The Unnecessarily Catalogued Fulltext Open Access Diary of an (Acting) Librarian Chapter 20

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Date: Another day of full moon
Weather: Tropics of Thunder

The entertainment business is as quiet as a cemetery at night. Everything seems so dead and depressing. For people who never managed to make into the inner circles, it seems that it is forever for them to get their hands on to anything. To be honest, sometimes I do wonder what’s the point of going through three years of drama school training when all those parrots and puppets in early evening soaps get more jobs than I do? Hugo is a great agent. He manages to get whatever I can do for me but then it seems that if I want to get somewhere, I need a major plastic surgery make over. I do have some Asian parts coming by from time to time but they all required me to put on a thick “Asian accent” otherwise I was not convincing enough. It seems that for some power brokers in the industry, if you don’t look good fit into their lead looks, you are just doomed in the business.

Yes I do sometimes moan over this inequality in the business, but then when I compared myself with what’s happening to those great teachers at the drama school, I know that it is really nothing.

It has been rumoured for some time that Succubus wants to get rid of Peter, one of the prominent acting teachers at the school and in the industry, for a while. She sees him as a big threat as he knows a lot more than she does in terms of acting training. So she eventually convinced the now de-functioned and useless Board to terminate his employment with one-year extension. What does that mean? It means that Peter will still be employed for another year but his function is to teach the new person all he knows before he leaves. At one of the staff meetings, Succubus publicly humiliated Peter in front of everyone by announcing that: “As you all know, I will not be renewing Peter’s contract. We will employ better and more professional people for his position. But to show that we respect his expertise, he will extend his current contract for another year so he can teach his replacement what he knows before he goes”.

Everyone’s jaw dropped to the floor. Not because of Peter being fired so publicly but the disrespect Succubus showed in the whole thing. Succubus was so happy with her shaming stint that people said that she was in great mood for the rest of the week. Everyone felt very sorry for Peter but then there isn’t much anyone can do, as now the drama school is no longer a paradise people with creative passion but a torture chamber.

Torturing seems to be in fashion lately. In the case of the drama school it is the management against staff and in the library’s case it is the union against the management. I sometimes can’t really understand why people have that much time to play politics in workplace. Then again even in a production crew there are people who don’t like each other. The union saga at the library continued since the newsletter. George has now distanced himself from me completely since the last face off. But that didn’t stop him from going around campaigning against the management about the new wing. He even organised a meeting for a selected few (of his core supporters) as a public condemnation against the tyranny of the management over the consultation process. Out of 150 library staff, 12 turned up. 8 were his supporters 4 were people trying to find out what the hell he is doing. As reported back from people, the whole meeting was basically accusing the management of things that have no grounds to be accused of. When someone pointed out the opposite, George simply dismissed him or her as misinformed or shamed him or her as lack of support for the grass root people in the organisation. Seriously, I really have a stronger feeling everyday that the so-called union in the library is a just a scam program for idiots. There were times that I think George should start a cult with those 8 idiots at the meeting and he could be the next “big” cult leader. I have started documenting all these stupidities with the union and discussed with a few friends from drama school that maybe we can produce a satire out of it.

Anyway, I do think that some people need to be trained in a harsher environment to make their perspectives right. Maybe George and his followers should be thrown into the media world (or even the drama school now) and work their asses off there so that they can eventually appreciate how good a life they have in the library. As for me, they are just rich writing materials for personal pursuits.

The Unnecessarily Catalogued Fulltext Open Access Diary of an (Acting) Librarian Chapter 20

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United or Divided?

Date: Labor's Day
Weather: Quaker

I have been a member of Equity for years now. As an independent actor, even with the help of a good agent, you’ll need to cover yourself from unlawful and shameless shams from certain people. Equity is where you place your trust in. They ensure that actors do not get ripped off by greedy media giants and we got what we deserved. Hugo is a huge fan of Equity and encourages everyone under him to join. With a major agent like Hugo and the protection of Equity, I can sleep well through the storms of the media industry.

