WEEK     JOB: FILM-FESTIVAL REPORTER

LOCATION: TORONTO, ONTARIO

I WAS BACK in Toronto for one final week, which meant I’d get to see Danna. To make things even better, the job offer was one that I couldn’t refuse—working for Roots, a major apparel/accessory retailer, during the Toronto International Film Festival.

One of the most prominent film festivals in the world, second only to Cannes, the festival is a huge event for Toronto every year, with more than three hundred films shown, private, star-studded parties every night, limousines and photographers everywhere. Roots sponsors the festival, and its flagship store in downtown Toronto would be a hub of activity during the week. On the second level of the store, a makeshift lounge had been constructed, next to which the American Movie Classics (AMC) channel had installed a set to interview the many celebrities—including several A-list actors—who would be in town for the festival.

My job was to cover the festival from a Roots perspective—take photos, write posts for the Roots Film Festival blog, and help out around the store. As usual, Ian would be filming me on the job.

My first day was at the Roots headquarters just outside of town. The office, with its modern, simple décor, had a great vibe, and all the employees we met were very welcoming, fun, and high-energy. They seemed more than happy to explain their jobs to Ian and me, and it quickly became apparent that the majority of them had been working there well over five years, some pushing twenty.

We finished off the day with a visit to the Roots downtown store, where I’d spend the rest of the week. As Ian and I walked through the front doors, we were spotted by the store manager, Brenda, who ran toward us and gave us both big hugs. She was kind, bubbly, as excited to have us there as we were to be there. She immediately gave us some Roots gear so we would fit in with the rest of the team and introduced us to the other employees. I took some pictures, Ian shot some video, and then Brenda led us upstairs to the temporary lounge area, where several leather couches, tables, and a small bar with a couple of stools took up one end of the store. Then we met … let’s call him Richard. And our great day came to an end.

Richard was not a Roots employee; he was contracted to help organize media for events like this. But this week he’d be my on-site boss. He had just finished a conversation on his cellphone when we were introduced to him. As if careful not to waste too much energy, he gestured with a flick of his wrist for us to have a seat. “I’ll be with you shortly,” he said.

For the next ten minutes we waited while Richard appeared to search for ways to keep himself occupied. We sat and watched as he slowly made his way around the room—he had a couple of casual conversations, meandered to the spread on the table, grabbed a piece of fruit, then sat down in one of the leather chairs. It was as if he were purposefully passing time and wanted us to know it. Ian gave me a “What’s this guy all about?” face. It later occurred to me: Less important people need to be made aware that they’re less important and so must endure a mandatory waiting period in which to process their lesser importance. This also helps the more important person solidify in his own mind his greater importance. Note: This routine holds true even if the more important person is clearly not otherwise occupied.

We were finally summoned to join Richard. We sat down in the two seats across from him as he scrolled through his BlackBerry until it was once again clear that we were waiting for him. I didn’t mind; I was keen. I even sat on the edge of my seat, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees to show just how keen I was.

“So, guys,” he said, looking up at us. “How was your day?”

“Great,” I said keenly. “We got a tour of the leather factory this morning, and everyone we met at the head office was awesome. It’s funny—they all said how jealous they were that we get to be down here during the film festival, while they’re stuck in the office. They said it’s a really good time.”

“Yeah. Well, you know, there’s lots of stuff going on,” he said, forcing a half smile. “That’s why you guys are here—to capture it all on tape.”

He told us about a campaign that Roots was affiliated with, Flick Off, which focuses on raising awareness about global warming. To promote the campaign, Flick Off was creating a video stringing together short clips of people answering the question “What do you do to lower your carbon emissions?”

“With the camera I want you guys to pose the question to celebrities in the store, shoppers, or people in front of the store, and I’m also going to send you to a music festival on Toronto Island,” he said. “I’ll get you media passes so you can film clips with band members backstage.”

The thought of befriending celebrities on the red carpet at VIP parties and backstage media passes to a huge outdoor music festival was more than enough to keep my spirits high. “Okay, great!” I said. “We can totally do that.”

