Have you ever had a job where every second spent working felt like a minute and every minute felt like an hour? So has Ryan Richards.
Listen to the story as it was told at The Watercooler storytelling night or read on.
Being an actor in New Zealand means that work is definitely sporadic and sometimes non-existent. Over the past decade, I have had to take on a flurry of colourful and bizarre jobs. However, two of them really stand out as bad jobs.
If someone asks me to do a job and the date the work starts is more than a month away, I will take a quick look at the time commitment and the fee (and an even smaller look at the brief) and, nine times out of 10, because the job is so far away, I will say “yeah, sure why not?”.
I had forgotten about this one particular job until I got a reminder text message the day before. Not to worry though, I didn’t have any commitments the next day. Back then, I was a "full-time actor", which means I was doing bugger all most of the time. By which I mean I didn’t have another flexible normal job at that particular time getting in the way of my sporadic acting jobs.
I'd just done a week on Shortland Street that I really enjoyed, so was feeling pretty bloody great about my life and my career, and the parents were proud, etc ... I was full of beans!
So, I went back to the original email I received to take a look at the brief. It was a "roving character". I had no fricken idea what that was. Not a problem though, I’m an actor – it’ll be fine (was my attitude). The fee was $300 for 3 hours work. Brilliant! That’s $100 an hour! Pretty decent money, I thought to myself. I was absolutely chuffed.
It was for the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series. I hadn’t heard of that before, but Google told me it was some international yachting race or something. I am sure it is a big deal for people who like boating and following those types of sports. The brief said my character was a "Befuddled Navigator". There was very little other information, but I figured I would be briefed on arrival.
So the next day, down I went to the Auckland waterfront for my roving character job as the Befuddled Navigator. I was there on time (like a good little professional) and met the lady who was running the thing.
“Hi Ryan, how are ya? I’m Dianne” (I can’t quite remember her name – but she looked like a Dianne-type). She seemed nice enough. “Now I have some bad news,” she said. “The person who was going to play The Captain character has called in sick, so it’s just going to be you.”
At that stage, I learned exactly what a roving character was. It is an actor playing a character who just walks around improvising and interacting with the punters. In this situation, it was the people who were hanging around and enjoying the boating festivities. So basically, I was part of the entertainment.
At this point, Dianne showed me to my costume which, to be honest, did not look like a sailor or navigator costume. It was more of a chef’s uniform.
There was supposed to be two of us, some other actor, playing The Captain and apparently we would be bouncing off each other and interacting. But no, because the other GENIUS had called in sick, it was just little old me. At this stage though, I was still in high gung-ho spirits. “I am an actor! I can do anything,” I thought.
I asked Dianne, “So what is a befuddled navigator?” She was like, “Oh, well he’s befuddled, he’s the navigator and he’s lost his ship”. The only new information was the fact that he has lost his ship. Presumably the captain character would be the one who knows where the ship is! Once again, “Ok cool, I can make that work,” was my attitude.
At this point, Dianne showed me to my costume which, to be honest, did not look like a sailor or navigator costume. It was more of a chef’s uniform.
At this stage, it is important to make mention of what was happening at this point in the day. The event was winding down and the races (or boat show or whatever the heck it was) had well and truly finished. It was 4pm. People were sitting around and having a cold brew in the sun. Apparently there had been entertainment earlier with face painters and stilt walkers, but like I say, this finished hours ago. That was no longer the vibe. Entertainment was NOT needed or wanted. People were lethargic, mellow and having quiet conversation.
Enter Ryan Richards: the plonker in a chef’s uniform.
Yup, I put on the costume (which was incredibly ill-fitting) and started to walk out there. I remember giving myself a wee pep-talk before-hand. “OK Ryan, you are an actor, you were just on Shortland Street, you can do anything! Here we go!” And out I went! I remember walking around, pretending I was looking for my ship. I sort of had my arms in front of me gesticulating and muttering “Where is it? Where is it?” Once again, I cannot stress enough, there were no other entertainers, just a handful of people relaxing in the sun and this weird looking chef walking around.
Then I spotted a couple of Kiwi blokes enjoying a cold one. “OK, I’ll give this interacting thing a go,” I thought. I toddled over towards them (I say "toddled" instead of "walked" since this describes the character choice for my Befuddled Navigator) and when I was about three metres in front of them, one of the gentleman looked up at me and said “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE, BRO?”...
I will never forget this moment. Ever. Time stood still for a few seconds. I just stood there absolutely stunned with my jaw dropped. I knew I had to say something. I then uttered the only words that I could possibly string together. “I’ve lost my ship ...”
I then shut my mouth, turned 180 degrees and walked away.
One of the gentleman looked up at me and said “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE, BRO?”
The next half-hour was the longest half-hour of my life. I remember walking around by myself for a while, still doing the odd non-convincing "looking for something" hand gestures but not making eye contact with anyone.
It makes me laugh thinking about this now, but at that particular time I wanted the earth the open up and suck me in.
There wasn’t even an appropriate prop. Don’t navigators have a telescope, or a compass or something? However, I remember in the same room I got changed into my costume, there was a plastic net full of plastic fish. I went back and did a lap of the area carrying it around on my shoulder. That took five minutes.
It is very important to note that seconds and minutes held very different values in the world of ‘Ryan the actor’ roving around as a befuddled navigator. A second felt like a minute and a minute felt like an hour.