However working in the library is something else – especially for a university library. Yeah I heard stories about people got redundant during bad financial times but then who doesn’t? Anyway since my uni days I’d heard a lot about university unions and some of their bullish behaviours. There was one semester that my friends at another uni told me that he couldn’t re-enrol because some stupid faculty members wanted higher pay (as if they weren’t paid enough already) and more autonomy (as if they were not autonomous enough already) so they refused to hand over their marks unless the university yielded to their demands. He told me these “academics” were giving out pamphlets outside the library asking for students’ support and condemning the tyranny of the vice-chancellor. The irony was they were terrorising the future of their students with the same tyrannic collateral damage approach. So who is the bigger terror, who knows? But I digress. Working at this space ship library never failed to amaze me. Lately we received a newsletter from the union, whom I’m not even a member of telling us how they are not happy with the management and demanded us to file complaints about the ill-practice of the management. I was really scratching my head when I got the newsletter. Being a part-timer and contract staff, I never really paid attention to what’s going on around me in the library. Partly because I’m not interested and partly because I don’t really hang around with people there.

So what’s the newsletter about? It’s about the extension the library is building to accommodate more students (nowadays universities are just opening up more full-fee paying seats to earn more income). Staff members will also be moved to the new extension so the current areas can be re-zoned for student use. So what’s the union fussing about? On the newsletter was a list of “charges” against the management. As usual, connotations of tyranny was littering all over the place. But some of the funny things I spotted were like “Don’t like that I need to go through another door to go to the staff toilets” (which is exactly what they are doing now) and “Showers should be marked clearly where it can get wet and where it cannot” (what the?). Oh another funny thing was “I heard that there will be CCTV to monitor our work and I don’t like that”. I couldn’t stop laughing when I read those accusations. All I could think of was these people really don’t know how good they are having and just want to waste their lives complaining about things that nobody cares. And the whole conspiracy of CCTV monitoring their work is just ridiculous. If they were actually doing work instead of spending time putting that kind of stupid newsletter together, why would they even be scared of being monitored. Further, the CCTV has nothing to do with the library but a security code the university has to comply with for the building. So where did that imagination of them being monitored by the management through the CCTV come from is beyond normal people’s comprehension. Sometimes I do think that these union people could use their brain power to write a good thriller and maybe that could become the next Australian blockbuster.

However, the union didn’t stop there. They even sneakily went around in the staff room during lunch hours to propagate their cause (which for me has no reason for that “cause”) to solicit support against the management. One day when Claire and I were chatting in the staff room during lunch, George the union leader in the organisation came to pester us to sign the petition. I told him I’m not interested and he immediately lectured me in front of Claire of how selfish I am and thinking that as a part-timer these important issues did not concern me. I was so annoyed that I told him to fuck off and said: “if you hate this place that much maybe you should go somewhere else to work. But then again, with your ability and attitude, I don’t think you’ll last a minute in the real world. Only a workplace like this will tolerate people like you who spend your day demonising the management while getting pay cheques from them every fortnight.”

The whole staff room went quiet and everyone was looking at me. Claire was trying not to laugh and working her ass off to pull a straight face together. Shocked by my remarks, George walked away embarrassingly. I never saw his face near me since then.

Back to the drama school. Things had gone from bad to worse since Leonard left. When I ran into one of the administration people there one day at the uni café, she told me that on top of a deficit, a number of high profile donors have retracted their support for the drama school and some well-known figures in the arts industry have informed the drama school that they have changed their wills and wrote the drama school off their lists. The Board starts to get panic about these but Succubus was not concerned. She said that the drama school doesn’t need these people as she knows other better industry figures. I don’t know how this whole fiasco is going to end but certainly from other people I know, none of them think the drama school has a bright outlook.

However, I don’t really have time to think about the drama school that much as I’m working hard to further my acting career – at least to get out of this space ship and do some real work in the real world. Went to a friend’s play the other night and ran into some important figure at the post performance drinks. We got along really well and were surprised to find out that we love the same things and have the same wicked humour. We exchanged our business cards and he told me to keep in contact cos he probably has something in the pipeline with a major Hollywood figure that I could get involved. I was ecstatic about the whole unplanned outcome. Hopefully this could mean a breakthrough of my acting career.