Category Archives: Jill Adler’s Personal Blog
Nerdy Nummies Cracks A Good Egg
My poor baby got a huge dose of reality today by way of my kitchen. I’m a decent cook and used to bake up a storm when I was a kid but Sage developed some overzealous expectations after watching episode after episode of this YouTube channel called Nerdy Nummies.
She’s been begging me for days to let her try out a recipe and I told her to find an easy one. Take a look at what happened.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/ckwM3KmTapo]
Sage hopes Rosanna responds but in the meantime we plan to stick to chocolate chip cookies and regular cupcakes to rebuild the confidence. Not sure if she’ll ever look at Nerdy Nummies the same. If anyone out there has tips on where we went wrong we’re all ears.
When Headshots Become a Shot in the Head
I had high hopes. I was going to meet this wonderful, wordly photographer; we’d have a killer connection and birth not only beautiful commercial headshots but a working relationship that would last years. I’d sooner shoot myself in the head than deal with a day like I had today.
A friend recommended this woman in Los Angeles to actors in need of new headshots. I checked out her site and loved her work. Didn’t like her rates- at all. But I figured I would call anyway to see what the “industry rate” mentioned would cost. Maybe the site price was just to make her look important. Like the bar that’s empty inside but has an outside line that runs around the building.
Fees Are Subjective
Misunderstandings are a fact of life but when they occur over money you better do what you can to avoid them or suffer the consequences. I should have known better. A person who sets their own rates and adjusts them randomly based on mood and memory is trouble. Me being the one who goes for the best deal possible will never assume I’m paying anything more than agreed to up front. And so it went down.
This photographer stated that she would charge me $175 for commercial headshots with X number of looks (where you change shirts). I couldn’t remember exactly how many looks we would do but I think it was 2-3 or 3-4. The standard is about 3 so I didn’t pay too much attention. Plus, I was still not sure if I would commit.
Her price was still high (don’t get me wrong there are PLENTY of photographers who charge MUCH more but there are talented ones who charge less as well). However, I needed headshots for Sage too. Would she split the one session between Sage and me? She said that she would and all of a sudden the price became more attractive. She was relatively nice over the phone so I looked forward to our time together.
Headshots D-Day
We arrived at 9:25 for our 9:30 appointment and were greeted with a grimace and snarky comment about being early and how we should have waited in the car (it was already 80 degrees outside) because she’s usually with a client. She wasn’t though. To be fair, she did tell me ahead of time not to come early because it might interrupt her session with the previous client; but that wasn’t the case today. There was absolutely no need for the teaching moment.I chalked it up to a pet peeve.
I’ve been around many a gruff character but they usually warm. Not in this case. The closest to a compliment she gave was when she said I was tiny. But that was in relation to fitting into an old blazer she had in the garage.
She chose the outfits – two for Sage, two for me- and I never questioned it. I figured she knew she was getting paid $175 and she must be ok with doing 4 looks. It was her responsibility to say ‘I’ll do one outfit each but if you want me to shoot two that’s going to cost more’ if she planned to jack the price on me. I wasn’t the one asking for a certain number of looks. She also said she had another person coming at 11 for headshots so this would be a total rush job. She was squeezing me in.
Say What?
Well golly gee wasn’t it a big shocker when she speed shoots the two of us in less than an hour and then tries to hand over a bill for $275! I coughed. I said I hadn’t budgeted for that nor did I agreed to pay any more than $175 for headshots. Talk about a bait and switch. Oh, and by the way, you don’t actually get the images. “We’ll send you a link where you will be forced to pay to download anything more than a low-res thumbnail from a gallery.” She wanted $275 for her time essentially. Not only was the rate higher but it didn’t include photos! Shouldn’t this have been disclosed during the booking phase?
I also learned she doesn’t color correct or retouch but that’s ok; I could figure that out on my own Photoshop I thought. Just give me my photos. Ok, we can give you the images right now (instead of going through the link) but that’s another $25 for the disc. I have my own flashdrive, can we just put them there? That would be $10. But it’s my drive?! Sorry, ten.
