When Work Collides with Out-of-Work

As an out-of-work actor, that means I have day job.  I work as technical support for a software company and I'm pretty good at my job.  I'm one of the subject matter experts for the underlying software and in addition to responding to user issues, I do trainings, develop new business functionalty, etc.

But what this means is that I am often asked to go on business trips to conduct large-scale trainings of our software for the users.  This can cause problems when I actually get into a show.  My schedule suddenly becomes strange:  Well, if you want me to do the training, then if it's during this month, I can leave on a Wednesday, train on Thursday, and return on Friday so that I'll only miss the Wednesday rehearsal.  But during these two weeks, I can't go at all because we're rehearsing every day.  Once the show opens, I can fly on Monday, train on Tuesday, and come back on Wednesday so I can make the Thursday performance.

At which point, the project manager looks at me with that look of, "You're trouble."

In this particular case, I've got it happening twice.  There's a show coming up that I'm hoping to get into.  However, work has got a potential training situation they want me to do.  I have a colleague who can also do trainings, but he's currently overseas for two weeks doing them so it would be inappropriate to send him immediately after he comes back.  Auditions are next week, but I don't have a solid schedule for when the training they'd want me to do is.

Fortunately, it's early enough in the rehearsal run that I should be able to do it without too much trouble, but there's always the issue of the director preferring to have someone without schedule conflicts.

And then, later in the year, there's another show that a director has asked me to do, we've been planning it for about a year, and it's all set...except work is gunning for a new contract that will involve sending a tech person out to guide the new clients in how to use the software.

Oh, and did I mention that this would be in Hawaii?

Now, we don't have the contract yet and therefore I am in clearly counting my chickens before they have hatched.  But man do I have to hope that everything works out so that I can do my shows and be able to do the Hawaii job.