Sarah's first week at Sundance - Park City, UT

(I took this photo of the Gateway, where the Box Office I work in is located - if you click on the photo, it blows up, and you can make out the Sundance window clings on the front door.)

I'll kick us off with job news...

I have a full-time seasonal job (not an internship, but not a permanent job either, exactly) at Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT. I arrived Sunday night, Dec 14, and I'll be here through the end of January. The actual festival happens Jan 15-25. My position is "Assistant Coordinator, Box Office Park CIty."

It's been a good first week. I started up at Sundance Institute on Monday with new employee orientation - we met the director of operations, Sarah Pearce, and lots of middle-level directors, but not Geoffry Gilmore, the artistic director, or Robert Redford, the president. A lot of the programming planning happens in the Los Angeles office (where they screen all the films and decide what makes it into the festival), and the operations planning happens here in Park City. It's a good work culture - it's casual dress and they have a dog policy where people bring in their doggies to work. But everyone is high energy, it's not like "laid-back-out-west." I learned Sally Field and Kenneth Cole are on our Board of Directors. Kenneth donates all the staff and volunteer uniform vests and coats each year.

Most of the staff works out of three small buildings that make up the Institute offices. I, however, work downtown in the Box Office most of the time. The BO is in The Gateway Center, a small indoor mall, right off Main Street. I work with 3 other girls, all just a few years older than I am. I really like all of them. One is our boss, and then there's the three of us Assistant Coordinators, and in a couple weeks, there will be about 24 ticketing agents who actually sell the tickets, who we will train and supervise. It's been pretty slow for us this week - the IT team is bustling to get the software working, but until they do, we can't work on the ticketing system very easily.

I was renting out a space in a condo about 10 miles north of Park City, but it became clear very quickly I was going to need to move. The lady was a little insane, and I was too far away to catch the bus into town, so after I got a ride home from work, I couldn't go out in the evenings. So I quickly went about making new arrangements - I found space in an international house just steps away from work. I moved in 2 days later. It's more expensive, and I share a TINY unit in a big house with 6 other people, but the location is amazing - I just walk across the street to work in the morning, and just a block to downtown. And my flatmates are from Moldova (a small country between Czechoslovakia and Russia) and they boisterously invite me to drink wine with them in the evenings, so that is fun. Two girls from Australia are moving into the bunkbed in my room today, so I will have some roommates.

Things are off to a good start. I'll keep you all updated. I am getting Thursday/Friday off for Christmas, so I'm flying to Omaha, Nebraska, to spend the long weekend with my family. Hope you all have good holidays, too.

All my best,
Sarah

saroffman@gmail.com