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This is a question Sticking it to The Man

From little victories over your bank manager to epic wins over the law - tell us how you've put one over authority. Right on, kids!

Suggestion from Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic

(, Thu 17 Jun 2010, 16:01)
Pages: Popular, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

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Slightly animated.
I used to work for a graphic design firm. That is until I was let go, because there wasn't enough work to go around in my line (Multimedia and 3D animation).
I went freelance for a while and Ronnie, the boss of the Design company used to throw me a few jobs here and there, but was always late paying for them, or would wait until I had a few payments due before calling me in to 'haggle'. I might get paid, if I, for example, took a 30% cut in what was due to me.
I didn't think it was fair as, 1: he had already haggled the price down before I started the individual jobs and 2: he always wanted more work done on each of the jobs for free. BUT I was skint so the need for cash always outweighed any desire I might have to get on my high horse about it.

One job (the last one), he told me he had a BIG client he wanted to impress. He handed me a hand-drawn doodle of a character and wanted it animated with text around it. I figured it would take the guts of a day to finish and quoted him £100. I took the sketch and built the footballer character in 3D and animated him nicely soloing a ball -
with the text of the logo forming around him. It was a nice small job, and I was proud of it.
Ronnie wasn't happy though. He went ballistic and told me I had changed the sketch too much. It was now 3D and whatnot. and wasn't a sketch and whatnot, etc.
I tried explaining that I was a 3D animator and that's how I worked, and I assumed he knew this, as we had worked on similar projects before. But no, it wasn't what we 'agreed' but graciously he would give me a second chance to make amends. However, he wanted some changes. The character was now supposed to receive the ball on his chest, allow it to drop to his feet, solo it, do some more tricks, and then spectacularly overhead kick it to the screen, where it would imprint the text of the logo. All in this 2D sketch style he liked. and all for the original £100. I asked for some of the money up front, 'No' was the reply 'you might fuck off with it'.

So..... what to do, what to do, what to do. I worked like a beaver for the next few days. Ronnie called on the Friday told me the client was flying into the country on Tuesday, and that my animation was the lynchpin for his whole proposal. I told him everything would be ready on time.
Monday rolled around - my phone was switched off until 9 that evening. 9.01 I get a call from an irate 'where the fuck is my animation' Ronnie, I reassured him, saying that I was doing some tidying up of his animation, with one of my friends who works for Disney.

The meeting was scheduled for 10 the following morning, I told him I'd be there at 9, or 8.30 if he preferred. He did prefer.
So, the following day at 10 to 10, I turned on the phone. 22 missed calls. Damn. Rang him, said I was sorry, but my alarm had not gone off, and I was on my way. I told him to get the computer ready, every second counts.
The client was there when I arrived, waiting in the studio. all the staff were standing around drinking coffee. Ronnie said ' yeeeaaahh, at last - here's the genius'. So I put the CD into the drive and waited for the animation to load. 'Hit play when you're ready Ronnie',I joked 'that's the one with the triangle'.
Cue laughs all round. Ronnie got up spoke for a couple of minutes about the proposal and how it tied all the services and merchandise into a tight package and eventually hit play.
DISASTER! it was the wrong animation, the one that was initially rejected. Ronnie glared, I apologised, and loaded up the new one. He hit play again. This time the little character was on screen, soloing the ball when another, slightly bigger character with Ronnie's face came on screen and proceeded to buttfuck the footballer, all the while singing Ronnie is a bollix, to the tune of Match of the day.

I never did get the £100.
(, Mon 21 Jun 2010, 11:23, 5 replies)
well funny
well done!
(, Mon 21 Jun 2010, 11:39, closed)
Oh fuck yes!
I hope I one day have the balls to do similar.

*Clickity*
(, Mon 21 Jun 2010, 13:39, closed)
Hahahah
Oh god, I hope this is true...
(, Mon 21 Jun 2010, 16:23, closed)
^This^
Please let it be true!
(, Tue 22 Jun 2010, 12:37, closed)
You are a god among men.
I genuflect in your general direction.
(, Mon 21 Jun 2010, 19:56, closed)

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