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Send Button Anxiety

“Hey, TAPA, can you send out tomorrow’s call sheet? The email is already saved in the ‘Drafts’ folder.”

That’s how it starts. Pretty soon, you’re drafting the email yourself. After that, the 2nd AD is emailing them to you directly instead of to the secretary (or APOC, in some cases). After you’ve drafted the email and attached the PDF, your cursor hovers over the send button. You glance up and down the email, making sure it’s right. That moment… right there… that’s what I call…

SEND BUTTON ANXIETY

The models in stock photos are too beautiful to work in production offices.

It’s normal. It’s healthy. It shows that you’re a perfectionist… even when the results aren’t always perfect.

But by God, don’t be a complete wreck about it! A woman in my office right now has all-consuming, full-blown Send Button OCD. (I don’t use the term OCD lightly.) When she has to send an email with more than two recipients, her face goes pale. Sweat gathers on her hands and forehead. She paces the room to avoid vomiting. She asks me to proofread her email over and over again. WTF?!

The repercussions for her doing it wrong are near zero. In a worst case scenario, she lists inaccurate information (which no one will read, because nobody reads emails) or she forgets to attach a document (which she can correct by sending out a “REVISED” email a minute later).

If you can’t write a simple email without losing your mind, then maybe working in a fast-paced production office isn’t for you. Get it together already. Go work in a library or museum.

Or better yet, go see a therapist.

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4 Responses

  1. Too funny, I agree with you completely. I have worked in the animation industry for years. To alleviate much of this anxiety I would say is drink a large glass of reality. The entertainment industry is littered with individuals that have achieved prominent positions by incompetency and failing forward. I wouldn’t recommend this as a way to succeed but I offer it as a dose of reality. If they truly are perfectionists and want to continue down the path of perfectionism I would recommend working at a service based entertainment facility like http://www.quixote.com, they are who they are because they need to be great.

  2. Oh dear Zeus, you described it perfectly. Been sending out call sheets every other day for 9 months and I STILL have “Send Button Anxiety”. It’s the devil. >.<

  3. im on a gig right now where they dont call or walkie anyone with their call times at all. Previous gigs they would call or walkie you with your call times. who wants to wait for a emailed called sheet?

  4. That can come from years of administrative work – I have it because my last boss (I was his Exec. Asst) would blow a gasket if I sent out an email incorrectly.

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