dream to work with, they were polite and cute, and just did what they were told. Those kinds of kids were the best.
• They Let Me Come Back: Kind of self-explanatory, but I was very grateful to be welcomed back. It saved me the hassle of finding another job.
Cons
• Pressure: Working to targets can be stressful enough sometimes without constant pressure from above. We would have our jobs threatened whenever we weren't busy, or had no one in the studio. This made us even more stressed and less able to put on that happy face and entice customers.
• Lack of Trust: We had to update the bosses at least three times a day. If we weren't doing as well as expected, we would be asked "why". Most of the time people just were not interested, we were doing exactly what we were trained to do, saying the right things and making the right moves. Still, this wasn't trusted. It was always our fault.
• Lack of Consistent Training: When I first started I only had a few weeks to learn everything before being moved on. I then was told different ways of doing things, and again, and again. Every time I joined a new team, I found I'd been doing something wrong. I was completely thrown in the deep end with photography and had to just try my best to do what I knew. Whether it was the right way or not, someone had taught me it at some point.
• Being Kept in the Dark: We didn't get our rosta for the next week until Fridays. I hated not knowing where I would be and what hours I would be working until three days before. Even when travelling, we wouldn't know how far we'd have to drive, who would be on the team or where we were staying next until the last minute. I had to nag the coach to find out what the plan was with me, and even then it was like getting blood out of a stone.
• No Days Off: As fantastic as it was to be visiting so many interesting places, I rarely got time off to enjoy them. We would get home in the evening, past eight o'clock if working Late Night Shopping, and be too tired to do much. The accommodation would be far from town, and the car was out of bounds. I love walking, but sometimes the good stuff was just out of reach. When travelling, we would always have Sundays off, but they would be spent driving to the next location or doing the washing. This brings me to the next point.
• Extra Work: Driving the car, and trailer, from set to set would not be paid. Washing the car and trailer once a promo was just expected. Doing the laundry once a promo, on the "day off" went unpaid. Driving to the airport with paperwork had to be done on a certain day, by a certain time but would we be thanked, let alone paid, for it?
• No Sunlight: This sounds really silly, but I had gone from being outside pretty much every day in sunny Brisbane, to winter in Melbourne. Not only did my tan suffer, but the lack Vitamin D really got to me. It was worse in Brissie in September, I knew it was beautiful weather outside but I was stuck in artificial lighting and air con all day.
• Parents: Now don't get me wrong, some mums and dads were absolutely lovely. So appreciative of the work we do and willing to help in anyway. Others, you wonder why they had children. It's like they thought we were glorified babysitters. They would give us the child and disappear, even after it was made quite clear we were not responsible. They would be rude, disrespectful and impatient. Then you had the ones who thought their little darling could do no wrong, even when they were trashing the set and hitting us (or them).
• Kids: To be honest, there were times when I wanted to scream back at the kids. Discipline them the way mum and dad clearly weren't. But at least screaming/shouting/crying kids showed emotion. The ones that creeped me out the most were those with blank faces. A blank look, no expression, nothing going on up there. This was when I really had to work hard to get a smile, a laugh, anything but nothing.
• Rejection: Always a feature of PR, but this was worse than with the reindeer antlers. Parents who had had a bad experience with pop-up studio photography before would take it out on us - even if it wasn't our brand. I would be sweared at, shouted at, stared down. There was always people that would completely ignore you too, even if the child looked at you, so you know they heard. It took everything I had not to give a sarcastic response, and remember to just keep smiling.
• Pressure: Working to targets can be stressful enough sometimes without constant pressure from above. We would have our jobs threatened whenever we weren't busy, or had no one in the studio. This made us even more stressed and less able to put on that happy face and entice customers.
• Lack of Trust: We had to update the bosses at least three times a day. If we weren't doing as well as expected, we would be asked "why". Most of the time people just were not interested, we were doing exactly what we were trained to do, saying the right things and making the right moves. Still, this wasn't trusted. It was always our fault.
• Lack of Consistent Training: When I first started I only had a few weeks to learn everything before being moved on. I then was told different ways of doing things, and again, and again. Every time I joined a new team, I found I'd been doing something wrong. I was completely thrown in the deep end with photography and had to just try my best to do what I knew. Whether it was the right way or not, someone had taught me it at some point.
• Being Kept in the Dark: We didn't get our rosta for the next week until Fridays. I hated not knowing where I would be and what hours I would be working until three days before. Even when travelling, we wouldn't know how far we'd have to drive, who would be on the team or where we were staying next until the last minute. I had to nag the coach to find out what the plan was with me, and even then it was like getting blood out of a stone.
• No Days Off: As fantastic as it was to be visiting so many interesting places, I rarely got time off to enjoy them. We would get home in the evening, past eight o'clock if working Late Night Shopping, and be too tired to do much. The accommodation would be far from town, and the car was out of bounds. I love walking, but sometimes the good stuff was just out of reach. When travelling, we would always have Sundays off, but they would be spent driving to the next location or doing the washing. This brings me to the next point.
• Extra Work: Driving the car, and trailer, from set to set would not be paid. Washing the car and trailer once a promo was just expected. Doing the laundry once a promo, on the "day off" went unpaid. Driving to the airport with paperwork had to be done on a certain day, by a certain time but would we be thanked, let alone paid, for it?
• No Sunlight: This sounds really silly, but I had gone from being outside pretty much every day in sunny Brisbane, to winter in Melbourne. Not only did my tan suffer, but the lack Vitamin D really got to me. It was worse in Brissie in September, I knew it was beautiful weather outside but I was stuck in artificial lighting and air con all day.
• Parents: Now don't get me wrong, some mums and dads were absolutely lovely. So appreciative of the work we do and willing to help in anyway. Others, you wonder why they had children. It's like they thought we were glorified babysitters. They would give us the child and disappear, even after it was made quite clear we were not responsible. They would be rude, disrespectful and impatient. Then you had the ones who thought their little darling could do no wrong, even when they were trashing the set and hitting us (or them).
• Kids: To be honest, there were times when I wanted to scream back at the kids. Discipline them the way mum and dad clearly weren't. But at least screaming/shouting/crying kids showed emotion. The ones that creeped me out the most were those with blank faces. A blank look, no expression, nothing going on up there. This was when I really had to work hard to get a smile, a laugh, anything but nothing.
• Rejection: Always a feature of PR, but this was worse than with the reindeer antlers. Parents who had had a bad experience with pop-up studio photography before would take it out on us - even if it wasn't our brand. I would be sweared at, shouted at, stared down. There was always people that would completely ignore you too, even if the child looked at you, so you know they heard. It took everything I had not to give a sarcastic response, and remember to just keep smiling.
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