Nasty is as Nasty Does
I ultimately offered $210 because I think the photos look amazing and hoped that giving a little more than the agreed upon $175 might appease her. Unfortunately, her demeanor went from mildly abrupt to downright obnoxious. She snapped, “Whatever! I’m not going to fight about it!” And stormed off, leaving her assistant to wrap things up; refusing to even acknowledge our presence from then on. Who acts that way after 14?
I did love the shots she took of Sage. They’re gorgeous. Mine, mmmm. She rushed it and they’re a bit blown out. They’re usable but certainly not my dream shots-and I asked for some that showed more body and she ignored the request. Perhaps if she had taken her time or given us an afternoon I could see why she might be upset about not being paid more but still, you DISCLOSE your intention to charge more so we can say no before it’s too late. Her attitude and actions were way out of line.
If I have a financial misunderstanding with someone I’m the first one to admit I should have been clearer and let the other person pay what they understood was the fee. If I gave more (a longer story, added video content, worked two days on set instead of one) I’m not going to expect or demand more money after the fact. I’d rather that they are happy with me and my work so they find me again in the future. And I’ll be more clear the next time. This scene today was beyond unpleasant. She didn’t even say goodbye to us or shake my hand.
Adios, Amigos
Her assistant was forced to close. I saw him load all the photos onto my drive but when it was time to pay up I discovered they don’t take credit cards!!! I missed the ‘cash-only’ memo. He refused to give me the photos unless I gave them cash (no checks or credit cards). I drove to the nearest bank. Either she’s not paying taxes or has had too many disappointed customers dispute charges that she’s trying to stay one step ahead of everyone. For sure I would have put a hold on the charge had I known when I got home that they had withheld one of the ‘looks’!
When I returned with the cash and took the drive back to review the headshots, my “mom” look was missing. Perhaps it was an innocent mistake but I swear I saw the asistant put all the photos on the drive. I watched carefully. For those particular ones to disappear, he would have had to go back and physically delete them. A new low; some passive aggressive BS act that suggested, “You didn’t pay me enough so I’m keeping them.”
I sent a polite email: My ‘mom look’ isn’t here. Could I stop by and have you put them on the drive? “We’re out of town until next week. The link will be up in 5 business days,” she responded. Reaally. How convenient. So I have to go through a link to the photo place and pay more after all?
The whole day left a shitty taste in my mouth and a knot in the pit of stomach. There are some people you should never do business with no matter how talented they are. This is one of them.
How to Get a HONDA Extended Warranty
I think it was Dr. Phil who once said – Don’t ever take “No” from a person not in position to say, “Yes”. That’s been my credo ever since and it’s made me a pain in the ass. Like a lockjaw on a pitbull, I dig in and refuse to quit. So many people just don’t have the time and energy to fight but there’s a drive in me that sees the struggle as a challenge or chess game. You have to think several moves ahead, anticipating what your opponent will do and how you plan to counter that.
And so it was today. I’m 4k miles away from being ineligible for an extended warranty on Honda. In other words, at 36k miles I’m SOL. All of the dealerships around here claim the only extended warranty available was through the dealership at $1500-1700 for a bumper-to-bumper, 100k/5year plan. But I wanted a HondaCare warranty. I trust Honda. I don’t trust dealers. No one wanted to help.
I called HondaCare and they said that even if the dealer offers their own they can still sell me Honda’s plan. There is no policy or rule against it. Why couldn’t I just buy it straight from them? Honda said as much as they would like to work with individual consumers, I would have to use the dealer to complete the sale.
I called around Utah to inquire and no one called me back. The miles were ticking away. I finally talked with a service manager instead of finance at Larry H. Miller in Murray and he personally looked into it and made the finance dept. guy call me. We played phonetag. I drove over there and walked right into his office. It was go time.
He told me that they are only authorized to sell LHM contracts. He didn’t even know how to do something through Honda. I said that it would be the perfect time to learn and gave him the phone number for HondaCare. He said it would be up to the general manager. He makes the rules. I said, great, let’s go talk to him. At this point he knew I wasn’t giving up.
