Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Sometimes parents can't control their children. Sometimes the parents are children themselves

An email submission with the subject "Sexual Harassment??"
"The reason behind the question marks, is because I'm not sure if you could call it that at all, considering it happens from our CHILD customers!!!! They grope and grab us and their parents just giggle. Not to mention the Fathers staring at our "Goodies" and it sometimes being caught on camera.

Just this past week i was shooting a family of 6, the children being 4 Boys. The second to the oldest was about 10yrs old. I was trying to pose them and this particular boy just kept reaching up and "Honking" (for lack of a better word to describe his gesture) my breast. I looked at him and he got the biggest Cheshire smile on his face.... i thought he wouldn't do it again, but i was wrong. I turned back to keep posing them and he continued to do it over and over and over again, i just kept swatting his hand away.

Another incident was with a fellow employee. I'm unsure of the age of the child, but it was a little boy and he was continuously grabbing her rear-end...for the entire visit at our studio.

As far as the fathers, ugh. On more than one occasion Ive had comments made about my breasts and Ive also caught them in pictures staring at them...in a photo with their children and wife they are obviously STARING at my chest. How can i tell?! If i have them in a floor pose and I'm squeaking a duck to get the kids to smile, i pull the Duck UP towards the camera...when Mom and the kids eyes are UP but Dads are DOWN and in my direction, we can only assume what he is looking at!"

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I managed a studio, I had a photographer walk out in the middle of a session because the father of a 6 year old boy repeatedly told his son to "look at her titties" and they both laughed away. The session was over at that point, and from then on I scheduled this freak with myself. I dared him. He didn't.

Anonymous said...

Totally sexual harassment. Call the legal dept. You don't have to put up with that from the fathers..or the kids.

Anonymous said...

Theres also physical abuse. i had a kid once swing for the fences with the wiffle bat and catch me in the shins. ive had one slap my face and knock my glasses clear across the room. i had one 5 year old lean into my ear like she was telling a secret and let out a high pitched shriek and most parents sit there and do nothing or say dont do that. ive had kids mouth the words F@#K you to me. i had a father bang 2 stock pot lids into the sides of my head in a cymbal like fashion. i once had an angry customer trip me on purpose when i was on crutches because she was angry i couldnt take her pictures. (i was on light duty, sales only, durng xmas) the fall did permanent tendon damage that still pains me now. i limp when the wind blows. i give up on people. i say working here is seeing into the bowels of the american family and sometimes im ashamed of my country when i see how they treat each other. arent we supposed to be one of the greatest countries in the world, with people dying senselessly overseas for our rights and freedoms? and yet we treat each other horribly and take each person for granted.

Anonymous said...

I've been bitten, spit on, and pinched before. The parents didn't react the way you would expect them to. The simple & calm, "don't do that" really isn't effective. I would never let a child of mine act in that manner.

Then I've witnessed parents be verbally abusive to their children. I had a mother get upset because I didn't tell her teenage daughter to "suck in her gut" before I took the picture and she "looked fat" and kept saying horrible things about her daughter until the daughter ran out of the studio crying. I will tell the subject to do a lot of things to compose a beautiful picture, but I will NOT tell anyone to "suck in their gut".

I've had a child throw a complete temper tantrum (arms & legs thrashing through the air and rolling all over, etc) and the mother ask me what I was going to do so we could get pictures.

Anonymous said...

Thats my favorite....... when its MY fault their child isnt listening and is throwing temper tantrums.

Instead of bribing with candy and McDonalds, put the fear of God in them!

Ive also been hit, kicked, punched, laughed at(when trying to get them to listen), etc. And of course groped (im the writer of this e-mail)


My BIGGEST pet peeve, do NOT squeeze that damn duck in my ear ONE MORE TIME!!!! Its MY duck, dont effing touch it!!!!

Anonymous said...

I have often said this job should come with hazard pay. In the many years of my former employment, I have been kicked, slapped, hit with numerous props, spit on, tripped, cussed at by countless children and adults, had a man pull a knife on me, had a woman rip the phone out of the wall because i left the camera room to answer it, had two men stand at the studio entrance while i was alone and make lewd comments, got punched in the eye by a 10 yr old while doing the birds-eye pose so hard i had to end the session, watched a demon-seed devil spawn 4 yr old hit a barely walking toddler in the head with the wiffle bat so hard he did a backward somersault and had to go to hospital, saw a Dad fondle his 12 yr old daughter under her skirt, watched a Mom toss her baby into the stroller from 5 feet away while screaming "i wish you were never born", called security for serious threats more than 20 times, called actual 911 twice. I am sorry to say this is only a small fraction of what i have witnessed and/or been subjected to.

Then there are the kids you just wanna take home with you or won't go to their Moms after you have held them. The hugs and artwork bestowed on us by our admirers. The child in Target that screams "THERE'S THE BUNNY LADY!!!" because i put a bunny on my head to make her smile. Why can't there be more of that?

Anonymous said...

To the one who ended with "bunny lady"... holy s**t! I can't believe what you've seen and been through! Some times I find it hard to keep quiet and not just tell some of these parents off because of the way they treat their children. If I saw half of what you did, it would take a lot for me not to call children's services on the parents. What is wrong with people?!?!

