Small rant to just get this anxiety out of my brain. I have generalized anxiety disorder and have been a people pleaser my whole life. That makes setting boundaries difficult. But as I hit my late 30s crushing inflation and hitting certain life goals like getting married and buying a house have pushed me to put my foot down when I’m asked to do additional work for free.
If you want my skill and my time…pay me for it.
To summarize, I am a costume designer and seamstress. My main job is a college professor where I teach 3 classes, hold office hours, serve on a committee and advise students who major in costume design. We have a theater on campus that does professional shows and student shows. I serve as the costume designer for professional shows (which includes designing, sourcing, building and fitting costumes) and I receive a stipend of $1500 for each show I do. Student shows have a student designer and I advise that student on how to run the costumes for the show.
Outside of my full time job, I have no shortage of paid work. I do costumes for an acrobatic company and lm getting married the second week of November so I’m making my own wedding dress. I designed a show that opened last night and my fall is other wise completely booked solid. I’m stressed because I’m working a lot, but I also need to work a lot to pay for life things at the moment.
At my school we have a student show coming up the first week of november. The director sent me a meeting invite to talk about the costumes and when I saw the cast list on the wall outside his office I saw my name as costume designer. When I sat for the meeting I asked if he was expecting me to design the show and he said yes because the student who was supposed to do it was cast as a lead. I started panicking because I just don’t have time. I budgeted time to advise a student, not design a show a week before I get married. I took notes and when I left the meeting, I shot our department head an email asking if i was expected be the costume designer and would I be receiving my typical stipend.
A bunch of emails went back and forth, first where my boss said there was no stipend available. So I said I could not be the designer for the show with no stipend and here comes the gas lighting. Both my boss and the director sent me emails saying I was mistaken, they never intended for me to be the designer and they just needed me to help out by pulling a few costumes. Ummm then why was name written next to “costume designer”? The tones of both emails were just weird. Basically saying “your the costume person so we just thought you should be included”….I call bullshit. I think they were both seeing how much work I would do without me calling it out that I should be paid for such work. I don’t want to the job but if they really needed me to do it I could cancel some other paid work I already excepted…..but I need to be paid equally for that time.
I’m disappointed because I thought I had a good relationship with the guy who is the director. I’m friendly with his wife and did his wife’s wedding alterations. And then your going to give me attitude when I express time concerns due to planning my own wedding? Get bent dude.
I get at the end of the day everyone just wants what’s best for them and me putting my foot down makes that more difficult. But I’m doing what’s best for ALL OF US. If I do work for free, our boss will expect the next person to work for free. I’ve been sewing and designing for almost 20 years. The message we want to send our students is that my work doesn’t deserve to be compensated? Absolutely not.
I’m proud of myself for setting a boundary but the consequences suck. But I need money. I need to get paid. I don’t have time to donate. Sorry not sorry.