A Techie's Constant Struggle

We begin with this:

That's me in theater tech mode. It is a very different attitude compared to the regular "help the customers" mode. I get sweaty. I get sweary. I get covered in splinters, dust, and glass. If I am not filthy then I'm probably doing it wrong and it's probably not as fun.

This task may have been the worst task I will ever do at work. We had to replace the old fashioned display lights with LED ones. In order to do that, we had to take down the strips that were bolted to the wall with dual locking tape. There was also the prerequisite of removing each individual glass bulb from the strips to avoid glass exploding. (Safety things. You know.) But in order to do that, we needed to load up a box with printer paper (for weight) and stand on that to reach the very top.

We had to "Give A Mouse A Cookie" if you catch my drift.

I accidentally dropped one bulb and it popped like a balloon. Scared the shit out of the girl I was working with but I was like, "Huh.... that was cool."

Here's a depiction of me standing in the window to remove bulbs. The giant poster was not supposed to go up until after we changed the lights but.... priorities!

Got all that? Awesome.



It took us two hours and the top strip fell on my head. The bulbs couldn't fit through the holes in the strips so we had to unscrew them then screw them on one at a time and it took forever. By the time we were ready to adhere them back to the wall, it was closing time. We just carefully leaned them against their proper positions and put some dual locking tape on the shelf so whoever was working in the morning could throw them up lickity split. The worst was over, you're very much welcome.

It looked a little shitty and our manager would probably be mad when she opened tomorrow but hey, we did all we could in our given shift time. The girl I was working with was a little younger and had no experience working with interior illumination so it took a bit of time to help her out. 

Me on the other hand: I've hung PAR units, I've programmed cues, I know how to pronounce "Fresnal". In short: I have experience wrestling with this shit. Have you licked a wire while standing in a puddle? I haven't, but my professor did.

Side note: She was also a little shorter so even with the box, she couldn't get the top lights. Guess who did!?

So now you understand this was a struggle. The whole reason I am explaining this is so you understand why this statement freaked me out a little:

We'll call her "Monica". Love this woman. She's very appreciative of all our hard work but this... this.... this sentence:

"Can we at least get the side strips on the wall to light up?"


I'm putting this here so you don't have to scroll up:

Connectors. I know I spelled it wrong in the drawing. I was in a hurry.

Me to Monica: "No.... no I can't."

My inner techie voice: 

IT ALL CONNECTS AND IT'S GOT ONE PLUG! What do you want me to do about that, Monica???!?!?

Of course! I'd love to switch on the lights that are completely parallel to each other and by no means can survive without the top and bottom! Let me just put on my wizard hat and make that happen! WHAT ARE YOU, AN ACTOR?!?!

You're killing, Monica! You are the director with high hopes and dreams and I am the lighting designer that is here to crush those dreams and explain the reality of the situation for you and THAT reality is, no, no it cannot be done, Monica. I'm going to the bathroom now to carefully remove the glass from my jeans because I accidentally sat in some.

So we closed up shop with the lights chilling up against the wall looking like shit.