Production: On Confidence

Confidence is a funny thing. It can be so hard to have and so easy to lose. You can be confident when you should be careful, fearful when you're really fine.

Normally I'm fairly confident in my abilities. I know how to do my job. I like to think that I do it well. However, I have moments where I'm not so sure. On the first day of a new job, at moments when I have to talk to new people (especially "Important" people), in the occasional interview, if I've made a mistake. I'm certainly not infallible, I do make mistakes. But then again, who is and who doesn't?

There was this thing that happened today that made me feel not more confident per se, but it did make me realize I need to be a little less hard on myself.

First, back track to a year and a half ago. I had just moved to LA and was just wrapping on my first big feature (Kids in America now apparently Young Americans). It was my last week in the office and that week I was working with Accounting since Production had all ready wrapped. I had been working on the show since January and I knew all of the ins and outs, all of the little quirks. However, that last week as the sole Production person left, I found myself increasingly nervous that I was making mistakes. I would send the APOC (Assistant Production Coordinator) silly IMs about questions I really knew the answers to. I just didn't trust my own judgment. He was mostly patient with me, only giving me a hard time once when I asked him a really silly question about the fax machine ("What am I, a Xerox manual?"). It was just that being alone stripped away a measure of my confidence.

Come back to the almost present. Last week I had a brief interview for my new job. It's a job I know how to do. I know how it works. It's my first time officially doing it but there really isn't anything that's new to me. Doesn't mean I wasn't nervous during the interview. There was a lot riding on it. I was exhausted, having been well past the point of sleep deprivation, but mostly I was desperate. Desperate to get away from my previous place of employment where things had gotten so bad that I was ready to quit without having another job lined up. Regardless of whether or not the balance in my bank account would support me. Thankfully my interview panned out, after an incredibly awkward first fifteen minutes that stemmed in part from my lack of confidence. Lack of confidence can cost you jobs and has cost me one or two (House and Entourage come to mind. House I would have loved, Entourage wasn't really a position I wanted which I think came through in the interview as well). Luckily this time I was able to pull myself together and by the end of the interview everything was gravy.

Jump up to yesterday. My first day. Nothing major happened but I found myself taking two to three times longer to complete tasks than I normally would. Because of confidence. Insurance Certs? No problem! But... did I fill it out right? Am I sending it to the right person? Do I need to make X number of copies? It was all just first day jitters and now today I'm rolling right along. I feel confident :)

What happened this morning though that made me think of all this? Well, at my last job it was my responsibility to book cars for the talent to and from set during production. At some point in the late afternoon or evening the 2nd AD would call me or text me or IM me (or I would bug the shit out of him) and he would give me the times that the cars were needed for the next day. I would then book them and email everyone who needed to know the confirmations. It was a little bit of a process but not rocket science by any means.

My last day at the old place was Monday and to get them going I booked the cars for Tuesday and CC'd the 2nd AD (and several other people) on everything so he could see how it went. He's a smart guy, it's nothing he can't handle. Yesterday went fine and I didn't hear from him. Until this morning.

8:45 AM I miss a call from him. I call him back about ten minutes later.

"Hey, what's up?"
"Yeah, I was trying to avoid this, but..."

He then went into a list of questions and concerns (mostly just concerns) about the car service. It really wasn't anything he couldn't figure out for himself. He called me because I knew what was going on. Because I could tell him right away if he made any mistakes. He called to be reassured. He called me for the exact same reason that I called my old APOC about the fax machine. Sometimes you just need a little back-up.

The last two days have just had me reflecting on where I've been and where I've now gotten. I remember naively thinking during that last week on Kids In America that I was ready for everything LA had to throw at me. That I would be on a new film in a matter of weeks (as it turned out it was a matter of months before I found my next job and even longer until I got another feature). That I would be promoted in a show or two. It took me longer for all of that, I learned so much more than I even realized there was to learn, I've had a million and one different experiences and grown professionally as well as personally.

There's still a lot more of all of that to be done but now I've actually made it to where I wanted to go. I've reached my first short term goal. It didn't happen yesterday. It happened today. I now officially have that title that is the first on a short list of titles I'm working to have. More importantly, people are trusting me. They're asking me the questions I used to ask others. And now, I'm the one with the answers (or at least a lot of them! Can't be too cocky here, I still have plenty of my own questions).

Don't get me wrong, the last months, the last weeks especially, have been incredibly hard. Again, both professionally and personally. There are several very good reasons why I haven't updated this blog more in the last few months. I don't know if things are turning around now but in the optimistic atmosphere that I seem to be finding myself in (due in part to the historic election results from last night) I feel like maybe I can start to relax. Maybe things are heading back up.

Either way, this is pretty rad.