Useless Freelancers

Wow. That guy I hired yesterday was like a bucket of poo in usefulness. I had three meetings in one day (it was four, one moved out to whenever) and needed some assistance. I called Joburg's most obvious freelance supplier to the world of production. Editors and researchers storyboard artists and writers and whatnot. I asked for someone who could print and mount pictures. Beautifully.

"Oh yes" said the stupid man who sends people. "I have just the person."
For the sake of not being a complete bitch, I shall call him Poopi, and not by his real name.
Poopi arrives, and by eight I had already been at work for an hour (eeuw to waking up early) and had printed all the pictures because I am a multi-tasking monster goddess. I give him the pictures to mount.

He takes fucking forever to CUT THEM OUT. I mean, come on. Does he not understand SERIOUS DEADLINES? Finally he gets it done, after my nervous running up and down the stairs many times to chase him politely along. He chops two pictures in half by mistake and I have to reprint. Finally he finishes with the cutting and starts to stick. And I am now convinced he has never actually stuck anything down on a board with sprayglue before. What a shit job. Skew, and grubby. Dirty fingerprints on so many of the pictures. The worst part is that we had no time to reprint and restick, so off my poor director went, with crappy skew and grubby presentation boards.

Fuck.

He was so crap, that I didn't even ask him to do the rest of the pictures for the next meeting. I did them myself. And left him in the office looking for video reference, because he made it quite clear that that was what he wanted to do, and hell, he was so crap with the sticking anyway. What choice did I have? Then the chatting started.

Freelancers - or freelance researchers anyway - have this irritating habit of chat chat chatting. I hire a freelancer because I am really busy and need somone to lessen the load. I don't hire them because I am lonely. I have a theory: Most of these retards are from film school and want to be directors. So when they finally get a chance to work at a production company, they are dying to prove how cool they are. To the detriment of my workflow. Here are some really awesome quotes from Poopi:

After telling me he studied writing and directing at film school, he ACTUALLY said: "You know, living the dream." He may have pulled a fist and dipped his head in reverance. I almost puked.

"I take my movie watching very seriously." There was no doubt he disapproved of my Harry Casual attitude towards movies. He even frowned at me.

I tried to chase him away at 4, so I could get some work done in peace. He said "No, I don't mind staying longer and helping out. It seperates the men from the boys."
"Oh, so you're calling me a man?" I asked in reply.
Then he left at 5. Ha ha. Big deal.

And on his way out the door he said: "Yes, I have to go and work on my script now." And then he hovered there in the doorway, begging me with his eyes to ask him about his script. I did not. I said "oh cool. Well, enjoy. Good bye."

The sad part is, there are too many Poopies in this world. Who have gone to film school thinking they will become hotshot directors, all of them with big attutudes and little talent. They are rude and irritating. With no concept of how being rude or snotty to one wrong person can end your career before it even starts. Not that I am in any way suggesting I have that kind of power. I just know it happens. And my opinion is to be friendly and respectful to everybody I meet. You never know who is going to teach you something amazing. But if you already think you know everything, how the hell are you going to learn anything?