Thinking through a Bad Fit

[lsears]

Tomorrow I'll finish a show at a theater that I probably won't work for again.  I imagine this thought is mutual.  This is the first time that I worked for this company and it simply wasn't a good fit.  There are ups and downs on both sides, but its the first time that I've been at a company where the culture of the theater was so vastly different from the attitude of my interview, the multiple conversations prior to me taking the job and the word of mouth I'd heard from past employees, all things I take pretty seriously when considering work for new places.

Not everything has been bad, and I keep circling back to the reasons I took the job and if they were in fact met - trying to clarify my expectations.  We've talked in other posts about what we look for in jobs or seasons and what I've learned is that when I put the non-work related reasons into work decisions I find the job less satisfying because the satisfaction lies outside of the work.  (That's a terribly awkward sentence, I apologize.) 

For example - one of the strong points of this job was the schedule.  36 hours a week, 6 performances a week with Mondays and Tuesdays off and no weekday matinees/understudy rehearsals/reason to be at the theater before 6pm, etc.  That sounded great because it lined up with the start of my teaching year so I could get students off to a clean start before moving onto more demanding shows later in the year.  What it actually means is that I'm quite happy with the time I can put into school but not happy with the show because I didn't accept the work for what the show had to offer me.  I liked the periphery which is great when I'm not at the theater but gives me a totally different attitude while I'm at work. 

I'm still processing - and am enjoying closing weekend - and thought others here may have had similar experiences.  One of the things I like about being freelance is that when relationships with theaters don't work out your contract already has an end date on it.  There's no rancor or drama with this one, the relationship will eventually end on its own.

[PSMKay]

Sounds look a post mortem is in order, even if just by yourself. Revisit the rehearsal calendar and your daily notes to remind yourself of the major events.  Find the events that emphasized your weak points or made you feel uncomfortable. Figure out common links. Look for missed opportunities that could have improved the situation.

[Mac Calder]

I have had this sort of discussion with a lot of my techs - the nature of where I am at the moment, a lot of the guys we get have only had 1 or 2 jobs before this one and very few have been in industry related jobs. We do corporate AV, so rostering is 24/7 as needed. For those who have never done corporate it is a big shock & no amount of explaining in an interview can really do it justice - some jobs just don't fit everyone.

Our company pay slightly less than a lot of other companies in the same industry around here as well, but we enforce some fairly strict work-time rules that others don't (12hr maximum shifts, minimum 10 hour break between shifts etc). Pay is normally the reason our guys want to go ($3 more an hour with a different company sounds great!) and the ridiculous shifts is generally why they come back.

When I end up having the "is this the right place for me" talks with people I usually encourage people to really think about both why it works and why it doesn't - and it seems that is what you are going through now. My motto is that whilst the grass may look greener on the other side of the fence, it is usually just a different brand of manure - if that manure works better for you, then jump the fence.

All jobs are about balance - the money versus the time commitments verses the scheduling versus the personalities you have to deal with versus the amount of bureaucracy etc - and all of these items are highly subjective and weighted differently - the old decision making trick of "count the pro's, count the con's which ever has more, wins" does not work - because one major con may be enough to sour the entire experience - just as one major pro may negate a whole bunch of cons.

It seems like you weighted the scheduling as very important to you, over and above the fulfilling nature of the show - now you need to decide (after doing a season) whether that weighting is correct or whether you need to put more of an emphasis on the show.

From a management side of things, if you give every employee a rating from -1 to 2 (1 being does the work of 1 person, -1 being major obstacle that creates enough work to almost justify employing another person) - dissatisfied workers are rarely more than a 0.7 on a value scale - so keeping employees satisfied is a big thing - If I could get every employee in my venue working hard like fully satisfied employees I could probably drop my labour requirements by 1/3. If your dissatisfaction with the role is impacting the quality of your work, despite the convenience of the scheduling, the bigest favour you can do to the theatre (and for yourself) is not working together again unless you can be sure you will be satisfied.

[MatthewShiner]

I wonder how much of the "fit" had to do with expectations being met or non-met - and would a second time be okay now that you expectations are based in reality? I find that often - the first time working with a company is so "Alice in Wonderland" - where you are trying to figure out what was it up, not stepping on people's toes, figure out how to get things done, while working on a show, get it up, and trying to make it all work.

Sigh.

[lsears]

These are exactly the kind of things I'm processing, thanks for helping me think through them. 

I've wondered about Matthew's point of simply adjusting to a new place and while I think thats absolutely a part of it I don't think it's all of it.  Bottom line for me is if I had known what I was walking into I don't think I would have taken the job.

Mac Calder's last point is the biggest reason I was uncomfortable there.  I could see my dissatisfaction begin to creep into the quality of work I was doing.  It's one thing for me to be unhappy at work.  It's another for me to lower the standards I hold for myself.

On the positive side, today was my first rehearsal at another theater and I feel so incredibly blessed to be there, it's exactly what I needed on the heels of this previous gig.