Tales from the bottom

Every once in a while, people get bored of my pontificating and decide to share their own tales of woe in Hollywood.  I prefer this because it basically means I get all the fun of good content without having to write it.

So if you ever have any good stories you want to share, please send them along to TempX@tempdiaries.com.  For now, please enjoy this one I received the other day.

A few months ago I was working on the [singers' names redacted] music video in NYC.  I'd lived in New York for a little over a year at this point and had driven on many jobs.  But since it's mainly a walking/subway city, still was unsure of some of the streets downtown.

I was asked to go pick up [producer's name redacted] at her hotel in Chinatown and take her to location in Herald Square. I showed up an hour early with the car.  She gets in the car and is ready to go.  At a red light, I glance at the map on my phone to make sure I take the correct turn. 

She snaps, "Oh my God!  They sent me a PA that doesn't know NY, this is terrible!  Hon, if you look at that phone again, you don't work with me."

So I put down my phone and make my way up 6th Ave to location.  The traffic is insane, bumper to bumper.  She is immersed in her computer and snaps again, "You need to go faster!  The director is already there.  Do you want me to drive, because I will."  What she fails to see is that the street is PACKED and if I went any faster we would be inside the trunk of the cab in front of us.

So, to make her happy, I drive like a cabby -- pulling up in every open space possible. Then she goes, "Ugh! I can't do this!"  She grabs all her stuff and gets out of the production vehicle, walks to the (also stuck in traffic) cab next to us and hops in it.

I called the production office and told them what happened, they said to not sweat it and come back to pick up the line producer.  I went back, picked up the line producer and took her to location only to see [producer's name redacted] get out of the cab she ditched me for across the street. Then she bitched out the line producer and told her I was driving way too slow and that this shit wouldn't cut it in LA.

I worked a 22-hour day and was asked to come in the next day to help out in the office because "there's just too much to get done." I gladly did so. Then when I filled out the time sheet and put my hours in, the line producer said, "Why'd you do that? " Then crossed out my hours, changed it to 10 hours and said, "there's no OT on this job." This is the first I'd heard of that.

Then the check didn't show up for two months.