It Pays Not to Burn Bridges, REALLY!!!

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Kai stayed over at his buddy Lukas' place while I went to work late afternoon in Redwood City. My job was to photograph clients of ABD Insurance and Wells Fargo Bank, (who just bought ABD, the #16 largest insurance company in the country). And it was a big party alright...


That's me holding my trusty monster camera with Denise, who contracted my services. Denise used to be a wedding coordinator for Crowne Plaza Hotel in Foster City where I had gotten to know her through a Chinese-Filipino wedding I shot there almost 3 years ago. We exchanged cards and she called me a couple months later to shoot a mock wedding for hotel advertisement. To make a long story short, I arrived at the hotel and was surprised to see another photographer was chosen to shoot the event, and an unfamiliar wedding coordinator present. This person informed me she wasn't expecting another photographer and if I would instead shoot side by side with this other photographer?
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I was pretty upset (but didn't show it) and politely bowed out. Which she then insulted me, by offering me a breakfast buffet certificate, which she would mail to me for my trouble.
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I had spoken to Denise about this who arrived at the scene, and which she was apologetic. And well, I never heard from her again. In fact, I was a little teed off with her too. But I kept my mouth shut.
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To add salt to the wound, the breakfast certificate never arrived!
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A few weeks ago, Denise e-mails me and I noticed her credentials that she worked for ABD insurance now. Through the phone, she tells me she hadn't worked for Crowne Plaza pretty much after the incident with me. She found out that the "other" so-called wedding coordinator was hired without her notification and was given her work title. So she didn't bother to find out if they were doing something behind her back or were going to fire her. Either way, she was teed off that they embarrassed her by what they had done to me, as she had no idea this was transpiring. So she walked out on Crowne Plaza and had been with ABDi for almost 3 years now.

So here I am doing a job for her...

Well, the funny thing (that's why you don't burn bridges) is the world is getting smaller. You run into people in the weirdest places...one ABD insurance guy recognized me as the wedding photographer- (you see, he was a limo driver on the side). Another woman swears she had seen me at a health fair, which I have done things for Sutter Hospital and others.

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To top it off, and I had not told Denise yet, but I ended up introducing her to John, ABD's safety manager (and they worked together for how long?) You see, I had also worked for ABD as an independent contractor for one of their clients doing ergonomic/ workplace injury prevention evaluations. And that was almost 10 years ago. What I didn't know was John was sorta tagging after me, trying to fit my face. I didn't realize I was taking pictures of this man, without recognizing him until he walked past me when I read his name tag. GEEZ! So you can imagine the look on his face when his lights turned on.

The decorations were neat! This was a five- floor party. New York theme on the 5th floor.

New Orleans theme on the 4th floor.

They served oysters! Which you better believe I ate some.

Japanese theme on the 3rd floor.

(So here is John and his son, John Jr.)

Mexican theme on the 2nd floor.

On the 1st floor, a Spanish/ flamenco guitarist played. This floor had the Beach theme. Another photographer was hired to do the studio set-up with the Wells Fargo banner as a backdrop. (Which you can see in the picture taken of me above)

Give-aways! A metal stagecoach coin bank recreated from the original one in the Wells Fargo History Museum in San Francisco. I took 2 of them to give to both Kai and Lukas and I also ran off with a plate of devilish deserts!

~Hey they were gonna throw it away!