u/shefoundnow

Hey all,

I sing and play guitar in a band, and in a couple of days we’re leaving for a short tour. I’ve been playing in bands for years, but this is my first project where I’m the lead singer, so singing is still relatively new territory for me.

I’ve never taken lessons (though I plan to eventually), and I know improving my voice is a long term process that takes time and discipline. That said… I’m wondering if anyone has advice for things I can do before leaving or while we’re on the road to give myself the best chance of performing well each night.

Warm up routines, stage tips, practice habits, vocal health, anything is appreciated. My biggest goal right now is singing consistently and staying in key.

I don’t use in-ears yet. For most shows, I rely on having a vocal monitor pointed directly at me, but I’d love to hear any suggestions that might help with pitch or overall confidence while performing.

Thanks in advance!

Hi all, looking for some advice.

I’m an assistant manager at my job. Without doxxing myself it is a high stakes, high stress role involving large scale operations, events, celebrities and public figures where mistakes are highly visible.

Today is my 5 year anniversary with the organization. I worked my way up internally and have been in management for about 2 years now.

On average, I work around 10 hour days, often longer. 12 hr days are common, and I’ve done 16 hour shifts before during major events. I also occasionally work 6 day weeks. I’m salaried/exempt, so there’s no overtime pay.

Because of the culture and staffing shortages, I also rarely take an actual lunch break and usually just eat at my desk while continuing to work.

A couple months ago, our department director was fired. This was overall because he was extremely difficult to work with and created a pretty toxic environment. However, since his departure, the operational gap has been huge.

Myself and the two other managers have basically absorbed his responsibilities on top of our own.

The COO has been meeting with us regularly during this transition and verbally acknowledged that we’ve taken on a significant amount of extra responsibility. He mentioned raises for us at one point, but nothing has materialized yet, and there’s still no clear plan to replace the director role.

Part of what’s frustrating is that I'm an assistant manager, so I make less than the other two managers, despite the fact that there’s essentially no difference anymore in our workloads or responsibilities.

The bigger issue, honestly, is quality of life.

My schedule is usually around 12pm-11pm, which means I barely see my young daughter during the week. She’s at school in the morning before I wake up, and asleep by the time I get home. She's growing up so fast and it kills me to feel like I'm missing out

I genuinely love my team and the job. I’m proud of the work I do, and I’ve invested a lot into this place over the last five years. But the combination of high stress, long hours, low pay (especially in a very high cost-of-living city), and lack of work/life balance just doesn't feel sustainable.

My question is:
Should I schedule a 1-on-1 with the COO to candidly discuss pay, workload, and sustainability? Or is this the kind of situation where I should quietly start looking elsewhere?

TL;DR:
5 years at current job, now an Assistant Manager working extremely long hours with no overtime. Director was fired, management absorbed the workload, promised raises haven’t happened, and I barely see my daughter because of my schedule. Love the job/team, but feeling burned out and underpaid. Unsure whether to advocate internally or start looking elsewhere.