He got up, left the cubicle and visions of a horrible buying experience at Ensign/Young Honda in Logan danced through my head. Had that dealership not screwed me over so royally at the time of sale, I wouldn’t be in the position of needing to repurchase an extended warranty. Ten minutes later he was back and saying that my approval was pending and I’m all set. An hour later I was the proud owner of a 100k/6 year bumper-to-bumper plan backed by Honda and valid anywhere in the US…for $1300.
Thank you, Dr. Phil!
Vysera Kisses My Ass Goodbye
It’s weird to have your boyfriend complain about your weight…When you’ve lost it. He says that I dieted my ass off. Literally. He can go to hell. Or better, he can lose weight too then talk to me about it.
I’m super psyched on the skinny me and I’m not about to let him rain on my parade. And I’m sure my butt will look just fine once I get jeans that fit. Seriously, who would have thought I’d have this problem where none of my designer jeans fit right. My True Religions, my James Jeans, even my favorite Joes Jeans. They’re fitting like lounge pants. However, I’ve been afraid to buy anything new. I don’t trust the pounds won’t come back. Sure, three months after my Vysera experiment I’m not only skinny but skinnier. I have lost an additional five pounds. My arms are thinner, I’ve lost five percent body fat, my thighs don’t touch. I’m amazed. But will it last long enough to re-tool the wardrobe? Like Ryan missing my ass, I’m missing my jeans on my ass. On the bright side, Ryan appreciates my leaner tummy.
I didn’t actually need to lose weight. Basic Research in West Valley, Utah, wanted a few test subjects to spend 30 days on a carb-blocking supplement called Vysera and they threw in a personal trainer and a nutritionist. The idea that I could be my college weight again if only for a few weeks was the carrot that spurred the 8-pound drop.
There have been only three times in my life when I weighed nearly 112. In high school I weighed 108. In college, I fed my emotional pain with dorm fries and milk shakes after breaking both my leg and thumb during the ski season, ballooned to 125 and dropped 15 the month after my casts came off. In grad school, I took a job serving cocktails at The Cheesecake Factory in Marina Del Rey (the most awesome job in the world btw) and quit after regularly stuffing on cheesecake and nachos. I was back to 120. A month of weight training later, I was 112. Slowly, though, I moved to the mountains, lived a full life as a ski bum, became a mother; suffered a bout with cancer and chemo and eventually settled in at 123-125 depending on the day. I figured that was my meant-to-be weight. No matter what I ate it hovered there. Ryan would tease that I ‘could stand to lose a few’ because of the infamous baby belly but it didn’t bother me. He was right.
Then came the Vysera challenge. I went to bed starving every night and I went from 125 to 117 in 30 days. The only thing that kept me on the straight and narrow was knowing that in four weeks I’d be back to eating PF Chang’s and Cheesecake Factory. Funny, I’ve only eaten at Chang’s once since December.
The strict diet of fruits, veggies and protein not only overhauled my kitchen but my tastebuds. I’m into ‘portion control’ as well. I get one serving and don’t go back for seconds. I tend to grab an apple instead of a brownie for dessert. Weightloss was inevitable considering I stopped eating pasta, rice, potatoes and McDonald’s. The more impressive aspect is that not only did I keep the weight off but lost four more pounds after the ‘diet’ and the supplement officially ended.
Did the Vysera work or was it all the other stuff? I can’t say for sure. My trainer can. He says that the women he trains who don’t take the pill only lose half of what I did. Not to mention that my diet was right over the freakin Christmas holidays and I still lost weight. Each week I was 2 pounds lighter and leaner. I’d like to think it was the supplement too because it’s depressing to think I had the power to change inside me all these years and was just lazy.
The goal now is to rock the gym and keep everything slim and tight at least until my Disney cruise in May. I’m going to leave the tankini home and wear a bikini. OMG I haven’t done that since Sage was born. Without the Vysera I never would have been inspired to go for it so I guess in a way the twice a day pill DID help me lose weight. If only the project came with money for new jeans. Just saying.