Respect Time

I felt the urge to write this after having the afternoon to just rest [and watch the Giants game finished strong against the Braves going 4-0! woo hoo!] after being disappointed on how today unfolded.

Basically, I had a photoshoot scheduled today in San Francisco and if you'd like to stop reading from here, just know that there was no photoshoot at the end of the day.

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If you're still here and wondering what my blog's title has to do with anything then read on. If you've followed my "What I've Learned in Nursing" blog posts, then this is somewhere in the lines of "Time Keeper"--my first ever post of that blog reel. As a forewarning, this blog posts will be a reiteration of "Time Keeper" but catered more to doing [photography-related] work.

I titled this post as general statement. I'm not just talking about my time that is to be respected but also to really just respect time: his/her time, your _fill in the blank___'s time, nature's time, and even God's time.

When it comes to anything, I don't like things being wasted. A little soap left in the tube? I'll cut it in half so I can scrape the last bit of it [that's a tip for you just in case =)]. Food to be left at the restaurant? I'll ask for a to-go box or just eat it on the spot [my girlfriend and I coined it "Garbage Time" to pick up the leftovers of her plate and/or family member's plates hahah]. But yes, nothing to waste.

So when it comes to time, that's probably the most I hate being wasted. I try to stay positive and prevent myself from saying "If I only knew, I could be doing _______." The reason why I prevent myself from saying that is because that prevents me from just living in the moment and taking in what really is in front of me and seeing the upside of things as much as I can.

Today was more than just a drive and hauling equipment up a hill in San Francisco. It was contacting a rep and manager back in forth in emails, my friends who also took their time to help assist me, time to make a photo treatment detailing a schedule [even with directions from their hotel to the location!], and scouting this location the previous day to ensure a location is ideal and just really pray for good weather for the day of the shoot.

As someone who's trying to go far with photography/arts, I really take in the mantra of "Live your day as if it's your last" and apply it to myself as "Complete your next assignment as if it's your last." So that means I'll go big with my efforts so I can go home happy with no regrets.

Regarding today, I arrive as scheduled [and agreed upon] which was 1pm even though they called around 11am to reschedule to 1pm. Meaning, I woke up 9am to double check equipment, load all equipment, drive to location, unload, assemble equipment--and that's all by 12:45pm. With everything ready, we wait.

Call and texts back and forth and no show by 1:25pm. I tell my crew 1:30pm hits we'll go. But in my heart I want this to work so I wait as I contact them until 1:50pm I give up and decide to go. So we pack up and jet.

On the way down, I finally see them but in my opinion, I've been ready for 2.5 hours and so I had to explain on my way out it wouldn't work out and apologize for the missed opportunity.

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What I learned in all this is RESPECT TIME. I for sure will know in the future to not be late in meetings [and if I am, let them know ahead of time and if I say I'll show up in 15 minutes, I'll be there in 14 minutes]. In this case, I felt that the client should be able to respect my time as well and should have shown up in time after having to reschedule already once. Not just respect my time but my friends as assistants as well.

And oh, I also learned to respect the city's time: I got a friggin' street cleaning parket ticket. hahah Sigh.

So the upside from this? Well, we got to breathe fresh air and have a mini shoot [next post I'll put up results].