Now, before I begin, I just want to point out that I got home a little less than an hour ago (it's almost 9pm now), and if I were to go to bed right now, I would only get 7 hours of sleep before I have to wake up again. So, that said, I'm going to try to keep this brief because I don't want to be a zombie tomorrow.
Today... was insane.
First of all, I had to get up at 4 in the morning in order to get to Milk by 8am (there's a bus that's supposed to get me to the city by 7:45, but you can never trust traffic, and I still have to take a subway and walk a few blocks after I get off the bus, so to be safe I had to leave a whole hour earlier). I know a lot of people have to get up early for work and that's just the way of the world, but be that as it may, you can't deny that being up and out the door a full two hours before the sun even rises objectively sucks. To add insult to injury, it was raining pretty hard when I left, and I didn't have an umbrella, so by the time I got on the bus, I was soaked.
Once I got to Milk, I went up to the equipment room on the 8th floor where I was immediately given some paperwork to fill out and a couple of pages to read of information for interns. One of them was an equipment cheat sheet, another was a sort of a checklist of responsibilities that I could turn to if there was ever a lull in the action and I needed something to do, but the other was entitled "Life Lessons," and was pretty much a list of "wakeup calls" to remind interns that their job here is to serve others and that no one cares about who you are or what you do, and no one has the time to help you "find yourself" (hence the Fight Club reference in the title--props to those of you who caught that). The people there, fortunately, were not nearly as unfriendly as the "Life Lessons" sheet, but the atmosphere was still very fast paced and high-stress, and I sort of got the feeling that after today, there wouldn't be much leniency on slip-ups.
The next 8 hours were spent lugging heavy equipment from various storage spaces to studios where shoots were taking place, cataloging all the transactions, cleaning, applying die-cut stickers to unlabeled equipment, and whatever else needed to be done. Not wanting to appear unprofessional, I chose to wear stylish, work-appropriate clothing and black flats, which turned out to be a mistake because my clothes got stained and torn, and my feet got blistered. I also apparently really need to learn to lift with my legs and not my back, because my lower back is killing me. Even my lunch break was rushed; they give interns a $10 coupon to a specific deli place in Chelsea Market, which takes about 10 minutes to get to (and 10 minutes to get back, which means 10 minutes to stuff your face on a half-hour break). And there were literally only two vegetarian options... I have a feeling those pesto wraps are gonna get old real quick.
Even though all of this sounds like complaining, I do have to say that maybe this kind of "assistant boot camp" will be good for me. It will certainly teach me about all sorts of equipment, but it will also teach me some basic rules of behavior for assisting. Assistants are like dutiful children who are to be seen but not heard, and should know what needs to be done before the photographer even asks. If, once I actually get into freelance assisting, I already have those skills down, it will make a big impression on whoever I'm working with.
Anyway, yeah. My first day was kind of hectic and impersonal. The guys there still call me Sabrina because I've been too polite to correct them, and--oh, that's another thing I forgot to mention... I'm the only female working in the equipment room. In fact, it seems that the only women in the building at all are either stylists, models, or receptionists. And when one of the guys added my page to the intern binder, all the pages he flipped through were of male interns too, so I guess it must be rare that they get a girl. I mean, given all the heavy lifting and stuff I'm not surprised that this job gets more men than women, but still.
Oof. Ok, other than that, I spent a lovely evening at Aleksandra's on Saturday night. She hosted a little get-together where we watched and discussed Winter Light (an Ingmar Bergman film) in honor of her late husband, Lebbeus (it was one of his favorite movies and had been on his mind a lot just before he passed away). I met a lot of interesting people there, mostly architects and faculty from Cooper Union who had worked with Leb, and as always, it was nice seeing Aleksandra again.
Alright, sorry this is kind of a hit-and-run post, but given how physically demanding this job is, I really can't afford to be sleepy tomorrow, so I'm gonna call it a night. Can't wait to get up in 6 and a half hours! Ha. Ha.
