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Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Writers PA left to pick up the tab
johnaugust.com: I was in my early 30’s when I finally landed a Writers PA gig on a comedy. We had a toddler so just to take the job, I had to work weekends waiting tables to pay for the childcare during the week. (Which is another issue entirely.)
This article is honestly pretty disheartening for someone looking to go into writing. I do understand that the field is unbelievably competitive, as with most performing/film/visual art-related professions. But, just because someone is an assistant, doesn’t mean they are any less human than you. This issue is also very far reaching in general, and in the bigger picture, this can be scaled to sexism, racism, et cetera. Assistants cannot be treated like the individual in this article. The overages from the food runs were not at the fault of the individual. In fact, the individual tried more than once to warn the writers, but just got yelled at or shut down. If I were in their position and was told to pay the $500 overage tab, I would’ve flipped them the bird and turned on my heel and stormed out... or would I have? It all comes back to the issue of competitiveness in the industry. It’s hard to judge just how competitive it is, so maybe if I were in this position, I would feel pressured into not saying anything and just paying the tab. It is so unfortunate that there are situations where people feel this way. Higher ups need to learn to have a little bit of compassion for those who work for them. Granted not every higher up is like this, but it is still such a prevalent problem that lower downs are treated like nothing more than garbage.
1 comment:
This article is honestly pretty disheartening for someone looking to go into writing. I do understand that the field is unbelievably competitive, as with most performing/film/visual art-related professions. But, just because someone is an assistant, doesn’t mean they are any less human than you. This issue is also very far reaching in general, and in the bigger picture, this can be scaled to sexism, racism, et cetera. Assistants cannot be treated like the individual in this article. The overages from the food runs were not at the fault of the individual. In fact, the individual tried more than once to warn the writers, but just got yelled at or shut down. If I were in their position and was told to pay the $500 overage tab, I would’ve flipped them the bird and turned on my heel and stormed out... or would I have? It all comes back to the issue of competitiveness in the industry. It’s hard to judge just how competitive it is, so maybe if I were in this position, I would feel pressured into not saying anything and just paying the tab. It is so unfortunate that there are situations where people feel this way. Higher ups need to learn to have a little bit of compassion for those who work for them. Granted not every higher up is like this, but it is still such a prevalent problem that lower downs are treated like nothing more than garbage.
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