Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo
Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo
99 The Tattooist The demand for the tattoo service tends to fluctuate with the season (summers are commonly busy while demand drops precipitously in the winter), the local economic situation (the tattoo is a luxury item, so demand decreases during economic downturns), and other factors beyond the tattooist's control. The sporadic and often unpredictable pattern of client flow is a key problem in the tattooist's workltfe organization. Work is characterized by alternate periods of feast and famine. I hate the waiting ... the winter months. You aren't working by appointment. Walk-in only. You have to wait for your people to come in. There are days when you sit for 8 hours and tell jokes and look at each other and there are some days when you want to come in and shut the door and not look at anybody. I like it busy ... an even pace. I don't like to work on twenty-five people in a day but I like an average of eight or ten people a day over ten hours. I don't think anyone gets into tattooing that doesn't like tattoos. But there are some people in it with no talent for art at all. It looks so easy to do and it looks so lucrative. The amount you get for a tattoo for the time you put into it is quite high. I would probably make as much money as a dentist when I am working. The dentist, however, has half-hour appOintments and he works steadily through the day, whereas I sometimes spend all day in the shop and not do anything. Sometimes youll spend a day in the shop and do ten tattoos. It's very sporadic. If you did have a constant flow like a dentist you would make that kind of money. As a consequence, tattooists face considerable uncertainty when trying to organize their economic lives. I like least the uncertainty of not knOWing whether I'm going to make a liVing or not. I'm getting over that. No matter how bad things have gotten I've always managed to get by. I generally can count on enough business to make ends meet. Some parts of the year you're making fifteen hundred bucks a week and then another time of year you're lucky if you make a hundred
100 The Tattooist and fifty. Those kinds of adjustments are sometimes hard to make. You're making fifteen hundred a week and you're living that way and when you're making one fifty you don't have any money in your pocket. Requiring clients to make appointments land provide deposits) is the primary mechanism by which tattooists attempt to order the flow of their work. This approach is, however, not without its own liabilities. Clients routinely do not show up at the appointed time and walk-in customers are often annoyed when clients with appointments force them to wait for service. This guy called me up and wanted to come in this week. I told him that if he wanted an appointment he would have to come up and leave a deposit and we would set something up. I said I could work on him Saturday if he got here half an hour early. I was expecting him Saturday and here he is on Monday knocking on my door. I used to work only by appOintment. I'd say 80 percent of the people will show up. The people that usually break their appOintment are people that you know. It is a problem. I had appointment slips made up. I just want to protect myself. I hang around half the day waitlng for the appointment to show up and the day is shot. People show up two hours late and you're leaVing and they say. "Hey, I had an appointment today." People are usually discouraged about leaving a twenty dollar deposit. I figure for a twenty dollar bill they are going to show up. All work entails a certain amount of routine. The ratio of routine to novel activities encountered in a job is of central importance to the worker's feelings of satisfaction with the organization of his or her worklife. This is a particularly salient issue for tattooists or other artisans since creativity is a key element of their self-definition. Inflexible and boring work activities and the production of items that display routine characteristics are incompatible with the role of the creative artist lcf. Sinha, 1979). The most onerous aspect of the tattooist's daily worklife involves haVing to engage in the time-consuming and uncreative activities surrounding technical preparation and the routine main-
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100 The <strong>Tattoo</strong>ist<br />
and fifty. Those kinds of adjustments are sometimes hard to<br />
make. You're making fifteen hundred a week and you're living<br />
that way and when you're making one fifty you don't have any<br />
money in your pocket.<br />
Requiring clients to make appointments land provide deposits)<br />
is <strong>the</strong> primary mechanism by which tattooists attempt to order<br />
<strong>the</strong> flow of <strong>the</strong>ir work. This approach is, however, not without its<br />
own liabilities. Clients routinely do not show up at <strong>the</strong> appointed<br />
time and walk-in customers are often annoyed when clients with<br />
appointments force <strong>the</strong>m to wait for service.<br />
This guy called me up and wanted to come in this week. I told<br />
him that if he wanted an appointment he would have to come<br />
up and leave a deposit and we would set something up. I said I<br />
could work on him Saturday if he got here half an hour early. I<br />
was expecting him Saturday and here he is on Monday<br />
knocking on my door. I used to work only by appOintment. I'd<br />
say 80 percent of <strong>the</strong> people will show up. The people that<br />
usually break <strong>the</strong>ir appOintment are people that you know. It is<br />
a problem. I had appointment slips made up. I just want to<br />
protect myself. I hang around half <strong>the</strong> day waitlng for <strong>the</strong><br />
appointment to show up and <strong>the</strong> day is shot. People show up<br />
two hours late and you're leaVing and <strong>the</strong>y say. "Hey, I had an<br />
appointment today." People are usually discouraged about<br />
leaving a twenty dollar deposit. I figure for a twenty dollar bill<br />
<strong>the</strong>y are going to show up.<br />
All work entails a certain amount of routine. The ratio of routine<br />
to novel activities encountered in a job is of central importance<br />
to <strong>the</strong> worker's feelings of satisfaction with <strong>the</strong> organization<br />
of his or her worklife. This is a particularly salient issue for tattooists<br />
or o<strong>the</strong>r artisans since creativity is a key element of <strong>the</strong>ir<br />
self-definition. Inflexible and boring work activities and <strong>the</strong> production<br />
of items that display routine characteristics are incompatible<br />
with <strong>the</strong> role of <strong>the</strong> creative artist lcf. Sinha, 1979).<br />
The most onerous aspect of <strong>the</strong> tattooist's daily worklife involves<br />
haVing to engage in <strong>the</strong> time-consuming and uncreative activities<br />
surrounding technical preparation and <strong>the</strong> routine main-
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