Huh. Learn something new every day.
Reader Brian writes in–
Wouldn’t it be great if you could carry more coffee and carry them with ease?
My trick: I call it the Lot of Latte. What I do is I take the lid of a printer paper box and stick two coffee holders inside. Then I cut a third coffee holder in half, and fit the halves snug against the other two. You may need to bend the outside of the box, but it will hold without fail 12 coffees. Then simply carry it like a tray and watch your bosses and execs mouths drop in admiration. I have even stacked one coffee holder on top (I forget if I put the cold or hot ones on top, but you definitely put the smaller cups on the top one), and my record for carrying is 17, though in theory you could carry up to 20 provided it all balances.
That’s impressive. This is the kind of DIY ingenuity you need as a PA.
My personal best is only 11 cups, through a careful arrangement of round and flat lids, superb balance, and quite possibly a semi-dormant X-gene.
We PAs don’t get coffee as much as we used to. Back in the late-90s/early-2000s, the production would buy Starbucks (or Coffee Bean or Peet’s, depending on the producer’s preference) on a daily basis.
Eventually, the studios realized this was a HUGE waste of money. Most p-cards have those kinds of places automatically blocked. If not, the petty cash form specifically mentions that you can’t be reimbursed for this kind of thing.
That being said, sometimes the producer just has to have his half double decaffeinated half-caf, with a twist of lemon, and he’ll pay for it, along with a round of drinks for everyone else in the office, out of his own pocket.
On the other hand, if an actor wants some specialty drink, of course the show will pay for it. It’s not like they make more per episode than the entire crew combined, right? Why should they have to pay for something out of their own pocket?
7 Responses
Being a PA includes but not limited to a minimum working 12 hours a day, six days a week. Just so you know, for all you uninitiated.
In the past to keep up, I drank black coffee with two sugars and smoked Marly reds. That lasted a short time after when I noticed my health and endurance actually decreasing.
Today I try to rest more and eat more like a vegetarian/vegan. I also found what helps my stamina and concentration is XS Energy Drinks. They come in 15 flavors. And they taste great for an energy drink.
XS GOLD flavor has 480mcg of B12. It taste like red wine! The other flavors are equally tasty. They have 294mcg of B12 and caffeine is 83 milligrams.
They’re $30 to $40 for a case of 12 cans. I pay for these from Amway online. I did register as a distributor, so now get three cases a month, a 25% discount and no one calling to pitch stuff. You need a referral to buy them now, so here’s Amway.com/JamesLifeStyle
Anyway, I got my health back in order!
I was on a pilot, where the pc clearly was using the p card to order starbucks travelers twice a day and it clearly stated that p cards arent suppose to be used to purchase coffee, along with sneaking in her lattes, green teas and morning buns on the order. The building has in house gourmet coffee machines that are on every floor and half the time.they wouldn’t touch.the coffee.