“Good then,” he said tersely, then turned his attention back to his BlackBerry. Silence followed. Ian and I looked at each other. Was that the end of the conversation? Then Richard, without lifting his head from the BlackBerry, slowly shifted his gaze up at us. We took the hint. Indeed, he was finished with us. We stood up, grabbed our things, and left the store.

I didn’t get a good vibe from Richard, but he wasn’t overtly a jerk. It was more a passive jerkiness, as if we weren’t worth his time. But it didn’t faze me. Nothing could faze me. It was a cool role with a big company, and I appreciated being offered the position. More than anything I just wanted to do a good job and make them glad they hired me.

Ian, Karen, and I were staying with a guy named Rob, whom we’d met through Craigslist. I was sure Greg and Sybil would have let us stay at their place again, but I didn’t want to ask since we’d basically made ourselves at home there for close to three weeks. Besides, Rob lived downtown, so it only took twenty minutes on public transit to get to the store from his place. However, that convenience would cost us some sleep. Rob had a ton of space in his apartment, but there was nowhere to sleep except on the hardwood floor in the living room. Also, his apartment happened to be above a major intersection of street trams that ruthlessly screeched by every hour throughout the night. Being late August, it was really hot, so we had to keep the windows open, making it even more ridiculously loud. But again, no problem. Nothing could faze me.

On the first day of the film festival, Ian and I were on the subway heading downtown, both talking fast.

“Dude, this is so cool,” I said.

“For sure. I wonder who will come by the store today,” Ian said.

“Well, eTalk Daily is filming at the store. Maybe you’ll finally get to meet Ben Mulroney.” (He’s Canada’s version of Ryan Seacrest.) I laughed.

“Yeah, wouldn’t that be great,” Ian said sarcastically. “Maybe I could even get a signed poster for my bedroom.”

“No, but really, I heard them say Don Cheadle has an interview with AMC. And I think that guy from Jurassic Park.”

“Jeff Goldblum?”

“Yeah, him.”

When we arrived at the store, there was a buzz of activity outside—people were everywhere. As we walked in the door, the entertainment talk show that would later broadcast from the store was setting up its stage and lights. With the bigger camera that Cam lent us, we felt official, important, and people took us seriously. We walked swiftly through the store with an extra bounce in our step and took the stairs to the second-floor lounge two at a time, excited to start the day.

We said hello to Richard, who generously threw us a nod, and then we got to work. Ian shot some b-roll for a video blog update, filmed the taping of eTalk Daily, then an intro piece of me in front of the store. I started asking employees, customers, and passersby what they do to lower their carbon emissions. And then we waited.

No one really knew when the celebrities were supposed to show up. There were vague rumors, but only those scheduled for an interview with the American Movie Classics channel were certain. On the first day, Jeff Goldblum, Don Cheadle, Aaron Eckhart, and the Arctic Monkeys dropped by. When a celebrity did come into the store, everyone would jump to their feet, energy filled the room, and people were on their best behavior. Of course, Ian would turn on the camera. We’d give the celebrities some free Roots gear, then I’d take photos and Ian would shoot video footage of the celebrity holding Roots stuff, in the Roots store. Like actually in the store. Incredible. The celebrity would leave and things would quiet down. Then we’d wait again. Ian and I occasionally would leave the lounge, cruise around the store, check to see whether anything was going on outside. Oh quick! SpongeBob is outside! Standing on the curb, in front of the Roots store. Like actually on the curb, in front of the Roots store. Ian, did you get that? Oh, this is good.

We headed back up to the lounge to hang out with the other people who were hanging out waiting for something to happen. Richard was there. He turned his attention from his conversation to us. We made eye contact. I smiled and nodded. He shot back an unimpressed glare, then returned to his conversation.

The more I interacted with Richard, the more he demonstrated his uncanny ability to make others feel inferior. I realized he’s the kind of guy who leaves you feeling diminished after each exchange, whether through a single comment or a quick unnerving look.

We hadn’t been in the lounge more than five minutes, yet Richard shot us another glare from his repertoire. This one informed us that we should be off doing something. The only problem was that none of us—neither Ian, myself, nor Richard—knew what that something should be. We’d already shot enough footage to update the Roots blog with a video clip of the day’s events. I’d written a post for the Roots blog with photos, and we already had countless street interviews. There was nothing going on in the store, yet we still weren’t allowed to leave until well after 10 P.M.

