collism Posted July 6, 2009 Share Posted July 6, 2009 The quotation was 'interesting' to say the least. One of my collegues did an experian check on them - nothing came up. It was only doing extensive googling we realised that the dear old blue room had the answer - as a 'teen managing director' was indeed involved in said company. (in fact, IS said company) I wonder now many of these 'teen managing directors' will regret there earlier post on this site when they are old enough/ experienced enough to enter the industry properly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlyfarly Posted July 7, 2009 Share Posted July 7, 2009 There's already plenty of advice in here, about how to avoid getting stitched by cr4p clients in the first place, e.g. practice proper credit control; decide after the first three gigs, whether you want to work for them again. Read it, heed it and act on it... or stop moaning In a lot of cases the mysterious "bush telegraph" does its job admirably in the case of dodgy companies and uncaring, incompetant techs. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genus Posted July 7, 2009 Share Posted July 7, 2009 I think another issue would be in the event of a younger member fresh in the industry, all wet behind the ears (I like to think that my ears are drying slowly...) works for a company, it's not what they expect, or they have a rubbish day, get all hot and bothered and post in anger on the forum. At which point the post will (inevitably) get around to the hiring company and the angry kid (who doesn't yet know any better) could damage him employment prospects to the extent of never working again. We've all said things in anger that we later regret, and if there is a specific thread for people to essentially "slag off" companies, it's likely to turn into angry rants from people never likely to work again. (I say all this because I've come home from some work things, especially when I was 17/18/19 and been really p*ssed off at the world that I can imagine I would post in anger, especially if there's tacit approval for criticism of companies...) Genus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikienorth Posted July 8, 2009 Share Posted July 8, 2009 Union 'Ask First' Lists: It's amazing just how bad a company has to be to make it onto these lists (Or not) My partner did a tour in '07 and it went bust, owing her over £2k and others even more. Looking into it equity were not shocked, as the names involved in the company had done this before. Legal action by equity failed to produce any resolution. In fact, using the same company name and with some careful name changes and dubious timing of dissolution and formation of companies managed to continue trading. (One company announced a tour, which then headed for the road with a different but similar company name touring it) The company that went bust on my partner then finished a second tour owing cast and crew money. The company stung along with my partner had asked for this name to go on the ask first lists. Even after legal action failed, it was still not added to the lists. It was too risky for the unions. If it had, others may not have been stung (again) including a friend of mine (I got to know him after his unfortunate experience). My advice. Before ANY job, if you are in any way unsure (no reputation, unknown to you, anything smell funny) JFGI. Google can prevent hardship further down the line. Had we properly googled the producers involved, she might not have taken the tour, or would have taken it knowing the risk and acted accordingly. Not just the production company name, the name of ANY person you have remotely connected to the gig. We found out they 'had done this before' by doing that when it was too late. Mike PS, the last gig I know of by these was last year and was a musical. Previous was a farce, not just in how it was run. Pm for more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Some Bloke Posted July 8, 2009 Share Posted July 8, 2009 Union 'Ask First' Lists: It's amazing just how bad a company has to be to make it onto these lists (Or not)Indeed. The MU also have an "ask first" list and when my latest newsletter arrived I found on the list a company I've worked for several times with no problems at all. I don't know what got them on the list but I'd be very surprised if it was anything major. I certainly would continue to recommend them to others. Works both ways! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JazzAV Posted July 13, 2009 Share Posted July 13, 2009 There is no problem I guess of writing about good experiences but I think writing bad stuff about companies will never be a good thing. We are an AV rental company and look to pay freelancers within 2-3 weeks and have always met this deadline. However someone's invoice goes astray or we get 6 months worth of invoices in one go many months late (you know who you are :() and it can be difficult to meet the payment deadline. My partner and I left a company that we could no longer work in, one of the reasons was their treatment of freelancers, paying very late and phoenixing to leave some freelancers £1000s out of pocket (while the MD still turns up in his highly expensive car of course). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted July 13, 2009 Share Posted July 13, 2009 Much as I started out saying we shouldn't name names - I've just run a statement run and discovered one of my clients owes me over £3500, and seems to have 'mislaid' all the invoices. Now I'm aware, it's odd my attitude to naming and shaming has changed. However, is this just anger! (and anger with myself for not noticing!!