One of my clients has asked me to fly to the actual literal Cayman islands to do some real estate photography there. At first, I thought I would do it because, you know, it's not like I'm ever going to be able to go there with my own finances, and it's... the Cayman islands. 

But, tbh, the more I've thought about the more absolutely ass blasted with anxiety over it I am. It's making me think about my old job, and being unprepared, not being given clear directions, and having to navigate unfamiliar circumstances and places in order to satisfy unknown requirements for people I've never met or interacted with. The idea of once again hauling photography equipment on an airplane, but this time also doing it in an entirely different country, is exhausting me. 

There's not even a date for it yet because, you know, pandemic, but the mere thought of it looming in the future is starting to upset me. 

Part of this, of course-- and I'm going to use the t-word here because it's the only word I can think of to fit the feeling, is trauma from the convention circuit. I don't know how else to describe it. Like-- okay. Let me just walk this through from A-Z here so you can understand what this was actually like. 

Let's say it's Wednesday right now. Which it is. You get a phone call from a guy who hates you. He says, hey, need you to fly to Miami next Thursday. Get your stuff together. Here's what the phone calls were actually like. 

"You doing anything next week"

"Well, I... am working a shift at your other business"

"Doesn't matter, just blank it out of the schedule. You're flying out of Raleigh at 11am on thursday. Going to... I don't know the name of the hotel yet, I'll text it to you."

"Okay"

And then, maybe you would find out where you were going, maybe not. 

There was also a good chance you would have to meet someone in some random town in Georgia and have them drive you. Some random drug/or alcohol addict you've never met who is now going to control your every choice from where you eat to where you sleep etc etc. Maybe they'll bring hookers to the room, maybe not. They often did. 

So you fly out. Your company credit card doesn't work. No one answers their phone. It's 4am in Arizona and the rental cars are all gone, and you need to be at a place you don't know at 7am. Hope you slept on the plane. 

Also, it turns out the boards that were shipped actually weren't shipped. I also need you to find a camera store and buy a camera. Make sure you keep the packaging because you have to return it in 3 days, make sure they let you do that. The only place selling Canons is 2 hours away? You can make it. You're the guy right? If you don't make money you have to pay for this flight. 

You get a rental car at 6 am and drive directly to the job site. The event you were shooting at 7am is already over. They moved it an hour earlier because they could do that, it's their event, but they're also incredibly mad at you for missing it because Eloise got her lifetime acheivement award there and now she's already flown back to Houston. You stupid fucking idiot. I told you to be there at 7am. I tried calling you but you didn't answer. Sorry, it was on silent. 

You want to eat but there's no restaurants on this side of town because they build convention halls on the bad parts of town so they'll hopefully "rejuvenate" aka maybe white people will move in. You have to steal food from the hotel kitchen by just going back there and getting it, or you don't eat because they don't actually include you in the food orders for the convention. 

Your bags are all damaged from the flight. Your printer doesn't work. You didn't get enough printer paper. You ran out of order forms. They forgot to give you extra memory cards and they sent you the laptop that shuts down after every 60 prints, and you need to print 12,000+ photos. You still don't know what your return flight time is. No one is responding to any phone calls. 

This all happened. All this happened so many times. And my boss now is even less organized than Marshall was-- and that moron thinks you still work for him. He still calls you about work. And I'm supposed to go out of the country? With a $12,000 3D camera? I was nearly murdered in DC for less than that. 

I don't believe there's any way to do this where it ends well for me, but I have to do it. At least it'll be easy to talk someone else into it. Trip of a lifetime. All I need you to do is have never worked in this sort of business before so that you don't know any better.

Management means saying "do this" and not caring how it happens. We need the thousands of dollars, just do it. Who cares. Therapy is expensive and you're poor. 

I hate it.