Post by Maria Lurdes (Milu) on May 12, 2016 17:25:17 GMT
I had an Airbnb photographer over yesterday to take pictures of my newest listing. It's coincidentally the same photographer that has shot at least 6 of my listings. We always have a great chat, and as we've gotten to know each other better he's shared some interesting info. None of it was shared under terms of secrecy, and it's all just general info, so I don't feel there is any problem with sharing it here.
John (not his real name) asked me how long it was between me requesting a photography session and him replying to me that he was given the assignment. I told him that happily it was only a few days, and that had been the case in the last few requests. He was surprised, as he'd been led to believe that the photography queue in the New York area was backed up months. He then asked how long was it from shoot day to images going live. I told him that in the last two instances it was about 10 days, which I thought was reasonable, although of course I wished it was faster. He again expressed surprise at this. It turns out that there is a photographer only message board that the various contractors post on, and exchange info with each other. He had heard from photographer in other big cities that it was the same situation - they'd been told there was a massive wait list, but yet they weren't getting assigned the jobs at the same rate as last year, and when they checked, normally the host had just requested the shoot. All indications seem to point that perhaps one department doesn't know so much about what is going on with another department, as there seems to be a disconnect. That, or there is some particular reason that the photographers are being told that it's so backed up....maybe they are trying to weed out some photographers and if they think they won't get much work they will bail? Seems like that's a pretty dumb thing so I can't imagine that's true. John told me that there had been a love of changes in the photography department lately, with managers and supervisors coming and going. A lot of photographers felt that every time a new captain came, they'd change things, introduce new policies that nobody knew about, etc etc. Sound familiar?
He also asked how it was that I was able to get the photography requests approved considering the limit of shoots, or listings, is three per host. I had actually never heard of or seen that (not that I looked very hard). We talked about how it was all automated, and I simply selected the particular listing from a drop down menu, and shoots that had already taken place were not available to toggle the request box. If the powers that be are not wanting multi listing hosts to be able to use the free photography services, they aren't trying very hard to prevent it, as I've never had to look for any "back door" to get the request in, I've just followed the prompts on the page. It's easy enough to write a script that prevents more then X requests, so it's either not an issue, or not an important enough issue to work hard to prevent.
In any case, it really isn't that interesting for most people, but I do love to get a bit of "insider' info and wanted to share.
John (not his real name) asked me how long it was between me requesting a photography session and him replying to me that he was given the assignment. I told him that happily it was only a few days, and that had been the case in the last few requests. He was surprised, as he'd been led to believe that the photography queue in the New York area was backed up months. He then asked how long was it from shoot day to images going live. I told him that in the last two instances it was about 10 days, which I thought was reasonable, although of course I wished it was faster. He again expressed surprise at this. It turns out that there is a photographer only message board that the various contractors post on, and exchange info with each other. He had heard from photographer in other big cities that it was the same situation - they'd been told there was a massive wait list, but yet they weren't getting assigned the jobs at the same rate as last year, and when they checked, normally the host had just requested the shoot. All indications seem to point that perhaps one department doesn't know so much about what is going on with another department, as there seems to be a disconnect. That, or there is some particular reason that the photographers are being told that it's so backed up....maybe they are trying to weed out some photographers and if they think they won't get much work they will bail? Seems like that's a pretty dumb thing so I can't imagine that's true. John told me that there had been a love of changes in the photography department lately, with managers and supervisors coming and going. A lot of photographers felt that every time a new captain came, they'd change things, introduce new policies that nobody knew about, etc etc. Sound familiar?
He also asked how it was that I was able to get the photography requests approved considering the limit of shoots, or listings, is three per host. I had actually never heard of or seen that (not that I looked very hard). We talked about how it was all automated, and I simply selected the particular listing from a drop down menu, and shoots that had already taken place were not available to toggle the request box. If the powers that be are not wanting multi listing hosts to be able to use the free photography services, they aren't trying very hard to prevent it, as I've never had to look for any "back door" to get the request in, I've just followed the prompts on the page. It's easy enough to write a script that prevents more then X requests, so it's either not an issue, or not an important enough issue to work hard to prevent.
In any case, it really isn't that interesting for most people, but I do love to get a bit of "insider' info and wanted to share.
