Now many of you out there with 'normal' jobs, like digging road ditches, manual labouring in the steel factories of the grim North and social media PR in the sweatshops of London will no doubt be delighted at your days off from the daily grind of water pipes, steel RSJ's and a finely crafted marketing tweets for a new chocolate hob-nob derivative.
Not us freelance TV news cameraman and women. We hate days off. For a start, it means we are not getting paid to craft telly pictures for the uninformed public, give voice to the bellicose politician or labour at the coal face of showing a footballers metatarsal calamity.
A day off means that we sit at home, twiddling our thumbs and wishing for unfortunate situations to arise. It also makes us deal with freelance business chores like invoicing, taxes, VAT, and other assorted freelancing business matters. Take just now for example. There i was, reading VAT notes whilst wondering exactly what it takes to make a nearby petrol refining station to explode, when i was called by the Federation of Wasting Peoples Time, who wondered whether i had the time to take a survey on the merits of small business banking.
Have i got time..? HAVE I GOT TIME..? As it happens, yes i do, i'm sick to the back teeth of trying to drum up some actual cash money. They came straight to the point...
"Who do you bank with?" Asked the charming foreign voiced lady from a pop up call centre in downtown Lagos, Nigeria, home of the venerable FoWPT (Inc)
"I'm actually offshore, with the Royal Bank of Tuvalu, ForEx transactions are via the Co-Op in Basingstoke."
"Tuva... Oh... Where is that please?"
"Too-Vah-Loo... Formerly known as the Ellice Islands, it's a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia. Basingstoke on the other hand is in Hampshire, but i get paid in Tuvaluan Dollars, did you know that Tuvaluan Dollars are accepted at Lidl discount stores here..?"
"I did not know that Sir... No. You don't have a bank in the UK then?"
"Yes, the Co-Op, but they only pay me in stamps."
"Stamps..?"
"Yes, savings stamps. I save them up for Christmas, it's a lot less bother and saves quite a bit of money on the joint of meat and tinned foodstuffs, artichokes and the like."
"I see Sir, so... i... err... no transactions of cash in the UK then..?"
"No, just stamps."
****Click.****
You see? This is where having a day off gets you. Us TV camera people need hard news to keep us out of trouble with the good folks of telephone scammery. It's not too much to ask is it? No, it isn't. Back to the VAT notes then.
Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter.
 |
| Polynesian cash money... Fishy. |
Not us freelance TV news cameraman and women. We hate days off. For a start, it means we are not getting paid to craft telly pictures for the uninformed public, give voice to the bellicose politician or labour at the coal face of showing a footballers metatarsal calamity.
A day off means that we sit at home, twiddling our thumbs and wishing for unfortunate situations to arise. It also makes us deal with freelance business chores like invoicing, taxes, VAT, and other assorted freelancing business matters. Take just now for example. There i was, reading VAT notes whilst wondering exactly what it takes to make a nearby petrol refining station to explode, when i was called by the Federation of Wasting Peoples Time, who wondered whether i had the time to take a survey on the merits of small business banking.
Have i got time..? HAVE I GOT TIME..? As it happens, yes i do, i'm sick to the back teeth of trying to drum up some actual cash money. They came straight to the point...
"Who do you bank with?" Asked the charming foreign voiced lady from a pop up call centre in downtown Lagos, Nigeria, home of the venerable FoWPT (Inc)
"I'm actually offshore, with the Royal Bank of Tuvalu, ForEx transactions are via the Co-Op in Basingstoke."
"Tuva... Oh... Where is that please?"
"Too-Vah-Loo... Formerly known as the Ellice Islands, it's a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia. Basingstoke on the other hand is in Hampshire, but i get paid in Tuvaluan Dollars, did you know that Tuvaluan Dollars are accepted at Lidl discount stores here..?"
"I did not know that Sir... No. You don't have a bank in the UK then?"
"Yes, the Co-Op, but they only pay me in stamps."
"Stamps..?"
"Yes, savings stamps. I save them up for Christmas, it's a lot less bother and saves quite a bit of money on the joint of meat and tinned foodstuffs, artichokes and the like."
"I see Sir, so... i... err... no transactions of cash in the UK then..?"
"No, just stamps."
****Click.****
You see? This is where having a day off gets you. Us TV camera people need hard news to keep us out of trouble with the good folks of telephone scammery. It's not too much to ask is it? No, it isn't. Back to the VAT notes then.
Paul Martin is @ukcameraman on Twitter.
No comments:
Post a Comment