This reminds me of one of the best weddings I’ve ever been to. It was yuuuuuge and someone made a gift of renting a bouncy castle that guests could bring their kids to before the ceremony. Everyone under 12 slept through the service. Parents chipped in for pizza in a smaller ballroom adjacent to the reception and…

Blerg. I only got a taste of super-expensive city living after visiting New York this weekend and I have never been so happy to see 2/$1 bananas at my office cafeteria. Need to talk myself down from the urge to move there.

My room’s more like a Planet Fitness with a bagel pizza in the corner.

I tried to use it this morning. Must have done something wrong because I ended up sleeping in. Can you actually turn off your phone screen with it in use or are you supposed to keep it on and unlocked all night?

I heartily approve. My rowing machine lived in a downstairs room that was usually frigid, with bad lighting and a weird setup for the TV (I used to row through certain TV shows). Never really *wanted* to go use it despite liking rowing.

“Oh, wait, I was switching lenses. Can you redo that dance with Grandma-that-can-barely-stand?”

I’ve never shot a wedding that didn’t have the traditional posed shots with the wedding party, even if it was ‘just the reception.’ Anniversary or birthday parties, there’s usually no more than five, but weddings almost always have at least twice that if not more. I’d want my standing softboxes for that many to…

Ughhh. I got quoted twice the cost for extra fabric for my traditional SE Asian wedding dress because they thought my mixed-race ass was “fat” and that I wasn’t really part-Asian. Some prompt yelling back in the local tongue got them apologetic real quick. They did not get my business.

I really wanted to print a joke sheet of rates:

That said, just asking can’t hurt. When couples asked if the price could be lowered, my boss would at least try to figure out if they could do with less coverage (photos of people getting ready are really overrated and I’ve seen some awful ones I can’t believe people paid to have taken), maybe they were willing to…

This just spells bad news to me. When I was an assistant photographer, the higher price for wedding work paid my wages, rental for more equipment, and insurance. And my boss had multiple people come up to him with hundreds of last-minute requests (“oh you HAVE to get a photo of Sneauxflaeuke as the flower girl!”) and…

I lost it when someone had the bright idea of holding virtual daily scrums and said I could easily lead it through audio (not even a gorramn video option). I did not last long.

Better yet it was diluted with water. Key ingredient was dihydrogen oxide.

The biggest horsesh!t I’ve ever seen from homeopathy was liquid oxygen drops to add to water. I about lost it when I saw tiny bottles going for $20.

Ayyyyyy.

Sorry about the multiple edits. Just when I thought I read and understood your question correctly, I was wrong, several times.

Mostly bigger cities. May have started in California. I’ve seen some in Minneapolis, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Denver, Boston, Charleston, Manhattan.

I interviewed with a company that insisted on open office. I asked for noise-cancelling headphones. They declined, and it was the worst six months of my working life. Then one day a new hire with .... ‘personality’ came in and ten of us went to management and demanded headphones. Finally granted.

There are actually a growing number of companies that have BYOP. I interviewed with a few some years back for a different job (in a different city) and was pleasantly surprised.

I’m planning a move to a different time zone in a few years and have started a back-of-envelope wish list of benefits that I’d be willing to take less pay for and what I *must* have. It’s theoretical at best and for now that’s just fine.