The next morning Ian and I sat quietly on the subway. I’d been working at the store less than two days and I’d already built up an anxiety about going to work. Ian spent four hours that morning editing and publishing the video footage from the previous day. The VP at the Roots headquarters was impressed—he hadn’t expected that we’d be able to post polished videos in such a short time frame.

But at the store Richard kept giving us the impression that we were lazy. He radiated the “I’m not paying you to sit around” vibe and never failed to make it apparent that we weren’t doing a good job or weren’t getting the right shot, even though he didn’t know what the footage was for and how it would be used—the blog? Future Roots promotions? Richard’s personal scrapbook of pictures of him with his arm around important people? Why were we filming this stuff? Although none of us really knew, we kept moving forward—and the tension built.

When we arrived at the store, our moods quickly changed. Upstairs in the lounge area, hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean was chilling at the bar by himself. The day before, whenever there was a celebrity in the store, there would be an entourage surrounding him. The celebrity would appear to be in a rush to keep on schedule. Not Wyclef. He was in no hurry. He sat so unassuming at the bar, I almost didn’t recognize him.

Ian and I ventured a conversation with him. “Hey, Wyclef, how’s it going? I’m Sean, and this is Ian,” I said, motioning toward Ian.

“Hey, whattup guys.”

It was a relief that nobody else was around and we could just relax, hang out, and talk normally without the feeling that we were any less significant than anyone else.

Wyclef noticed my Flick Off T-shirt and asked, “Yo, what-chu think about Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth?”

I started rambling about how I thought it was positive that he brought attention to the issue and put it in a context that people could understand.

“Man, Al Gore’s a hustler,” Wyclef said, to my surprise. “I tried to get him to do a talk—yo but I never said it was me, I got someone else to call ’bout it. The man charges like $250K a talk,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know, man, I question his incentive for starting this global-warming trend.”

“Who knows if that was his original intention,” I said. “At least there’s an increased awareness about global warming. Companies are starting to notice, and people are more aware of their habits.” I used the Flick Off campaign as an example.

Not effective.

“Man, Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth is like the George Foreman Grill—s’all packagin’,” Wyclef insisted.

The topic then changed to One-Week Job, why I started it, and the various jobs I’d had so far. He then adopted a serious tone, and it appeared as if he was going to impart some profound wisdom.

“No matter what you do in these next fifty-two weeks”—he put his hand to his mouth, took a look around, and paused in an exaggerated moment of reflection—“just make sure you work … in a high- … class … strip joint.” We all laughed, then joked about all the interesting situations a job like that could get me into.

Before long, people started to notice that Wyclef was there. Word spread fast and a large crowd gathered. All of a sudden, I felt like we shouldn’t be talking with him. Who did we think we were to just walk up and chat with Wyclef Jean, Rap Star?

Before he left, we managed to film Wyclef’s career advice. “All my people in college, I’m gonna tell y’all like this, real talk. While you’re in college, you gotta figure out what you wanna do. Don’t be like, ‘Yo, let me wait till I get outta college.’ Cuz you’re gonna be stuck. So my advice to you is, while you’re in college, do like my homie right here.” He put his arm on my shoulder and shouted into the camera like a rapper in a music video. “Get fifty-two jobs, you know what I mean, one job a week. Stop being lazy. You know what I’m sayin’. Let’s get this thing going!”

I suspect taking a full course load and doing fifty-two jobs at the same time might be a bit much for one academic year … but hey, this was Wyclef after all.

He headed downstairs. Ian and I were pumped about the footage. “Dude, that was huge. Quick, put a new tape in,” I said, just to make sure we wouldn’t accidentally tape over the footage. Meanwhile, we heard cheering downstairs. Ian popped in another tape, and we quickly went down to check it out. At the front of the store they’d set up yoga demonstration mats, and Wyclef was balancing on his head. A large crowd had gathered to cheer him on. Ian had his camera in hand and we made our way to the front. Michael, one of the Roots co-founders, was anxiously standing by. He spotted us and yelled, “You’re missing everything!” He looked around to locate Richard and called out, “Who hired these guys?”

Ian’s face went red as he continued to move around the yoga mats filming different angles of Wyclef Jean, Rap Star, doing yoga.

