Off the Map

Another day, another day working background on a television show.

I like this kind of work.  Sometimes, though, it can be a bit painful.  When you call a voicemail number for your calltimes, the voice of the voicemail can set up your orientation to the project you’re working on.

Enough shows’ voicemail voices provide a neutral stance about the production.  This approach might be generally preferred.  Why?  Because most days on set are pretty humdrum.  You approach work just like regular work.  Compare the always-neutral voice with the always-excited voice that could be on the voicemail.  Such a voice might get you excited about the day!!!  You approach work with excitement!!!  But if the day only ends up humdrum, you might feel misled, then cynical about the production.

Some shows’ voicemail voices, though, put out a negative attitude.  One voicemail I listen to every once and awhile really puts me in a bad mood.  The way it’s worded, it sounds condescending.  It sounds as if it’s berating me.  The pay is relatively low compared to other projects, and the lists of “musts” we must abide by are high, which is a rather backward arrangement in my opinion.  I like working on the show, though I hate having to endure the dreaded condescending, berating voicemail.

It is also long.  It takes up my time.  It takes up my time sometimes when I don’t have that time.  It takes up my time when I am sleepy and want, even need, to go to bed.  If I miss a detail in the voicemail, guess what?  I have to listen to the dreaded thing all over again.

This is not a post bitching about voicemail voices.  This is a post about morale.  It is a post about morale and its effect on mood.  And it’s a post about morale, its effect on mood, and its effect on what some people might call “mental illness.”

When I am berated or condescended to, I don’t feel very good.  My morale is lowered.  I go from feeling like a professional, responsible working actor to feeling like a fuck-up.  One condescension or beration might feel bad enough, but when you are repeatedly condescended to or berated over the course of, say, a voicemail, or even just a few sentences, the net effect is that you feel pretty schmucky.

This is to say, with my morale lowered, my mood tanks.  I get frustrated.  The frustration comes from not getting the respect I want.  With that frustration comes anger.  I then start to get emotional and maybe exaggerate a bit the kind of treatment I’m getting.  I start to want to represent the condescension and beration as worse than they probably are.  This can make my mood tank more because I feel my morale lowered more.  Soon enough I may develop a furrowed brow and an obnoxious attitude toward, say, production.  And I might become more non-cooperative.  I don’t want to give into every whim demanded by the voicemail.  I want to fight back.  Much of this, just because of the wording and approach to a freakin’ voicemail.

It might be said that if my morale weren’t lowered, my mood wouldn’t tank like this.  That is, if my morale were boosted in the voicemail, I would likely feel good rather than bad.  I wouldn’t want to be non-cooperative.  I’d probably be more inclined to be cooperative.  Production would be something I’d be happier to accommodate.  My delusions about production wouldn’t be negative; they’d probably be positive.  I’d be emotional, but emotional in a friendly, positive way.

What is interesting about the relationship of morale and behavior dubbed “mental illness”?  Some “mental illnesses” are conceptualized as “mood disorders.”  I don’t know what’s “disordered” about feeling bad.  If someone is condescending to you, or berating you, are you supposed to feel good or something?  No.  You’ll probably feel bad.  Maybe not necessarily, but probably.  That’s not a stimulus to continually experience if you want to feel good.

But sometimes there is no clear somebody-else who is condescending or berating you when you exhibit your supposed “mood disorder.”  Some people might say it’s because there’s some kind of chemical imbalance.  Those people might have a point some of the time, but in my opinion, they have a point less often than they think they do.  When you’re feeling bad and there’s no clear somebody-else doing the berating, it seems to me that the berating is being done by you.  You are berating yourself.  You are allowing yourself to berate yourself.  Maybe you’ve been conditioned to do this by a berating parent.  Maybe you think it’s the right way to behave toward yourself.  Maybe you accidentally developed the habit on your own.  Whatever the case, you are either thinking berating thoughts or saying berating things all about yourself.  And, understandably, as a result, you’re feeling pretty bad.

So then you start to exaggerate and get emotional and delude yourself about your circumstances.  So then your morale lowers more, your mood tanks more, your delusions grow.  For some people, they reach a point and stop.  For other people, they don’t reach a point and stop, or the point at which they’d stop is far, far from other people’s stopping points.

If you’re interesting in having cooperative people, treat them well.  Maintain their morale to the degree that you can.  You can’t control people’s thoughts: While you may attend to someone’s morale, that person may not attend well to her own morale.  But choose lifting morale over plummeting morale has an effect on mood, cooperative, and even their diagnoses.

I suppose attending to morale could be considered “social responsibility.”  I’m not sure of the value of lowering morale in the practice of social responsibility.

See also: delusion, mental-illness, mood, mood-disorder, morale, social-responsibility