Stand by me

Two weeks ago, I walked out of one of my voice recording jobs.

It was perhaps a tad petulant of me (but I was provoked!).

It has perhaps permanently wrecked my relationship not only with that particular employer (who was just about the most irritating and incompetent man I've ever worked with here) but with the studio concerned (one of the major educational publishers) and with my recording partner (just about the only person I do this work with any more).  It cost me a few thousand renminbi that week, and untold tens of thousands over the coming year or so.  It's not inconceivable that I may never work recording educational materials again.

But do I have any regrets?  Not at all.  These people were arseholes, and I've never liked working with them.  And I especially did not want to be working on that particular day: it was (as always!) a last-minute booking, and I had a ton of other stuff I needed to do in the last week  or so before Christmas; also, it was way too gorgeous an afternoon to be stuck inside a windowless room for three hours or more.  I felt elated to have escaped from the engagement.

Trouble was, you see, we began with the inevitable dispute about whether or not we were going to read Chinglish (or in some cases, not even Chinglish - which is at least vaguely comprehensible, if jarringly inelegant - but outright gibberish, idiotic typos).  We have this discussion just about every time we record anything.  And we usually persuade the studio to accept our corrections - even if the book or whatever has already gone to press (just because the book's wrong doesn't mean the audiotapes have to be as well).  We will, if really pressed, occasionally record the printed Chinglish versions as an alternative take, but lobby very strongly for our correct English version.  And we willl refuse point blank to read anything that is just nonsense - however insistent the studio engineers or publisher's representative may be.  Always the same rigmarole: we've done it hundreds of times now.  Usually this takes only about thirty seconds or so, because it is such a well-rehearsed routine for both sides, such a token resistance from the studio, such a quietly determined professionalism from us.  But this guy, Mr Irritating, whenever there's any problem at all, talks around it in circles quite unnecessarily for minutes at a time.  It bugs the crap out of me, but I've learned to expect it and put up with it.  However..... on this occasion he just came straight out and said, "If you don't read it like we tell you, we'll find someone else to record these books."  And then he sat there with an odiously smug grin on his face.

Perhaps it wasn't meant to be such a blunt ultimatum as it sounded.  Perhaps he wasn't taunting me with that sneering grin, it just happens to be the only facial expression he's got.  But I'm afraid that really hit one of my hot buttons.  We have been doing this same series of kiddie books intermittently throughout most of the year, and have done some very good work on it; we had been told that we would be retained for the entire series.  Yes, this is a pretty substantial sum of money.  You don't just threaten someone with the sack as soon as there's the smallest dispute over something (well, in China you do, but..... it's not to be recommended when dealing with foreigners).

Paradoxically, I think I might have had some chance of shrugging the insult off if I'd been less financially vulnerable - not much chance, but some.  But in my present desperately cash-strapped state, the threat to the wallet tended to hurt rather.  And I couldn't allow that arsehole to see that it hurt, so..... I didn't feel I had much choice but to walk out.

Ah, but the thing is.... it didn't need to be a walking out walking out.  I'd envisaged it being like the standard haggling tactic in the markets here, where if you walk away from the stalls the traders come meekly running after you offering big reductions on their initial asking price.  My partner and I are about the best at what we do.  And it was the week before Christmas: almost everyone else who does this sort of work had headed home for the holidays.  And the studio was very heavily booked, had struggled to schedule a session for us.  And Mr Irritating had told us that he was under a lot of time pressure, had to get 4 or 5 books done by the end of the week, which meant that he had to get 1 or 2 finished right then and there, that afternoon.  He could not replace us immediately, and would struggle to replace us (with anyone any good) in that week.  In those circumstances, my partner and I had all the power in the situation - and if she had backed me up by offering to walk out with me.... well, I am 99% certain the guy would have come after us and asked us back.  Heck, we wouldn't even have had to walk, so long as we'd both made the threat together.

But she didn't - despite the fact that she had basically initiated the argument, had agreed that we should be unyielding in our principles, had egged me on to make a stand (she told me, in fact, that the sentences in question were re-do's from a session she'd recorded there with another partner a week or two earlier, and that he'd refused to read them, thrown a strop and begun to walk out [before being conciliated and asked to return to the microphone]; and she urged me to do likewise).  No, she didn't back me up.  In fact, she caved in completely... and was on the phone trying to find a replacement for me before I was even out of earshot.

Perhaps she needed the money even more than I did.  Perhaps she is not so passionate about her principles.  Perhaps she's just a bit obtuse in the field of human psychology and bargaining strategies.  Or perhaps she just doesn't like me all that much....

However, I couldn't help reflecting that in general I find women to be disappointingly deficient in this regard: loyalty, camaraderie, solidarity seem to be almost uniquely masculine virtues (which is not to say that men are not sometimes lacking in them as well, but... not as often as women are).  Perhaps it's some sort of genetic imperative in them to always seek conciliation rather than confrontation; but there's a difference between 'conciliation' and completely undermining your companion's position.  Women don't seem to realise that these 'conciliatory' behaviours are often inappropriate, that they can serve to exacerbate confrontation.  There are times, I have come to believe, when you simply have to back someone up in an argument; whether or not you think they are in the right, whether or not you really understand what's going on at all - you have to back them up.  Or, at the very least, not sell them down the river by dissociating yourself from their position (especially if it is one which you had just a few moments earlier avowed!).  Because if you do that - if you abandon someone in a moment of conflict, or fail to give them adequate and appropriate support.... you will make the situation worse.... you will leave your friend completely up shit creek.  Women, alas, almost never seem to understand this.  End of rant.

Anyway, I thought this was a good excuse for a classic song.  I was going to post John Lennon's great cover of Ben E. King's Stand By Me, but I just discovered on YouTube this marvellous compilation of street performers around the world doing it (I've seen Grandpa Elliott play in N'Awlins - awesome!). It's part of a project called Playing For Change, and there's a lot more glorious stuff on their website and their YouTube account.

[The wonderful Ben E. King original can be heard here.  And - great YouTube oddities!! - here's a studio video of Iranian singing star Andy Madadian performing it with John Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora (JBJ sings part of it in Farsi!)]