I suspected that Michael had no idea why we were there. That I was offered the one-week job to report on the film festival with written updates and pictures posted to the Roots blog. And that Ian was there to film me performing the job. I’m sure he thought that Ian and I had been contracted out as third-party videographers. We were caught in the middle of the apparent miscommunication. But I can’t blame Michael. During the film festival there’s a ton of stuff going on, and he was also trying to run a company with more than one hundred stores throughout North America.

Once Wyclef left the store, things returned to normal. But now Richard wouldn’t even look at us.

Later that night we joined some Roots co-workers and attended a party that Hilary Duff was throwing at a bar. Now we were able to be ourselves again. We could laugh, feel confident, and have a good time without someone there always ready to put us down. When the bar closed, Ian and I said goodbye to our friends and went to the pizza place a block over. We stood outside, had two slices each, leaned against the brick wall, and gazed out at the bar-closing scene downtown. Noise from the various clubs spilled into the street, cabs sped past, panhandlers stepped up their game, and scantily clad girls stumbled in their high heels, not looking as classy as they did when the night began. We felt like invisible spectators, taking it all in, eating our pizza, and intermittently trading profound observations.

“Man, if we had a big company, we wouldn’t be jerks.”

“For sure. If we were famous, we’d still be standing here, chillin’, eating pizza.”

“Yeah, man. We’d be doing exactly what we’re doing now, just two guys, standing on the street after the bar, eating pizza, just being real … but we could press a button on our cellphone and a limo would pull up in like thirty seconds.”

“Yeah, though we wouldn’t even use it.”

We finished our pizza, then began the forty-five-minute walk back to Rob’s place. The hardwood floor was cozy that night.

The next day on the subway, Ian and I mapped out our plan. “We’ll go into the store, get the media passes for the music festival, then get out of there as quickly as possible.”

After shooting some video footage with the bands, we could stay at the music festival that night. The promise of seeing Smashing Pumpkins and the Killers live was the only thing keeping me going.

At the store, we went upstairs and spotted Richard sitting on a stool. I marched toward him. Ian elected to wait at the top of the stairs to reinforce our “not sticking around, we’re here with purpose” message. Good call.

“Richard, just wondering if I can get the media passes for the music festival?” I hoped he could hear my dislike for him in my voice.

“I couldn’t get them,” he said, then, like an arrogant businessman tossing a beggar a dollar, handed me two regular tickets. He suggested that we try to talk our way backstage by telling them that we were with the Flick Off campaign. Then he added, “Oh, and once you get some footage there, we have the private event for Norman Jewison tonight that you’ll have to film.”

I was pissed. I was pissed that it had nothing to do with reporting on the film festival for the Roots website or the Flick Off campaign. I was pissed because there would be absolutely no future use for the footage we’d shoot. I was pissed that in the store I had to listen to Cody Chestnutt sing “Look Good in Leather” on repeat all week. But most of all, I was pissed because my light at the end of the tunnel had vanished—we’d have to miss the two main bands at the music festival.

We left the store and headed for the subway in silence. Not only had Richard successfully made us feel inadequate all week, but now we felt exploited. What made it more frustrating was that every time we went from one event to another on the subway, it cost us $5, not to mention the cost of videotapes with the extra footage. Fine, maybe it wasn’t much money, but when we were sleeping on a hardwood floor in the Grand Central of Chinatown, choosing to walk forty-five minutes to avoid a $20 cab fare, and yet were being asked by a multimillion-dollar company to shuttle around the city on our own dime, it felt a bit much. Then again, we didn’t ask to be reimbursed either.

This week had been my most challenging since I began the One-Week Job project. It wasn’t until my last day that I realized the issue was communication. I was being judged by different bosses with different expectations. For one person I was doing a great job, and for another I was completely off track. It put us in a difficult situation because we were never sure what was expected of us, and worse, we felt scrutinized all the time.

I’d never quit anything, but right then I felt like walking away. The weird thing was that we met many great people who worked at Roots who were very kind and welcoming to us, but Richard had been our main point of contact. It’s amazing how it can take only one person to ruin things, especially if that person is in a position of authority.

