As I mentioned on Tumblr, yesterday I went back to work. I was actually really excited to get back, only to find that one of my favorite people there had been fired because of "cutbacks", which are, as you can probably guess, the result of the strike. Some other changes have been made as well, which overall contributed to the feeling I got that this was not the same office it had been when I left. I love my job, I always have. But things have been going downhill lately, and I'm starting to wonder how much longer I want to stay.
Despite how much I do love my job, I bitch a lot about the business. It's fickle and the politics are insane. You can work your ass off, but if the wrong person doesn't like you, you're out. You sell your soul, only to end up getting chewed up and spit out. It can be awful.
I said all of that and much more in an angry tirade to a friend of mine after someone else who I really liked at work got fired a few months ago. After listening to me ranting, my friend asked me, "So why don't you do something else?"
I thought about it for a second. And then I told her, "I don't think I could do anything else."
It's true--plenty of other people I know have easy, less-stressful jobs that they enjoy in other fields. But I could never do that. I couldn't even picture myself having a normal, boring, every-day job. To be honest, it sounds horrific. I admire the people who can do it, but...I can't. No matter how miserable I may be sometimes, it's nothing compared to how miserable I'd be doing something else. And besides, for every bad day, there are so many more good ones.
As for the strike, this officially marks the end of any sympathy I had for the writers. I'm done supporting them. Like I said a long time ago, the strike won't be worth it. And it hasn't been. It's done so much more harm than good, and at this point, more people will remember it in a negative way than a positive one. And in the mean time, nothing can be done to make up for the damage that's been done.
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2 comments:
I'm sorry that your colleague got fired. That really, really sucks especially since it was somebody that you liked a lot.
And of course, I agree with you. As fucked up as the movie business is, I can't really imagine working in any other capacity. Although sometimes during tough days I wish I'd become a diplomat. It might've been cool to work for the U.N. or something.
As for the strike though, don't you think it's really the fault of the producers? Had they been a little bit more honest and forthcoming, this might've been avoided. And everybody ended up making side deals with the WGA anyway. Things like Sumner Redstone declaring that Viacom made $600 million off of Internet streaming one day and then saying he didn't know how much $$ could be made from the Internet the next certainly didn't help.
Anyway, just some food for thought. =+)
Yeah, sometimes I think it would have actually been easier to be a lawyer...I've been told that it's something I'd be good at, probably just because I love to argue :) But that ship has definitely sailed.
In regards to the strike--obviously its a two-sided issue and no one is completely innocent here. My main gripe is that I think they went about it in the wrong way. The DGA had their new contract renegotiated and settled before their old one even expired, so how did the writers go so wrong? As for the producers, a lot of the issues weren't even in their hands when it comes to networks--if you look at someone like NBC, who's owned by GE. NBC is barely a drop in the bucket to GE's business, so what do they care? Not to mention they saved a ton of money by not having shows in production. I just think that considering what's been gained (not a whole lot) compared to what's been lost (tons), it wouldn't have been worth it. Its just a shitty situation all around, but I think it could have been avoided.
End rant.
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