So you’re probably asking yourself – What’s that photo of? Sadly, that’s my laptop bag, containing one 17″ Apple laptop, and one Macbook Air – my backup laptop. Why, pray tell, is it sitting in the middle of the sidewalk on 34th Street, next to a construction site and FedEx? Because that’s where it fell of my equipment cart being pulled to the Javits center in New York for the photo show.HOW THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN, you ask?
(Continued after the Jump)
It happened because of the assistant pulling the cart – #1 – was pulling it, not pushing it; #2 – didn’t want to be pulling it, because she thought that manual labor was beneath her; and, among the other reasons, #3 – she wasn’t paying attention to her responsibility – the safe transport of the photo equipment.It wasn’t until we had walked all the way into Javits, and were in an elevator, that *I* eyed my bag, and instantly recognized that it was missing. “Where the F*ck is my laptop bag?” I demanded? Looking up at my crews’ faces, I jammed my arm into the closing elevator door, and began a full sprint out Javits, south on 11th, looking at every persons’ shoulder to see if someone had picked it up. As I ran into oncoming traffic, at top speed, I was re-tracing my steps to where we were, at the Skylight Diner across from B&H on 9th, having breakfast. I was praying that it had just fallen off the cart amongst the tables and chairs there, and was (semi) safe. As I was running across the corner of 34th and 11th, I spied the bag. Sitting right there. For once I was thankful that this post-9/11 era meant that people were less likely to pick up a black bag with unknown contents. I breathed a sigh of relief that it was safely back in my hands.
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Originally published on Photo Business News & Forum on October 24, 2008. Comments are closed; this post is part of the archive.
I’m glad you didn’t suffer a heart attack and are still with us. Jeez. I would bet that your assistant will most likely from now on be the one who never loses anything again. I’d keep her.
And yeah, a little harsh in public on your assistant for this one. I don’t think we needed this blog posting. But keep up the other great stuff.
Thanks.
As to those of you who suggest I “carry my own bag”, first – it was a rolling cart, and second, that’s part of the assistants’ job – carrying the bags.
How did it end? She was not fired. She was told that if it ever happened again, she would be.
As to whether or not this blog posting was necessary – if I didn’t think it was, I wouldn’t have posted it.
— John
-joshua
I am perplexed. You promote yourself as the quintessence of professionalism in photography yet this post comes across as anything but professional. It feels more like an attempt to teach an assistant a lesson than to provide any constructive insight into the business of photography. I mean, this could have happened to anyone, even the Almighty Photographer.
The real lesson isn’t “pay attention,” it’s make sure to include the occasional accident into the price of doing business.
We are used to John posting about things he is doing right. I think its good that he’s willing to post when he’s doing something wrong as well.
For you anonymous cat’s out there who have come down on Johns way of handling this, I find your remedies so this does not happen again intriguing. “Carry your own bags”? Build into the cost of business for the “occasional accident”? Give me a freaking break. If you haven’t figured it out, it’s an assistants job to carry bags. And while they’re at it, PAY ATTENTION and provide the best service to their client (us) as possible. If feelings get hurt, either learn from the experience or call Dr. Phil.
Back when I assisted, if a client berated me in public, I took it and completed the job in a professional manner. After that whenever that client called I would already be booked on another gig. This would continue until the client took the hint. Assisting is a two-way gig. If respect isn’t part of the equation, then the value of the experience for the assistant is diminished. Sadly, John has belittled an assistant in public. If it were me, I would be “booked” the next time he called. In a marketplace as crowded with talent as this, self-respect is a key to success. Hubris, not so much
Where he describes what happened, which is actually just a small part of the post, he simply states the facts. She was pulling not pushing, was not paying attention, and felt it was beneath her… he didn’t call her lazy, or nasty, or use any other choice word… just simply stated his observation of the cause.
The rest of the post simply describes the journey in recovering the item.
Others have it right/wrong re assitants roles and public voicing of concerns…
1. assistants *are* there to do that work – that’s the point of the name ASSIST-ant.
2. If you mess up, get balled out, and choose to now longer work with that Photog that’s absolutely up to you… but I would suggest that if it were *your* $10,000+ bag of gear, you would be vocal too, so maybe you should re-think your role in the industry.
3. If assistants suddenly get annoyed at every “grumpy” or “abusive” artist, the selection pool would begin to get very small I suspect. Professionals with deadlines and pressure tend to need to “just get it done”, and that often translates to “leave manners at door”. Events don’t pause and wait politely whilst you calming request things, and politely wait for them to happen.
Just my take. Im not quite at the level where i require assistants in photog, but I have managed time critical IT teams… it’s the same really.
You get what you paid for.
— Vincent Thomas “Vince” Lombardi
Also by Coach Lombardi
“Build for your team a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another and of strength to be derived by unity.”
J
Personally, I think the glorious spanking he rendered back at the Paramount was well deserved. Trust me it was private!
BECKY
I, for one, learn something from everything you post.
THANKS.
Tim
Nevertheless, this post, coupled with another post on assistants (http://photobusinessforum.blogspot.com/2008/10/photographers-assistant.html), is unnecessarily disrepectful of your crew, and unfairly singles out one member of it.
Weren’t you all near the cart when if fell off? Why didn’t you ‘instantly notice’ it then? Did she ‘think it was beneath her’, or was it too heavy or poorly loaded for her to handle by herself?
I mean, really, these are just some simple examples of possible mitigators. Everybody’s human. People make mistakes, even, gasp, photographers. Which is why grace becomes more valuable the shorter the supply.
Would you have written this blog entry if you had left your laptop bag at the Skylight Diner? Even if you had, it’s one thing to self-deprecate, quite another to deprecate someone else.
As to whether you used her name, what difference does that make? She knows who she is, she knows you write a blog.
It does not single the assistant out in any identifiable way to anyone not intimately involved with the shoot, nor does it berate the assistant in question to any significant degree in my opinion.
The assistant f*cked up. I don’t think there’s any doubt in that. And, judging from the post, it was not an innocent mistake; it was an attitude problem. The carelessness that resulted from it was what caused the bag to be lost and it needs to not happen again. Ever.
This reminds me of the night I got out of a cab in front of my apartment and hours later noticed that my wallet was missing (I had around $200 bucks in cash plus my whole life in it). My gut feeling was the wallet was in the back seat of the cab. My first instinct was to call the cab company but then it occurred to me I didn’t know which taxi company it was. There’s probably 20 of them. I was very stressed out.
Then with moments notice, I went outside the building to trace back my movements. It was a cold winter night and there was plenty of snow that was cleared to the side. As I looked around I noticed a ray of light shoot down from a lamppost right down to my brown leather wallet sinking ever so slightly in a mound of snow!
All of the contents were still intact. Nothing missing. Only a little wet from the snow.
Now, I carry a smaller card holder with just the bare necessities and some cash, and I only put it in my front pocket or in a zippered enclosure.
Thanks for listening.
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