As we sat on the subway on our way to the ferry docks, I turned to Ian. “I don’t want to go back, man. Why should we go back to a place that’s going to make us feel like crap? I don’t want to do it.”

“You want to quit?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t want to go back there.” I stared out the subway window and watched blankly as another few stops passed by.

“The thing is, they don’t even know that there’s an issue,” I said. “If I quit, they’re going to be surprised and I’ll have to explain the situation. I don’t know. I don’t feel like making a big issue about it with only one day left.”

“Yeah, but it’s the principle.”

“Yeah, I guess. I just don’t want to be all dramatic, like we couldn’t hack it or something. Anyway, how can I justify quitting a job, where I’m not getting paid, I’m only there for a week, and they were nice enough to offer me the job in the first place?”

I also realized that it was partly my fault. I hadn’t said anything. I’d kept quiet, letting the tension and bitterness build inside of me all week. If I’d said something from the beginning, perhaps we could have clarified our roles early on.

We arrived at the ferry docks. At the ticket window, it quickly became apparent that we wouldn’t be allowed to board. With the larger video camera that Cam had lent us, we appeared too official—we’d need media passes. They wouldn’t let us in unless we left the camera outside.

With no clearance to get into the concert, it was impossible for us to perform what was expected of us. If we’d brought the smaller camera, perhaps we could have snuck it past the gate, but even then we’d have had to figure out a way to get backstage.

We walked away from the crowded entrance, crossed the street, and sat down on the curb. The environment screamed fun, but at the moment it was just background noise. We watched as streams of people passed by, laughing, full of anticipation, heading over to Toronto Island to enjoy the concert. It was weird to think that just over a month earlier we hadn’t been too far from there—out on Cam’s boat having a barbecue and drinking Steam Whistle beer with the crew. Things were much different then. We’d been in friendly company, loving life, feeling like anything was possible. People were good. Now, as we sat bummed out on the curb, it seemed like a distant memory.

As I watched the procession of concertgoers across the street, I suddenly felt angry about the whole Richard situation again.

Then two things occurred to me.

First, I was being really lame. And second, why was I allowing this guy to make me feel this way? I chose to take it personally, to feel down about it. I can learn from this, I thought. I will never forget how he made me feel, and I will always be conscious to never make someone else feel less important. I don’t care how busy I think I am, there’s always time to treat others like equals. I also learned that I could never work for someone who puts others down.

I looked over at Ian sitting next to me surely struggling to put the situation in perspective. His eyes were fixed on the pavement between his feet, elbows on his knees, his hands hanging lifeless toward the ground. His face was slack; a stranger walking by might have assumed he was exhausted. But I knew otherwise. It takes a lot to get Ian down—he’s always so solid and can come through with an appropriate Buddha quote when needed. Right now we were in desperate need of one, but I’d never seen him so deflated.

I jumped to my feet. “Screw it,” I declared. “I’m scalping these tickets.”

Still seated, Ian watched in disbelief as I ran across the street and disappeared into the crowd.

Ten minutes later I emerged, cash in hand. I jogged back to Ian and looked down at him with a triumphant smile. “Let’s go grab a couple Steamys!”

Ian laughed and shook his head. He grabbed my extended hand, pulled himself up, and we started walking toward the nearest bar.

My last day at the film festival was much of the same, except I felt a lot more like I did the first day—unflappable. I suppose it was like the last day of many regular jobs—nothing was really expected of us, and we counted down the hours until we could get the heezy out of there. We were able to see it from an outside perspective and laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

At the beginning of the week, I’d never been more excited to begin a One-Week Job. Now, at the end of the week, I’d never been more happy to finish one. On the surface, this job seemed unbelievable—going to this huge film festival, interacting with celebrities, and being part of all the excitement in the city—but we weren’t able to enjoy it because of the constant tension underlying the experience. In hindsight, I would have preferred to work at the Roots headquarters with all the great people we met the first day.

As we walked out of the store for the last time, we wore wide grins on our faces—the kind of grins worthy of an impromptu pause in the street for an overly exaggerated high five—“Yeeaah!”—before proceeding to the subway station.

Soon we were back at Rob’s place gathering our stuff and waiting for Danna to pick us up. My next job, with an advertising agency in Montreal, started that night.