Working Conditions - Blog Posts

while I don't have a total solution for this kind of thing, I believe that bad working practices are usually tied to aspects of the final work that I don't care much about -- visual polish, technical achievement, etc. so I feel optimistic that there is no contradiction between what is truly good and what is good for the creators' work lives

I think when collaborating, a small number of people can go to extreme effort and push at the boundaries of what is possible, but this is not a workplace and shouldn't be done when money and power is corrupting everything

don't care to comment on the AI controversy du jour except to briefly remark on labour practices in Studio Ghibli, so far as I know about them - it's complicated lol. they are infamously demanding employers (c.f. Oshii's Kremlin quote) and it's quite likely the workload at the studio during Princess Mononoke and Takahata's abusive treatment killed Yoshifumi Kondō before he could direct a movie, but also so far as I understand they're moderately less bad on the 'ludicrously shit pay and no job security' norm of the rest of the anime industry, traditionally keeping mostly permanent employees rather than relying on freelancers.

they also do tend to attract some of the absolute best people in the industry on a technical level, and notably they've been a recurring home for brilliant idiosyncratic artists like Shinya Ohira whose work wouldn't easily fit into the standard pipeline. there's a reason a lot of animators see working at ghibli as a high aspiration and it's not just the fame of miyazaki's work. of course, Ghibli as experienced by famous animators like Yoshinori Kanada or Shinya Ohira might be a different experience than Ghibli as experienced at the lower rungs.

still, I think animation at large, as a heavily passion-driven creative industry, has a really warped relationship with overwork - there's a kind of 'that sucks but also you gotta respect the results tho' sentiment that goes way, way beyond ghibli or even the anime industry. it's sacrifice logic. to claim you sacrificed x hundred hours on a piece is to claim that piece was worth more than anything else you would have done for those x hundred hours, and to claim the role of the madly passionate artist who puts it all into their work. notably the myth of Miyazaki himself focuses on how intensely he works on his projects, from the thousands of pieces he did at university right through to his elaborate storyboards and micromanaging style as a director.

don't quite know the way through that, tbh. I'm no more immune to that romance than the next sakubuta.

So.... I have a controversial thing to say... I have no respect for old people. I mean, not any more than I do for the average human. Maybe less, simply because of they way they treat other people. Especially people in customer service, like me. They are so egotistical and downright disrespectful and, dare I say it, crazy. I have been screamed at, spoken to like a child, told how to do my job, I've had items thrown onto my counter and been told to do stuff rather than asked. All by people clearly over the age of 50. I think it is insane that we are taught to 'respect our elsers' when they hold no respect for us at all. I'm supposed to respect you after you just blatantly ignore me and then get mad when something doesn't work? No. Absolutely not, and I'm not even sorry about it. If you respected me, then yes, I'll be respectful back, but when I'm treated like shit, do not expect me to be kind or happy in return. I will not respect you just because you've walked around a little longer than I have. And don't even get me started on old men in particular. They absolutely disguest me. I am simply doing my job and a customer looks at my older male coworker(whom I really like and did not expect this from) and they begin talking about how I'm going to replace him and he's "training me" and my coworker goes "at least she's one of the pretty ones". Mind you they have not looked at me once. Another time an old male customer spoke to my young male coworker about me saying "Wow, you look just like my niece, so beautiful," and then looked at my coworker with a smirk and said "The kind of girl I'm looking for". Ex-fucking-scuse me? Are you being so serious right now? What the fuck? You just said I look like your NIECE????????????? And, also, the amount of times I have been barked at, cat called, and even screamed at while walking down the sidewalk is absolutely fucking insane. I am only 18 years old and I don't turn 19 for a long while yet. This has been happening since I was a minor. A young girl. It is ridiculous how society accepts these things. Disgusting.

Anyways, to the request marinating in my inbox, I'm trying my best but I've been extremely busy and tired, I hope you understand.