Other possible titles for this blog:
“The Unsuccessful Search for an Assistant”
“I guess this job is harder than I thought?”
“The realities of running a small porn production business”
About 8 months ago I decided to hire an assistant. After doing everything myself for years & seeing some of my peers outsource or have assistance with various aspects of the business I decided to give it a go.
I admit, I was feeling a bit at the end of my rope with email. It is overwhelming & so much of it can be answered with my FAQ but when I tried an auto-responder fans hated it & it created a massive junk mail problem.
The video & photo editing I really enjoy but it’s not the best use of my time. I felt I could benefit from increased tweeting as well as having someone try to put a dent in the colossal amount of stolen content being shared on free sites. The person could also screen my emails, sending the appropriate link with the information if it were one of the usual questions & just sending me the ones that needed my personal attention.
The first person I hired didn’t work out after several months. Although they seemed to be able to do the job tasks well enough after a lot of time invested in training they had miscalculated how busy their lives were. They just didn’t have time to do the job and the work wasn’t getting done on time.
I learned from the first experience and was more careful with the second hire. I painted the worst picture of the job to try to ensure they knew what they were signing up for. The reality is that you’re saturated in sexual & pornographic material. From reading the words in emails to seeing the images while editing pics, vids or looking for pirated content on free sites. The product is porn, the way it would be food in a restaurant or automobiles in a car dealership.
My second hire felt confident this wouldn’t be a problem but they have just capitulated, resigned, sounding traumatized, mentioning having nightmares from it all.
You could chalk it up as their problem, that they shouldn’t have taken the job if they didn’t think they could handle it…but that’s not giving the issue the contemplation it deserves.
Many of you reading this love porn, certainly the porn I produce. The idea of getting paid to work with it, to edit my vids & pics, to tweet about it, to look for it on free sites, might seem highly appealing. I deliberately did not hire someone who was ‘into’ my porn because I thought that would cause other problems, but I didn’t account for how unpleasant it might be for someone who was not into it.
One of my peers has had her content edited by a gay man for years & I’ve spoken to him about it, he just thinks it’s all funny. I made the mistake of assuming that would be the default, that if someone wasn’t turned on by it, that they would just find it funny or not be affected by it. To be fair, the damage was not done by my vids but more by looking for my content on free sharing sites to get removed. Seeing all that other porn too. But I had naively thought that was one of the easier parts of the job. Not so.
So I’m back to doing everything myself. I won’t make the mistake of trying to hire an assistant again. On top of that I’m at the very tail end of finishing my book & planning to embark on new ventures: getting articles published & doing podcasts, new activities that are meant to work in concert with a book launch this year. I have recently moved into a new place for the purpose of having better film sets. Samantha Mack has been a huge help in decorating sets while I was away but there’s still work I need to do. (Check out her vids: https://www.clips4sale.com/studio/36796/mack-movies )
I’m glad that I’m feeling rejuvenated after my trip to Africa in December, I’m going to need all the energy I have, as well as a few more hours in the day if possible. ha ha
I know, 1 crummy pic with some wilder beasts after a month in Africa…I’m sure you feel ripped off. It’s what I have at the moment & it’s better than nothing.
Africa was great, by the way. I saw all the animals on safari, zebra’s, elephants, giraffe’s, lions, etc. The hot air balloon ride over the Serengeti was thrilling. I also visited some local tribes & villages, learning about their culture. The last end I enjoyed a few relaxing days at the beach in Zanzibar. Hours reading (The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood), playing chess, making love, walking along the beach at sunset, eating good food & sleeping lots.
So, Happy New Year! 2018 is off with a bang for me, it looks like it’s going to be a busy one.
xo
Mistress T
Members Site: www.MistressT.net
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Find a person who has schizoid personality disorder.
They are often highly intelligent, yet lack the ability to feel emotions.
A person like that could easily do what you ask them to without losing
their mind in the process. They won’t care what you do OR about having
to look at other porn sites in order to find and remove illegal content.
Interesting…it leads to the question of what it takes to be a person who does this job, as I have & many others have, for years. The stereotype is that we’re all damaged goods, often with drug addictions…but in my experience most of my peers have their heads screwed on right, with a variety of backgrounds/upbringings.
OK, but I’m not passing judgement here, in case you got that impression. As a fan of your work, I’d be a hypocrite if I did.
I’m merely offering a suggestion that could solve your headache, so to speak.
Hi Mistrese T, looks like I’m the first to comment on you’re blog for 2018. Just want to say I admire all the hard work you put into your site ans business I’ve wlways admired strong harwd working independent women, I can’t wait for your book to be published I’m going to purchase it as soon as it’s available. I hope 2018 be will be a great year full of love happiness and success for you.
The job description doesn’t look so hard. Seems that take a lot of time and dedication. Being Mistress T doesn’t look easy. I still think you could try again. At least for the part of Mistress T that is not the artist. Hunting for stolen content could be done by your fans, for instance. They find it and report back to you somehow. Editing videos still part of your art and this must be in your hands until you find someone that could edit a Mistress T video that you could swear it was done by yourself. Ain’t easy, right? But editing photos and tweeting still something that could be done by someone else.
I hope you have a great new year. That you find great new partners and still being a great artist.
Thanks…I agree that the job description doesn’t look hard, yet after 2 failed attempts evidently we’re both wrong.
I may still outsource the video editing. That’s the easiest thing to find but the rest of it I’ll do myself.
As for the stolen content, it’s partly the searching but it’s sending the take-down notices (copying & pasting dozens of links, filling out forms, etc.) that is the real grind & no one, I mean, no one, including me, “wants” to do that job. I’ve hired companies to do it in the past but there’s a lot of trust involved & as much money as I could throw at it, it never even put a dent in the volume. Somehow my content still sells despite so much of it being available on free sites, for that I am equally mystified & grateful.
Well… seems like your fans are ‘hunting’ for legal content and this sounds better! =)
Hope you could meet this girl Sophia Sylvan (https://twitter.com/SophiaSylvan). Different fetishes, but, well… who knows if you could do something together!
You’re awesome!
Hello, Mistress T. I hope you would reconsider your decision to not hire an assistant; I recently moved to Vancouver and I would like to send you a resume with an in-depth background history. I believe I can be an asset for your business.
You’re welcome to send a resume…though the other two were very qualified on paper as well…plus came with good references from people I personally know. I must conclude that no matter how hard I try to explain the realities of the job, until you’re actually doing it you don’t understand how challenging it is. (Neither one complained about the amount I paid them, so that wasn’t the issue. It just occurred to me that some might wonder if they just didn’t feel the money was worth the hassle…that wasn’t it. I paid a very fair rate.)
Okay, well, you haven’t scared me off yet 🙂
How would you prefer I submit my resume?
I only have 1 email address. Show me that you’re bright enough to figure it out:-)
This is an interesting exchange – it did occur to me while reading, that you might actually find the ‘right’ person for the job from among your regular contributors here…
At least anyone expressing an interest probably won’t be put off by the ‘trawling’ factor you mentioned above, I should think…
Either way, good luck!
hi mistressT,was just wondering if you’ll be at the AVN show in vegas,i love your work!!!
I won’t be making it to AVN this year.
Have you given any thought to breaking the tasks up for different people? One may be more suited to searching out your pirated vids on free websites (hint) than the other tasks you need help with. Just a thought.