Post-leave blues

It's disgusting. To think that this morning I encountered the worst hell I'd ever experienced in my entire year at this company, when as recently as last week, I was luxuriating in the sheer bliss of my long leave. I swear, today's shoot was the most accursed of all that I'd ever co-ordinated, rivalling even the one with a particularly divaesque pastor-turned-singer.

Settling the artiste was enough of a headache. Our first choice, an illustruous couple in local theatre, took a whole two weeks to decide that they would not be able to spare time for the shoot. Great, what the hell. After some discussion, we decided to approach a news presenter who had finally gotten married to her hunky boyfriend, formerly an actor and now a banker of some sort, not so long ago. At first she said yes, through a contact we used to informally sound her out. When we had gotten her okay, we formally sent in a request with details of the shoot to her manager. That was when she threw us for a loop by saying she'd changed her mind. Fuck. At this point, I was hyperventilating and ready to burst my already dilated blood vessels. So then my editor decided to try for another presenter personality, a sweet and demure-looking host of a morning show. I sent in another formal request to the same manager and we finally got the go-ahead, thereby ending the saga of the Unattainable Personality.

After the artiste was settled, I went ahead to block the dates and time slots of my photographer and styling team. Then, thinking that my ordeal was over, I sat back to relax and plan what I would do when I went on long leave. Then, most unfortunately, I got a call when I was on leave, about one or two days after Christmas, from my photographer saying he had just gotten a booking for a huge commercial job that he just could not pass up, the money being way more than the paltry sums that editorial jobs fetched. "Any way to change the shoot date?", he asked. I would have loved to kill him, but I magnanimously forgave him for saying Yes to money. So I called the artiste manager to check and thankfully, she said fine, we could go ahead to bring forward the shoot by a day. I called my photographer back and he said, "Phew, thanks so much!" But then, he called me back barely three hours later to say that he had once again gotten a call from an agency about another huge commercial contract for the new date, and could I speak to the artiste again? I said no fucking way, the artiste would get pissed off and blacklist the magazine for ding-donging her shoot date. And so, obviously feeling guilty about the whole trauma he put me through, he found me another photographer who used to work for him and I had to call my Art Director to check if she was comfortable with using a new photographer.

So that settled that, I thought with relief. I went on to enjoy what was left of my leave and finally went back to work today, with the shoot scheduled for the afternoon. And then the biggest bomb landed in my lap, I got a call around 11am from my hair and makeup styling team. "Hey, sorry but we can't send someone down today. There was an urgent last-minute assignment overseas. Hope you can find someone else." Click.

I was just flabbergasted. "You can't fucking do this to me!!!", I wanted to shout down the phone, but she'd already hung up. Nabeh, the bitch. Right, sorry, I don't usually profane here but I was so darn pissed. Anyway, that began a whole flurry of phonecalls to all our other hair and makeup contacts, but who would have time to accept assignments on such short, two-hour notice yah? Some don't even have time to do your jobs if you tried to book them three weeks in advance. Anyway, at about 1230pm, just one and a half hours before the shoot, we finally struck gold. Well, maybe copper or silver instead since the girl was relatively untested, like the photographer. And I had to promise her an exorbitant sum for the last-minute notice. But the important thing was, there would be someone to do hair and makeup; it'd be unthinkable otherwise!

So at 1230pm, my co-ordination ordeal finally came to an end, although I was unable to stop worrying fully only when the shoot started and everybody who had to be there had turned up. And by 530pm, we had wrapped up the shoot for the February issue. The flowers and mood were lovely, even if some poses were rather stilted and certain smiles somewhat forced. But considering all the obstacles I bumped up against while arranging the shoot, any kind of ending would be a most satisfying ending. I am SO not looking forward to the next one, damn...

This was me the whole morning. MegaS-T-R-E-S-S-E-D.