At one stage, Dianne came over, and being really encouraging said “That’s really great Ryan, but I reckon you need to interact with people more.” “Oh yep, no trouble,” I said.
By this point I had been there only 45 minutes. I finished in 2 HOURS AND 15 MINUTES! Trust me, that is a colossal amount of time in this world I now inhabited. It was at that I point I knew I had to get the fuck out of there.
Dianne had gone to take care of something boat-related. The second she left I quietly "roved" back to the dressing room. As soon as I got there I hastily ripped the chef’s outfit from my body and got back into my normal clothes.
Once in my normal clothes I grabbed my backpack and made my way to the door. There was no sign of Dianne, but by that stage it wouldn’t have mattered. I pushed my way through the door and I was off. I ran. A fully grown man, in full sprint, in a public area. I didn’t stop running until I reached my car, at which point I drove the hell out of there. My mobile phone was off, I was gone and it was all over. Obviously, I never sent an invoice for the job.
The second bad job that sits with me happened a year or two after the befuddled navigator incident. Acting work had really slowed down for me at this particular stage in my career. It was actually during the recession. Although, I’m pretty sure that is just a coincidence.
I remember getting very stressed about money. I was literally down to $1000 – that was it. $1000 to my name and no acting job lined up in the next month.
I was speaking to my friend Matthew who was an older and more experienced actor than I and he told me he could probably get me a job. My eyes lit up. “Really? That would be amazing! What would the job be? Like theatre or screen?” I asked. “Nah mate, not an acting job” he said. “It’s a telemarketing job for a firm in the city.” Initially I was all “Oh mate! Look, really appreciate that, but I’m an actor mate. Something will come up I’m sure.” What a tool I was.
A week later, after I was down to my final $500 and after an underwhelming chat with my agent, I went back to Matt with my tail between my legs.
John had a company. I won’t mention the name, but trust me, it sounded like a company owned by a James Bond villain.
It was an investment advisory company and I was to be part of their sales team. The job was selling investment research subscriptions to their database of investors. It all sounds really bizarre, but it was all actually quite simple. The clients, most of the time, were happy to hear from us, the product was actually quite decent and it did what it said it did, which was to help the investors improve their returns.
To be perfectly honest, I quite enjoyed the job. It was flexible around my acting commitments, I got on well with both management and the sales team and the pay meant I was never walking in to the audition room desperate. All in all, it was going great guns … that was until one very dark day.
One of the managers of the company got in cahoots with a particular Australian businessman. Let’s call him “John”.
John had a company. I won’t mention the name, but trust me, it sounded like a company owned by a James Bond villain. Their product ... wait for this ... was a software programme which helped investors make money from the TAB. Essentially the software programme allowed the user to place micro-bets on horse races and somehow it made the user of the product something like $50,000-$70,000 per annum. I forget the exact figure. Anyway, sounds legit right?
The long and short of the matter was John wanted me and the two other sales guys to “qualify” leads for his company. What that involved was calling our company’s database, following his dreadful sales script and then passing their details on to his Bond villain company.
A “qualified” lead was someone who knows what the product is, is potentially interested in the product and has the $32,000 cash to buy the product. Yes, this horse-racing software cost $32,000!
The company would then try to convert the “qualified lead” into a sale, so we weren’t involved in this process. Thank fuck!
The sales guys and I had massive problems with the sales script, the sales approach and the product itself. Basically, just the whole bloody thing was all just bit icky.
The script was incredibly cheesy and had lines like “Well <INSERT CLIENT’S NAME>, how would you like to make money while you sleep?” However, my main problem with the script was that it was way too ‘sales-ey’ so I had sort-of modified it to make it more laid-back. In walks John...
Ok, so imagine this with a thick Australian accent...
“Look Ryan, you’re an actor yeah? See, you’ll appreciate this. Do you think Tom Cruise makes up his own lines? No. He follows a script. Do you think you can follow a script?”
Those were is actual words.
The other thing I had a problem with was the fact that it was horse-racing software. To that he said:
“Look Ryan, if you’re selling people a mine that rapes kids...” I remember thinking, did he say a mine or a mime? They are both just as horrible! I think he said mine because the mining industry is huge in Aussie but I can’t be sure. Also, what a horrible and bizarre example comparing his horse-racing software with a mine that rapes children! He went on...
“If you ask people, do you want to invest in a mine that rapes kids? They will say no. But if you ask them if they would like to make an additional $50,000-$70,000 a year they will say yes, and then when you tell them that it is a 'mine that rapes kids' they will say, I don’t care!”
I remember thinking “NO THEY WON’T!”
In the end he kept going on about it so I said to him, “Ok, look, I’ll try and stick to your script”.
To which his response was, “Well Ryan, in the words of Yoda...Do or do not... there is no try!”
I think him quoting Star Wars in order to get me to sell his horse-racing software was the last straw. That was my last day selling the horse-racing software.
There wasn’t a big dramatic sprint out of the office like the befuddled navigator job, but I can assure you that the satisfaction and knowing the job was finished, was just the same.
This story was originally told at The Watercooler, a monthly storytelling night held at The Basement Theatre. If you have a story to tell email thewatercoolernz@gmail.com or hit them up on Twitter or Facebook.
Illustration: Kerry Ann Lee
This content is brought to you with funding support from New Zealand On Air.
