Another Day - Another Dollar

Some days the sun/God/Allah/Oprah shines on a temp. But moments like this don't come often so it's fun to rejoice. First a little bit about me.

I had a career prior to moving here. Without getting in to too much detail, I made real money, had PTO, 401ks, ESOPs, ESPPs, and many other acronyms. I'd been in that mode so long, that the last time the phrase "per hour" entered my employment lexicon was 1991 and I waiting tables. What is it about Bush administrations and hourly wages? Hmmm. The point is that I made a lot sacrifices to pursue this idea that I could write in Hollywood for a living. And now I make a living (barely) and I write. I wish I could say the two are connected, but at this point they aren't, YET.

So back to yesterday. After enduring 70 pages of a very bad idea of a "tent pole" summer block buster (NDAs prevent me from telling you much, but trust me when I say Global Warming moves too slow for a movie) my Boss du Jour asks me to get her an iced tea.

Now when I first moved here, that would usually be followed by a perplexed look. Never in any of my days as a boss did I ask someone to get me a drink, sandwich, a napkin. But I take a deep breath and remembered what a former actor told me before I moved here: "In Hollywood you never know who might be able to help you. So if you're at the market and someone smashes into your cart, steps on your foot and swipes the last piece of tofu from your basket, you smile and say 'I'm sorry, that was my fault' and move on."

So I took her AMEX Gold Card, went to the Starbucks, got the iced tea without incident. And my reward - she offered to read one of my scripts and told me to pad my time sheet by an hour. An extra $22 dollars and an actual Hollywood exec reading my script. As I said, some days the sun shines on a temp.