The Trouble with Paperwork

[MatthewShiner]

So, if people follow my posts, they know I have been burned in the past with paperwork being stolen by other stage managers (taken without permission, given to other stage managers, etc. . . ), that I have become ever so shy about sharing paperwork.

There is a couple reasons for this - the paperwork I use has been put together by my team, and by adding improvements when working with new team members.  Also, stage managers are, like it or not, in competition with each other at some point.

Today, funny story, a very early career stage manager submitted a resume and some paperwork samples, I asked to see the word version of the PDF document he sent - and sure enough, my name was on the author page (I suspected as much).  This is one of the reasons that when hiring someone asking for paperwork samples is sort of pointless.  They probably got it from someone else, who got it from someone else. 

[hbelden]

Full disclosure: the contact sheet I used right out of grad school was indeed an M. Shiner original.

Particularly with Word, each of us makes adjustments on the fly for particular needs, and it's not too long before incremental changes calcify on top of an original document.  I've had to rebuild my templates from scratch quite a few times in my career, to end problematic tabs and unaligned tables.  So, the cleanliness of a tenth-generation digital copy at least points to a candidate's proficiency as an end-user.

Seems to me you might have a unique opportunity here to see how your work has been adapted on a very granular level, how well this applicant understands the underlying structure of your paperwork, and how easily he or she might fall into line with your process going forward (if you expect this member of your team to be maintaining documents you originate).  Plus, as a bonus, you've got evolutionary proof here that you're the Ionazzi of the Microsoft age!

Of course, I totally agree with your thesis that paperwork quality is a crude evaluation tool.  Shouldn't be treated as anything more than a very low bar of entry.

[SamanthaR]

You made me curious to go back and look at my shift/run sheets and was entertained by the origin date of 2004.  I hadn't realized just how long I have been riffing/tweaking/honing the same document.  It is a variation of a document that had been handed down from one psm to another over the seasons at a theatre I worked at many years ago. 

[MatthewShiner]

LOL - don't get me wrong, I am fine with paperwork being used with permission - I was able to quickly track down how this piece of paperwork got into that persons hand and back in my inbox.

It happens.



I just think Paperwork is a poor indication of a stage manager skills, unless it is a unique piece of paperwork solving a specific issue . . . like, tracking for a show like "House" and "Garden", or something like that - where I could see some independent thinking.

But otherwise, any sort of paperwork submitted I toss out, since I don't know where it originated from.    (And, anyone picking up a production book of my mine, if they were impressed by the paperwork, I would have to tile my hat to the team, since very few pieces of paperwork were created by me . . . usually contact sheet, daily call, calendar and sometimes scene by scene set up . . .)

[Mac Calder]

I tend to look at paperwork examples holistically. I think asking to see an example of X, Y and Z is pretty close to useless.

Show me a production book (not just a calling script) with perhaps a couple of pages of script, some of the rehearsal reports, show reports, minutes of production meetings and all the documents you need to mount a show - including documents provided by other departments.

Anyone can make a form - but it takes a specific mindset to create a system of work that is efficient, easily understood and efficient. It also takes skill to take a large amount of information provided by other people and make is usable.

[sievep]

I find this thread absolutely fascinating.

I don't understand why someone else using your paperwork formatting is anything but a compliment.  I'm not trying to take value away from the time and work that may have gone into an individual's paperwork formatting, but it's just paperwork.  This is not our greatest contribution to the industry or the production we are currently working on.  It's ink on paper.  Or just data floating around on a dropbox server somewhere.

Maybe the difference is that I work mostly in opera.  Every company I go to has their own formatting, font, color paper, etc that I have to use.  I'm almost always given a template to use that was authored by someone else.  In smaller, regional houses, I have a library of previous paperwork and I generally just find the clearest or most nifty formatting I can find quickly and start the process of data entry. 

I don't understand why it seems that some of us are so precious about our paperwork format.  It's not a bad thing, it's just something I don't understand.  If anyone wants to explain it, have at.

