A holiday withought true relaxation and more than one sleeples night and now I've decided I'm gonna get this out. For those of you who don't want to listen to a twenty year old bachelor bitch about his life stop reading this post right now.
I guess it's best to start at the begining. My current (I think) employers found me when I was still in high school and began training me in the work I've found that I love. I'm a lighting desinger and technician and I do a little pyro and rigging on the side. I aslo do staging. If any of you attended the centenial celebrations in Saskatchewan this summer odds are I had something to do with it. I've been making sacrifices in excess of anything resonable for four years for these people because I love what I do. Since I was sixteen everything else has taken a back burner in favour of my work. The summer is our bussy season and it's not unheard of for us to work far too hard in the warm months. When the work is there, you work. This last summer was particularly hellish however. I use the term summer but realy it was about five months.
It started with a trip to Prince Albert in northern Saskatchewan. On this little adventure it rained constantly. For three days the water was comming down. We had to build a stage, roof audio and light system out in the middle of a feild and the low end of a small valley like area. For three days we toiled at this and I was bussy enough that I couldn't change my clothes. I was drenched from the moment we started untill the end. The ground was wet enough that entire sections of the stage were sinking and on top of that the tie downs for the roof were pulling out of the ground and we had to redo them every intermision. Not an easy task and by no stretch of the imagination a safe one. Holding on to a steel cable that can work as a grounding wire right in the middle of a lightning storm is stupid but I did it because the job required it. Part way through the storm one of the lines on the audio towers began to shift. The rain was coming down so hard it hurt and the winds could knock you over at ground level. On top of that the storm was so close that you could hear the thunder clap befor the flash from th lightning disipated and there was a tornado touching down in a small town seventy five kilometers away. Despite all of that. Despite the very real danger of death I climed a forty foot tall galvanized steel tower with watter coming of the ladder holds like niagra, and secured the fifty foot long steel cable because that's what needed to be done. I was at the top of the highest point in a wide open field in a lightnig storm that was so close you could taste the ozone when a strike happened because I had to be there to keep the crowd safe from a two tone audio rig that could have blown over if I had hesitated.
On top of all of that. I watched a very good freindship die because two people refused to listen to eachother.
That was the first and easiest gig of a five month season.
Just recently my mentor (for lack of a better term) spent the morning in meetings with the owner of the company. When he came out he made one statement to me.
"Go to school. There is no future for you here. There is no future for anyone here. He dosen't care about his boys anymore."
Shortly after that I got my christmas bonus. IT WAS FIFTY FUCKING BUCKS!!!
I went through hell a dozen times for the fucking cheap bastard and never once asked why.
I put myself in situations that no human being should risk being in because that's what needed to be done to make him money and make his fucking name famous.
I continued working after fifty two hours because that's what it took to finish the job.
I ignored physical shock when I nearly lost three fingers because no one could take my place.
And I got fifty bucks for a christmass bonus... I likely made him much much richer... and fifty bucks...
Since I was a kid I haven't shed more than a couple of tears at a time. And now I weep...
I guess it's best to start at the begining. My current (I think) employers found me when I was still in high school and began training me in the work I've found that I love. I'm a lighting desinger and technician and I do a little pyro and rigging on the side. I aslo do staging. If any of you attended the centenial celebrations in Saskatchewan this summer odds are I had something to do with it. I've been making sacrifices in excess of anything resonable for four years for these people because I love what I do. Since I was sixteen everything else has taken a back burner in favour of my work. The summer is our bussy season and it's not unheard of for us to work far too hard in the warm months. When the work is there, you work. This last summer was particularly hellish however. I use the term summer but realy it was about five months.
It started with a trip to Prince Albert in northern Saskatchewan. On this little adventure it rained constantly. For three days the water was comming down. We had to build a stage, roof audio and light system out in the middle of a feild and the low end of a small valley like area. For three days we toiled at this and I was bussy enough that I couldn't change my clothes. I was drenched from the moment we started untill the end. The ground was wet enough that entire sections of the stage were sinking and on top of that the tie downs for the roof were pulling out of the ground and we had to redo them every intermision. Not an easy task and by no stretch of the imagination a safe one. Holding on to a steel cable that can work as a grounding wire right in the middle of a lightning storm is stupid but I did it because the job required it. Part way through the storm one of the lines on the audio towers began to shift. The rain was coming down so hard it hurt and the winds could knock you over at ground level. On top of that the storm was so close that you could hear the thunder clap befor the flash from th lightning disipated and there was a tornado touching down in a small town seventy five kilometers away. Despite all of that. Despite the very real danger of death I climed a forty foot tall galvanized steel tower with watter coming of the ladder holds like niagra, and secured the fifty foot long steel cable because that's what needed to be done. I was at the top of the highest point in a wide open field in a lightnig storm that was so close you could taste the ozone when a strike happened because I had to be there to keep the crowd safe from a two tone audio rig that could have blown over if I had hesitated.
On top of all of that. I watched a very good freindship die because two people refused to listen to eachother.
That was the first and easiest gig of a five month season.
Just recently my mentor (for lack of a better term) spent the morning in meetings with the owner of the company. When he came out he made one statement to me.
"Go to school. There is no future for you here. There is no future for anyone here. He dosen't care about his boys anymore."
Shortly after that I got my christmas bonus. IT WAS FIFTY FUCKING BUCKS!!!
I went through hell a dozen times for the fucking cheap bastard and never once asked why.
I put myself in situations that no human being should risk being in because that's what needed to be done to make him money and make his fucking name famous.
I continued working after fifty two hours because that's what it took to finish the job.
I ignored physical shock when I nearly lost three fingers because no one could take my place.
And I got fifty bucks for a christmass bonus... I likely made him much much richer... and fifty bucks...
Since I was a kid I haven't shed more than a couple of tears at a time. And now I weep...