kakeux

Ouch! Sounds pretty sucky.

Hi Kak - Sorry to hear about your difficulties. I hope there is a good outcome, like you get paid and learn some things from the project! Thanks for describing what you do, and the parameters of the project. Good first blog! A blog can offer instruction or opinion, whatever you think might benefit someone else (and get your frustration out at the same time!). Working for a big company and big projects/contracts can be frustrating, with the leaders making decisions "by committee" and not much gets done or gets screwed up.

update from site....

the factory acceptance test is almost a disaster....I had to put in all the matrixes a new firmware 6 hours before the big show..And as you can imagine, thing didn't go smoothly...

I'm pissed....

Hopefully we get a delay, becasue experts were discussing a conception mistake thats has nothing to do with our work...

Hoping the next weeks will be less problematic...

Good luck, man!

"Under the shadow of the Ivory Tower ..." Hang in there man! The powers that be will drive you insane if you let them. You're doing your best and that's what counts!

I work for an Engineering company by day as well, and feel your pain - nothing worse than spending a a big chunk of time on a proposal or project only to lose out to a competitor or a contract loophole and not get paid for it - My goal is to keep it up as long as necessary until my income from recording/mixing etc. catches up or at least gets to some as-yet undefined threshold.

My wife stays home with our young kids right now so until they are in school, the studio thing is just income to buy more gear - I'm hoping once the kids are old enough she can land a sweet teaching job with good benefits and I can drop down to part time Engineer, and part time "Engineer" (as in, the fun, audio recording and mixing kind) - with an eventual transition (maybe in 10 years or so) to full time audio-dude.

The fact that Brandon did it in 8 gives me hope , as I'm just coming into my second year of taking clients now - though most of my clients thusfar have been friends/bandmates who "donate" a bit of cash, and just trading services (i.e. I recently gave my buddy some recording time in exchange for his graphic design services to make me a killer logo for the studio)

Urk... that is HARD! I thought you'd been pretty quiet lately - that sort of work/pressure cuts off all the creative stuff which also makes you go a bit crazy. It's like everyone wants a piece of you... I spent a few years working for a multi national company and hated it. I survived by having a plan. It felt like I was in suvival mode for a few years but now I am actually living the dream. After supporting my husband while he set up his business, for a few years, he is now able to support both of us and I can finally make music all day long... well mostly Make a cunning plan, even if it is long-term. Life is too short.

Yep, that definitely leaves no room to be creative..

This f...g story isn't finish for now...still will have some bad work in the coming weeks. But I'm really pissed of getting anxious, nervous and away from my familiy just because some stupid commercial guys want to have a bigger toy than our competitors...

After supporting my husband while he set up his business, for a few years, he is now able to support both of us

Good Idea, I will make my wife work more!

Life is too short.

Oh yeah, I've learnt that quite young when my father died. But hey, I also need to earn some money, and unfortunately, for now, my passions are not really profitable.

But hey, I also need to earn some money, and unfortunately, for now, my passions are not really profitable.

I hear you. After I finished my BA and almost locked myself into a career path I decided that I didn't like it much and wanted to do something totally different. The transition was tough and sucked for a couple of years, but I finally got on the road to success. There were quite a few times I could have given up and gone back to the meh career I was pursuing before, but I'm glad I got out of it and did the time to get where I am now, even though I still need to get one or two more rungs up the ladder to be where I really want to be. Good luck.

It's the olde 'raising a family' that seems to close the financial walls in... plus you suddenly seem to need some sort of 'security'... eeeek.. which is sort of contrary to a creative life. I tried to always find a sense of something in jobs that were really hard. There was always something there that was cool, even if it was just the insane earrings I'd wear, just to confound the ultra conservative people I was working with... heh heh.. not advocating you get some wild earrings but hey.. it's finding sanity savers... things to make you smile and survive.

When I was doing some stress management stuff, I always liked the Bucket Model - the bucket represents your capacity for living a full rich life. Good stuff fills it up and keeps it all going, good stuff like love and happiness blah blah, but other stuff makes holes in it. When you have too many holes in your bucket it can become a vicious cycle coz you get so cranky no-one wants to come around you..
I lived in survival mode for way too many years, so I'm no-one to advise really. It's just so important to not lose sight of the creative vision. It'll sit up there on the shelf for a long time, so long as you dust it off once in a while.

So are you surviving????

I need a Sanity Saver for my Holey Bucket !!! Thanks for sharing that Emma. Good advice for getting through those times we all face that can test our resolve and willpower.

But I'm really pissed of getting anxious, nervous and away from my familiy

I was nearly-depressed most of 2011. 2010 was the greatest year in my life and it felt that way at the time. In 2011 I took up challenges that required no risk and little sacrifice. Life was a hair too easy and it showed....making life REALLY hard. A strange paradox.

On the other hand, when risks get a bit over the top, that's a bitch, too....particularly when your personal life suffers.

I think the secret is to have a "trump card" so that risk is a non issue. I work more efficiently when I'm not stressed. Finding a way to get the buzz of a big ass project and somehow not NEEDING success is the trick. I think this is easier with fun gigs. Having enough cash to float for 6 months in case your current gig crashes and burns seems to be the name of the game.

I've gotten by by lowering my standard of living. Most of the time I look like I'm dirt broke. I'm doing well now. My control room shows that. My kitchen doesn't. My car doesn't. All the things that Americans seem to be obsessed about, I don't care much for. I don't notice the clang sound my '97 Civic makes when I'm doing my thing 18 hours a day. Once a month when I go somewhere I notice. I don't love that, but if I cared that much I'd sell my synth rack and just VSTs. That's not how I roll.

The cool part of my gig is it is MY THING. When I win, I REALLY win. When I lose, I lose. There's something cool about that to me.

My advice is to think long-term. Use your noggin to come up with a way of beating the system. I'd imagine a person with your knowledge could think of 30,000 things that would benefit the human race and implement them in ways that are more satisfying even if that means cutting a few meaningless corners sometimes.

I've got a good buddy who's a pharmacist. He's a very mild mannered guy. Very laid back. A nature dude. At the hospital, apparently he'd go into violent rages and smash up phones, office equipment, etc. I can't even imagine it. One day he just quit. He's still figuring it out, but I think the ability to throw "it" all away (the stress) is the thing that allows you to throw all the stress away.