I just have this mental image of Gollum rifling through pages of Running Sheets in the gloom of his cave.

[KMC]

I find this thread absolutely fascinating.

I don't understand why someone else using your paperwork formatting is anything but a compliment.  I'm not trying to take value away from the time and work that may have gone into an individual's paperwork formatting, but it's just paperwork.  This is not our greatest contribution to the industry or the production we are currently working on.  It's ink on paper.  Or just data floating around on a dropbox server somewhere.

Maybe the difference is that I work mostly in opera.  Every company I go to has their own formatting, font, color paper, etc that I have to use.  I'm almost always given a template to use that was authored by someone else.  In smaller, regional houses, I have a library of previous paperwork and I generally just find the clearest or most nifty formatting I can find quickly and start the process of data entry. 

I don't understand why it seems that some of us are so precious about our paperwork format.  It's not a bad thing, it's just something I don't understand.  If anyone wants to explain it, have at.

I just have this mental image of Gollum rifling through pages of Running Sheets in the gloom of his cave.

I tend to agree with you.  However, one could make the principled argument that a specific process or workflow is a competitive advantage over competitors (other freelance SMs...)

[MatthewShiner]

It depends if the paperwork is just a form or is content driven.

For example, I have a pre-production thru closing checklist I put together since I started freelancing - it's all content, and it's part of who am I, my style, and how I work - it's a pretty dang valuable piece of a paperwork, and helps me be a better stage manager.  Taking this document is not a compliment at all.

Taking my prop list, my contact list, and using the format with your own content is a bit different.

Here's the thing to think of . . .

Take it out of stage management.

A designer puts together a sound design for a show.  Not only with content, but with a specific way of building the show.

And then a younger designer uses the same sound design for another production of the show.

You see the problem with that, right?

My paperwork is part of my stage management style, and if you want my paperwork, you should hire me, or my team.  It's put together with my knowledge and experience of (gulp) 28 years working as a stage manager (and god knows how long working in theater now).  And then to pass off my work as your work.  Not cool.

Lastly, my paperwork is usually put together by my entire team, so I always feel protective if a piece of a paperwork is lifted from us - because I feel like it's stolen from my team.  I have one assistant who is very proud of some of his excel and filemaker forms . . . I would NEVER share those with anyone else since I know the hours he has put into making them work just right.

Again, it's all of matter of perspective.  If you like the paperwork, and want to us it, ask, just don't take.  I am very generous in letting people use the forms, especially members of my team as they go out and do more work.  And my paperwork is used at a lot of former theaters I have worked at as a resident guy, but I was reimbursed.

I guess you either see the paperwork as a result of your hard work and experience - a particular way of working, organizing and communicating, or you just see it as ink on paper.  I see it as the first way, not a gollumesque way of hoarding over paperwork - that is not me nor my style at all (in reality, I only usually do Calendars and Contact sheet - my team does the rest). 

The point of this post, judging a SM by a paperwork sample in an interview scenario is pointless.  It could just be the format the school/theater/organizations uses.

[Maggie K]

I recently had an interview where the production manager asked a number of questions about how I put my reports together and how detailed they were.  At the end of the interview he asked if I could send him an example of one of my reports from a previous show.  I dug through my files and sent him one that showed some of the things we had discussed in the interview but had nothing that revealed sensitive or confidential information.  This was the first time I've been asked about my paperwork in a long while.  However, judging from the questions he was asking, I gathered that one or more of the previous stage managers at this particular theatre weren't sending out very informative reports and he wanted someone who would handle it differently.  It was rather interesting to have someone with such a specific interest and who was more interested in the content then the format.

In most situations I don't think that sending paperwork examples is very useful for the same reasons others have listed but also because I'm not sure that most people really look at them.  Your resume, cover letter, and interview usually tell me what I want to know.  Having a fantastic way of putting a prop list together may be interesting but it's not going to be the reason I hire you.  The situation I describe above is one of the few times I felt that an example was useful and only because it was requested and he was looking for something specific.