I have spent the last week working on the show that I will assist on in San Diego. It's a great opportunity to work with a Tony Award winning designer who will potentially be able to hire me for future jobs.

I was originally only supposed to work on the show once tech rehearsals started. However since I am living in NYC and the final design planning was being done in NYC I offered to help. The catch, I don't get paid for my work in New York. My contract doesn't start until September 9, in San Diego. I have to admit that I did volunteer to help, mostly because I thought it would be a great learning experience. I have done large shows but none this size, and the chance to learn new and better ways to do something is always a good thing.

So fast forward to today. The final designs were due in San Diego at 8 a.m. Pacific time. I was in the studio until almost 2 last night and just before I left I was asked to come in this morning to help check for errors so that everything could be turned in on time. So I carted my ass back into the studio this morning after a mere 4 hours of sleep, thinking we would churn this puppy out and be on our way. Only when I got there the plans hadn't been printed yet. So there was nothing to proof. I worked on a few things but ended up just surfing the web until S.T. came back with the hard copies. By this time it's almost 12:00 and the plans are an hour late. We red-line the drafting and he starts to make the corrections while I check for other errors. This goes on until we have corrected everything.

It's now 1:45 and there is now a car downstairs waiting for S.T. because he's flying home today. So over the course of the next fifteen minutes he starts making lists of things for me to do once he is gone. Make copies of this. Print that. Run get the new hard copies and drop them off at the designer's. Draw up new plans of this. Mail the rest my computer to me because it won't fit in the box. The list went on and on and by the time we got him into his car I had enough stuff to keep me busy for the next week. At this point I stopped learning. I have now become the errand boy. And I am not getting paid.

Before you start, and I know you are going to, it's too late to put a stop to it. The minute I volunteered it became too late. The designer doesn't care and won't get involved in money issues. The production company won't pay me because they didn't want to hire me at all once they found out I was moving to NYC. The assistant wants to look good to the designer so if that means making me do extra work so be it. And I'm left standing there with my list wondering what happened.

So today after S.T. was off to the airport I walked 20 blocks to pick up the new hard copies of the drafting. That wouldn't have been such a big deal except not all the files were received and I have to go back tomorrow. So why didn't I just wait and get them all at once. Well that's because S.T. insisted that the first round of copies be picked up today, just in case the designer wanted them. I then had to make myself available for the next 4 hours in case he called wanting them. So I picked up my drafting and wandered around the Village, and Chelsea, and Union Square until 6:30 waiting for him to call. Eventually I went to dinner with some friends and of course he called in the middle of dinner. I ignored the call.

Did Mr. Designer want the plans? Of course not. He doesn't want anything until he has a complete set, which he would like to have by 5:00 tomorrow. Which would not be such a big deal except my printer is in an office in midtown and I can't get it until after 12:00 p.m. tomorrow. So tomorrow I have to run get the printer, come back home print everything, go to the printers and get the final copies of the drafting and then arrange to meet Mr. Designer around 5. And that's just the first item on my list. Who knows when the rest of this stuff will get done.

Did I mention that I am not getting paid.

Oh and by the way...my soda was 1.25 today. I guess it's only 1.50 on the weekends.