I was talking to a friend of mine recently. He was telling me about the first (I think) person he had to fire, who was the second (I think) guy he ever hired. Basically it sounds like the guy had been around a while, and just started to become a prima donna…he would refuse jobs he didn’t want to do, and then go off and make phone calls. He’d show up late, drunk, the whole bit. Really nice guy. He’s a contractor, so he just told him to take a hike. And rightly so.

I’ve noticed this happening pretty regularly in the business, and I can’t really say what causes it. A series of bad days? The feeling that you’ve somehow mastered whatever it is you’re doing to the point where you no longer need to be doing it, and should instead be doing something way better, easier, yet higher-paying? I’m not sure, but I do know that these types can really be a fantastic anchor by which to yank the entire ship over the falls. Because as goes one asshole, so goes the crew.

This is how it goes down, generally:

Asshole A: “I’m not doing that.”

Normally-decent-worker B: [sees Asshole A, silently decides to himself] “Well if he doesn’t have to, I sure as shit don’t.”

Barely-competent-worker C: (who always says “I’m really a comedy writer, I just do this on the side,” but full time for about 4 years now): [thinks] “I wonder what’s on Comedy Central tonight?”

And so on down the line. A shit attitude really is more infectious than TB. If it sets in, it can get really dangerous.
Likewise doing things like arriving late. In situations where the pay is for the call, rather than for anything meritocratic, showing up 20 minutes late is pretty much like stealing from everyone around you. You’re forcing them to do your work, and then collecting the check.

There was a studio where one guy on the crew showed up 45 minutes late with appalling regularity. At that point, the floors had been swept, everything’d been prepped, the opening moves had been set up, the whole thing. And then he rolled in. He looked harried, sure, but…you know, show up on time, dude. Trains and roads run all night. Get up earlier. Not enough sleep is a curse of the business.

Or the guys who ritually only stand around and do the lowest caliber jobs – footing a ladder, sweeping, emptying the garbage – leaving everyone else to do the heavy lifting and work that actually requires thought or skill. They make the same money as the guys making the moves on the pieces, but have instead learned the secret…in some studios or theaters, you can skate by doing as little as possible, look busy, and get away with it. It really is too bad when it happens (and it doesn’t happen everywhere, thankfully) because it can poison the studio and quickly embitter the few crew members who simply refuse to go down the asshole path.

Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I’ve worked in one studio where the asshole was the head. He would disappear for hours, come in late, leave early…essentially what he did was force his crew to act as de facto heads, because he was never there to make a single decision, while he collected head’s pay. What happened was that everyone but one guy just fell right into line and said “well, fuck him…I’m not breaking my back just to save his ass.” That one guy then killed himself picking up the slack, because he was too good a guy to watch nothing get done, and didn’t want to have to suffer rushing through everything later on in the day.

Talk about poisoning a studio…alright, rant over.