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Germaine Posted July 13, 2009 Share Posted July 13, 2009 I think that what most members have said is very true and that a positive 'who's good?' approach is better than a name and shame one. Being involved with a company who pride themselves on paying on time and looking after staff one of the things we were looking at recently was signing up to this Pay On time. As we already do pretty much everything in their code of practice, perhaps signing up to this and displaying their logos on our website is a good idea, and perhaps blueroom could support companies who do this in some way i.e. a links page or something. I'm not saying I have all the answers just some ideas. There does of course have to be some flexibility and when we're paying 30 day invoices on average in 15 we do expect our freelancers to understand that there will be occasions when it will take 30 days or due to human error someone will forget to forward an invoice until someone asks "where's my money?" 32 days down the line. Obviously the freelancer who's been paid promptly for the past 4 years usually can understand the above scenario. :( On a separate note please can members be a little more considerate when posting. I'm refereeing to this constant mention of 'Teen Managing Directors'. As someone who was a managing director just after leaving university I personally find the idea that a young person is automatically incompetent and untrustworthy to be very narrow minded, and the reality is that idealistic is often a more honest description. In my personal experience the bigger companies run by older more experienced people tend to be the ones who will tell you they're not paying you until they've been paid and those run by 'Teen directors' will be the first to put their hand in their own pocket and live on pot noodles for the next 30 days. I'm not suggesting that all young people in the industry are brilliant so please don't quote 101 examples of how I'm wrong I'm just saying that it's unaceptable to state that all old people smell of wee so why should it be ok to say young people in the industry are untrustworthy and dishonest. Apologise if this needs to go into a seperate topic. The views expressed above are my personal opinions and are not necersarily that of any organisation I'm involved with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob_Beech Posted July 13, 2009 Share Posted July 13, 2009 All old people covered in wee smell of wee. There is a point to that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lightsource Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 On a separate note please can members be a little more considerate when posting. I'm refereeing to this constant mention of 'Teen Managing Directors'. As someone who was a managing director just after leaving university I personally find the idea that a young person is automatically incompetent and untrustworthy to be very narrow minded, and the reality is that idealistic is often a more honest description. You're missing the point there, as has been pointed out in the past in various BR topics, there are a few people running 'production companies' including 'professional' sound and lighting services who are between the ages of 14 to 17. Remember the word TEEN starts at 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emsgeorge Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 With regard to 'teen managing directors' - I'm referring to someone who according to their website could provide for all my needs - yet trades from their parents home, only has a mobile number for contact, isnt registered with companies house, has failed to provide an employers liability or public liability certificate so far. And the biggest thing - they provided a quotation without even knowing the size of event !. As I said before - extensive googling found the truth out - all thanks to the blue room. I didn't even realise that they posted on here. Having read some of the comments, I realised that they were totally incapable of delivering what we needed, and was about 15 years old. I have no problems with people who start out as a proper company. As long as they are older than 15. What would of happened if I got to said event - and my 'professional lighting company' was loading hired kit out of daddies car ?. How professional does that look to my client !!!. Misleading at the very best - possibly fraudulent at the worst - and certainly wont get me another job with that client. And yes, I'm particually peed off that I wasted time sending emails backward and forward, attempting to get a proper quote out of said company.(I should of realised sooner). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Germaine Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 Firstly Apologise to the moderators for this going so off topic. If I knew how to move this to a new topic myself I would. To respond to Rob Beech's point, you are quite correct, my point is it's not necesarily correct to generalise and that on the whole both statements are not accurate. But yes I accept that there are good and bad out there. Sorry Lightsource have never seen this mentioned before, but then again I only read topics that interest me, a google search of the forum doesn't seem to pull up much on the phrase if anything. I am aware that the word teen includes 13, how wrong of me to generalise teen to mean 13-19 and then apply a factor of reality with there being a skew to the upper end of this range. Ok I admit I'm being a little sarcastic based on the previous post and I will say something more constructive below. Our office recently got a visit from a very well known lighting company who everyone hear know of. We humbly suggested that we were too small to be of great interest to them to which they pointed out that they started of in a garage. The point is even the greats don't start of by spending 1.7 million on kit and staff and then sit by the phones for the massive jobs to come in. If they have any sense they