Early last Thursday morning I was shooting a promo video for I Carry The Bag in Laguna Beach with my able bodied camera man, producer, director, friend and all around nice guy Ron Ploof.
How can a 77 second video cause so much angst?
We needed to shoot a quick exterior shot and wanted to use the front of an office building. The Wells Fargo Advisors office exterior would work perfectly, and besides, it’s 7:40 AM so we will disrupt no one.
Noticing a lone employee in the office, and me being the courteous sort, I thought I’d stop in and let her know what we were doing outside her door for the next 10 minutes.
Oh my.
This poor lady went straight into DEFCON 4 mode.
“You’ll need to speak to corporate. I don’t have the authority. My manager is not here to give permission.”, all flew off her lips faster than a Chinese bullet train!
After getting the exterior footage we needed at another location we sought to find a hotel room to use for an interior shot.
First stop, the Surf and Sand. After pitching the why we were there, presenting the physical copy of the magazine along with my business card and explaining that we only needed to shoot for a maximum of 15 minutes, the front desk clerk was agreeable.
With one small problem.
The hotel was fully occupied the night before and there were no clean rooms to use.
And that’s where the empowered employee of the day was last spotted.
At our next stop, Laguna Brisas, the clerk at the front desk replied with the mantra of the morning, “Oh, I can’t do that. My manager is not in and I need his permission”, she said.
At the next locale the clerk behind the counter was as pleasant as the day is long.
He listened attentively to my plea, nodding his head in agreement.
I’m thinking, “third time is the charm!”.
And then he says, “Oh, I’m sorry sir. My manager is not in and he would need to give me approval to do this”.
On the way back to the car Ron exclaimed, “Why does every employee today feel like they need permission?”
And he is right.
Is it that folks are just too happy to have a job in this economy -and they will do nothing to risk losing it?
Or maybe there is a particular strain of hard-ass managers that inhabit rough and tumble Laguna Beach?