Anonymous said...

amen "bunny lady" cant agree with you more. i had a woman who threatened her 5 year old autistic child and yelled at him for not sitting down and he cringed and ducked and covered whenever she came near

Anonymous said...

I am "Bunny Lady!" lol Sounds like I found myself a new nickname!

I did call the police on the kid tossing lady, and the knife guy. But when the lady ripped the phone out of the wall, she also blocked the camera room so I couldn't leave and told me "you are not leavin' this room 'til you take my kids pictures!". (that was 6 kids total) I snapped away then told her to leave. I didn't even know at the time that I could call security.

OH....the coolest thing that ever happened to me was when a woman named her BABY after me!! She really loved me that much when I took her other kids, that when she showed up pregnant, she asked my permission to have my name.

Yeah, I saw a lot. And although this company has turned into a soulless, mind-sucking, labor law breaking, sorry excuse for a company...I did live and breath it for so long that it is still in the very fiber of my being. Good or bad.

Anonymous said...

And how many times have we wished we could be "a fly on the wall" in their house when that screaming, hitting, kicking, crying, throwing themselves down child (with the mother who ineffectively says Oh, don't do that... it's allright...) hits those TEENAGE YEARS! WE know who's going to run that household! And the Mom's who yell "Just take it!" when the kid has snot down his nose, red eyes and is screaming.... and then tell you, "That's what you took?" Well, what the ?*/#
were you seeing when you were yelling that? You got "Happy Glasses" on or what? (That's when I sometimes wish we had security cameras in the studios... just to rewind and show the customers... especially the teenager who continually scowls in all the family pictures and tell his Mom during the session.. "I am smiling.. she's just not taking the picture then.. I can't hold it forever." But yeah, those are the ones I make sure to show Mom what I put up with for the last 20 minutes to get one decent picture of your teenager!!!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I'll take a hit for overshooting on that for sure!!
I once had a crying mom bribe her sullen, bratty 14 year old daughter with $50. to take pictures with the "blended family"!!!! Love to see how she turned out! Yeah, she took the picture but scowled and wouldn't touch her "little brothers" . ONE shot is all Mom got for her $50.

Anonymous said...

why is it so hard?i had a man come in today and argue with me about a passport picture we took for 30 minutes! his problem? he didnt like the collar on his shirt. he said they wouldnt accept it because his collar was uneven. i wasnt trying to argue but his accent was so heavy it ook me time to figure out what he meant. i agreed (customer service right?) but he wouldnt give back the old one and said he refused to pay for a new. grrr argh. then right after a family of 15 came in. 6 of them were adults. we are all sitting around the table together. one asks a question i answer...then another asks a question but in the middle of a sentence another person interrupts without so much as an excuse me and asks the same question i answered 5 minutes ago. there was a ton of "i dont get it...how many 8x10's come in a collection?" an 8x10 is a SHEET you get 15 SHEETS! "but how many are 8x10's?" as many of them as you want you could do all 15 if you wish. " oh thats too many 8x10's but how many come in a collection?" .....somebody PLEASE shoot me now and put me out of my misery. oh and i didnt get to outreach b/c i spent 3 hours with these people went over labor and didnt get time to session plan. so im screwed either way

Anonymous said...

Your DM is going to have to retrain you. LOL. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. I give up on this company. The regional people bitch at the DM's and tell them they are not training us good enough. The way they want things I guess everyone should be fired.

Anonymous said...

I got beat in the back with a base ball bat by a 2 year old. Don't laugh..it was a wooden bat. It hurt like h@#l! I was posing his baby sister and all I could do was stop, try to hold back the tears, try to smile and ask mom to take that bat away..(it was his security toy)..sheesh..what mother in her right mind would allow a child to use a bat as a security toy? What happened to a blanket or a small toy?

Whenever I saw she was coming in for future pictures..I was "unavailable".

Anonymous said...

what are we getting the dregs of society? Ive been spit on kicked numerous times, pinched, poked, butt slapped,for what? 7$ an hour? I have litte susie on the table and Im doing my damndest to get her to smile and mom pops up and says 'you just dont know how to do your job right'. Ya ok bitch I've been doing this for over 20 yrs its not my fault you can't bring her in after her nap. Parents have no regard for the childrens timing. Everything has to be on parents time. Sorry I dont work that way. Dont tell me how to do my job. I have awards for my work to prove I'm good at what I do. Once you get past all that crap then you get the real joy. Company politics. Oh thats a fun one. But that kiddos is for another day.

Anonymous said...

Lovin' these SPS war stories! Having been a manager for this company for more years than I'd like to count, here is my favorite: My subject was a new baby boy. I had photographed his 4 year old sister many times. I was kneeling down talking to the baby when I felt something slide up the back of my head, then I heard a snap. The little darling had cut a huge chunk of my hair off with a rather large pair of scissors! Cut it off right to the scalp. You can all guess what Mom did. Nothing. She said 'oh, ***** that wasn't very nice'. I had to sport a crew cut type haircut for months!

Anonymous said...

I had a little boy reach into my pants. He nearly pulled them all the way off. The mom just said "Honey, come back over here."

I'm thinking I should have done something