start small get the formulae right and grow with the demand that comes from achieving high standards at good prices, these companies may have once turned up on site with an estate car and if you don't want to work with a company like that then that's fair enough you're the client. I admit that the company 'emsgeorge' dealt with do sound particularly rubbish but for every teen managing director out there there are 10 amateur dj's claiming to be full events companies which would be equally embarrassing if you'd booked a full lighting rig from them and they'd turned up with something below par expecting full rig rates. I just think that any scenario where you only have a mobile number and your working with a company you know nothing about needs close consideration and research, ask the right questions as emsgeorge did, i.e. insurance certificates etc and irrespective of age make a decision based on that. Does this mean that 90% of Teen directors may be discounted based on the above? I'd say probably yes but it also means you may help support the 10% that are building a small business. I just feel one of the problems in the industry is the attitude of "I've been doing this 20 years and no snotty nose kid out of uni/school/younger than me can tell me anything", for want of a better word this is arrogance and the above is no better than the uni kid who thinks he knows everything. I've been doing this since I was 16 and will happily listen to anyone who wants to give advice or supply a service and then make an educated decision based on that. Just because we may consider our self a technician it doesn't mean we have to be, macho, cynical, arrogant or infallible and the first three qualities are ones I see too often. I don't think I can make my point any more politely or say anything that can't be rebutted with an antidote of some kid 10 years ago in the middle of nowhere who did something wrong so I won't continue with this topic. I just hope some of the many cynics can reflect on what has been said and have a slightly more open mind. Hmm, I think I might be being idealistic again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lightsource Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 Sorry Lightsource have never seen this mentioned before, but then again I only read topics that interest me, a google search of the forum doesn't seem to pull up much on the phrase if anything. I am aware that the word teen includes 13, how wrong of me to generalise teen to mean 13-19 and then apply a factor of reality with there being a skew to the upper end of this range. I just feel one of the problems in the industry is the attitude of "I've been doing this 20 years and no snotty nose kid out of uni/school/younger than me can tell me anything", for want of a better word this is arrogance and the above is no better than the uni kid who thinks he knows everything. I've been doing this since I was 16 and will happily listen to anyone who wants to give advice or supply a service and then make an educated decision based on that. Just because we may consider our self a technician it doesn't mean we have to be, macho, cynical, arrogant or infallible and the first three qualities are ones I see too often. I don't think I can make my point any more politely or say anything that can't be rebutted with an antidote of some kid 10 years ago in the middle of nowhere who did something wrong so I won't continue with this topic. I just hope some of the many cynics can reflect on what has been said and have a slightly more open mind. Hmm, I think I might be being idealistic again There are no disagreements there. This is not something I would usually post, but a someone I know recently posted a 'tour blog' on her MySpace, from a reasonable sized tour, and there was some interesting reading............ Quoting KSC's blog........ Well the tour is over. I have learned a lot about the toilet tour circuit. Being house engineer in a big venue I know how shows run and how to make the situation work with the help of the touring engineer. I'm honestly shocked at the state of the lower end of the touring market. I have been here before as an engineer with club bands. But a few of the attitudes of people shocked me. Few things that really have shocked me. Firstly as a touring engineer coming into a venue, house engineers are there to help. They would piss off at changeover and be outside smoking rather than doing the change over. That really got on my nerves. Because Nothing on stage was marked up as to what was what. They seemed to have no pride in their work. A few of the younger engineers I encountered were college students wanting to get in to the industry working at the venue at weekends or nights to pull in extra cash. However they still had the college student get pissed attitude. I don't mind someone having a beverage while working….. but to the point where they are drinking and NOT doing the job they claim they want to be doing. This is one of the best jobs in the world and they are working in a venue that has a few national touring bands. They have an opportunity to make friends and get out and work for the bands. But the stages were a mess and for some reason the engineers thought it was ok to have dodgy cables on stage. I know I'm generalising. There are a few exceptions on this tour. And a few that notably need a mention. House engineer at Cambridge Barfly was incredible, very good at his job. Tamworth Palace engineer was also great. There are a few more but I cant remember off the top of my head. KSC (as I'm referring her as) was the FOH engineer for a reasonable sized tour. Maybe this one should go back to the state of the Industry topic. I have also seen a lot of what she mentions myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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