Chapter 13 - What I’m Learning

Friday, November 5th, 2021 I drove two hours round-trip to audition for Next to Normal last night. I loved warming up in the car and my voice sounded good. I sang “Morning Person” from Shrek: The Musical, but sad. I thought it was a creative choice. All of the actors were really nice as we waited to audition. I enjoyed talking with them and being in their close knit community. When I sang, I forgot to include the middle page in my sheet music which was embarrassing, but memorable? They were nice. I was less professional, but happy to be there. Everyone sounded so good! I called Samantha on the way back and told her about it and we laughed. I also told her I broke up with Joffrey and she wouldn’t believe me! She was glad I did. She said her and Chidi were hoping I didn’t marry him. Chidi told her about what went down in his friendship with Joffrey – they were such good buds! Chidi is cool. Samantha said the toxic thing in her birthday letter I wrote to her was Joffrey trying to control what I ate – telling me I shouldn’t eat what I wanted when I wanted. Telling Samantha made me kind of excited to tell more people. I’ve been worrying about it. She was excited to go out with me and to finally live our Sex and the City dreams! I didn’t think it would ever happen, but I’ve been thinking about what my conversation with Joffrey’s mom would be like after our break up for a long while now. I want to tell her that I really love her son and I was lucky to be with him. I don’t know if I should say I hope he gets better at communicating his feelings in a healthy way and I hope to reconnect later in life – only if she presses. I really love her and how close we’ve gotten over the years. I hope she’ll stay in my life as my financial advisor, but I can’t ask for that. I will miss seeing his family. I guess I won’t be a bridesmaid in Gemma’s wedding now – I’ll take that lesson from Dollface. I’m mostly okay. It hits me at random moments. I’m grieving all of the amazing memories and the connection we share, but I see it as a beautiful time in my life that just had to end. I cry when I think about how it started. I thought he was cute in class. We matched on Tinder, and though we were too embarrassed to talk about it, we knew we liked each other. Doing group projects with him and Chidi – he was going to marry us at some point… so much has changed. At Bradley’s birthday, seeing him and hoping he would be going to Dave & Buster’s with us, sitting by him on the bus ride over there. He followed me around, and it was just the two of us... trying to find a private place and getting in a phone booth hoping he’d kiss me, taking the bus back together and missing our stop, so we could spend more time together. Walking me home. Awkwardly saying goodbye. Sitting in our writing class, hoping he liked me instead of Billie. Having a hard day with my roommate, Dory, and asking him to play pool with me. Beating him in pool and hoping he’d want to keep hanging. Going to get milkshakes. Putting on a movie, spending the night, just sleeping together. He said what are the odds you kiss me and I said 1-1 and 3, 2, 1, he said two, so we awkwardly didn’t kiss. Wanting to see each other the next day. Having sex the next night, and then having a lot more sex. Wanting him to stop accepting Snapchats from his ex. Things with my roommate getting harder. Going to see the Zoo Lights and sipping warm spiced wine in the snow. Considering going to my ex’s with Penny to escape my apartment. Him not liking that and asking me to be his girlfriend to make it official. Meeting his family at the train station for the first time. Watching him and his family fall in love with me and Penny. Sneaking Penny into his dorm in a backpack all the time and eventually getting caught. Wanting him to say he loved me... being sad he didn’t. Wishing he’d stay at my new place as often as I stayed at his. Him saying he loved me after Valentine's day at my elevator door in the morning as he left. Going to parties. Playing drinking games for the first time, all the time. Graduating together. Wanting to move in with him – used money as a selling point, per Mom. Him choosing to live with me over his friends. Moving in together. Loving living with him. Driving back-and-forth from New York to Texas together all the time to see my family. Deciding to move to LA together. The big drive out to LA, too poor to afford a hotel. Our beautiful studio by the Equestrian Center, coffee shop, and bowling alley, with a pool. Looking out the window and seeing horses going down the street. Surprising him by flying out his friends for his birthday. All of the escape rooms. Trying to break into the entertainment industry. Going onto a studio lot for the first time for an alumni event. Leaving and him not wanting to talk to the young security guards – me talking to the guards and learning that the studios outsource their security. Training to be security guards together, so we could get onto the lot and network. Him signing up for the night shift. That being hard in a studio apartment with the light and clicks from his video games. Me learning how to interrupt him when he was playing. Being sad he didn’t stop playing to chat with me when I’d come home. Fighting about it. Getting on The Best Singer as a contestant PA. Getting Joffrey on our team. Loving working together on the lot. Being the power couple. Finding a two bedroom – building a home together… then it got hard. Then it was really good. Slowly slipping away, going out on my own, justifying my feelings and emotions. Seeing what I need from my partner in other people and feeling so guilty about it. Trying so hard. Hoping it wouldn’t have to end. That it’d get better. That he’d listen to me. Wanting everything to be good, fine, needing to believe it was. Wishing he’d gone to therapy with me two years ago. Trying to communicate. Realizing he can’t. Needing space. Being here… Accepting how I’m feeling. Finding myself again. Leaning into independence. Not accepting cruelty from anyone. Knowing how hard I love and how valuable that is. Expecting the same love back. My old toxic boss came into work today. I went to go see him – I never thought I’d have to again and took comfort in that. But I wanted to see if I was still scared of him – I wasn’t. He was pleasant, of course, but I wanted to say to him that he was a cruel boss. He did always appreciate candor. He would’ve apologized if he’d felt the need to. When he asked me how I was, I teared up and he got uncomfortable. I wrote this note in my phone while working for him: What I’m Learning About the People Who Run TV… It’s impossible to speak up without feeling like you’re going to ruin the relationships that you need to build your career, so you suffer through the toxicity and nothing changes. It’s already so difficult for women to break into and grow within the industry, and often when we do speak up, it goes unheard, or more likely, it will come back to bite us. It’s easier to fire an assistant than a CEO. And why would they promote someone who “complains?” They’re ungrateful! I believe my boss is a good man… it could always be worse, right? And sometimes he’s nice! Sometimes he seems to care… As a good person, you don’t want to do or say anything that could hurt another person’s life. But then by not saying anything, you’re doing an injustice to all of the people who will get hurt after you. And when you consider that your boss does not treat others with the same respect, it makes not speaking up all the more frustrating. But it doesn’t matter how committed, nice, talented or intelligent you are – you’re not owed anything for the insane amount of hours you put in (that you don’t get paid for because that’s just how it is). It’s tough knowing that you’re choosing just a shot at this career over having basic things like a home and family, and it can all be stripped away in an instant. There were a few instances where another assistant at another company couldn't immediately respond to me, as they were OOO, and even after explaining this, I was told to write an email to my boss telling him that they had not responded, so that he could forward it to their boss to teach them a lesson. Once, he expressed his hope that they would be fired. I spoke up for them, and was told that they’ve got to learn, even if they are OOO, they’ve got to be attentive. That is not only malicious, but perpetuates the long standing lack of respect and boundaries for underpaid assistant’s work life balance. As an assistant, I’ve been scolded in front of the entire staff by my boss for asking to take lunch at my sixth hour, and when we do get to eat, we’re expected to eat at our desks, and are constantly interrupted for unimportant tasks that CAN wait. I think I reheated my lunch four times one day… But that’s just how it is. When I first started, HR seemed to know that we didn’t really get lunch breaks, but told me to report that I did anyway on my time card after I had gone into meal penalty the previous week. They tell you to be honest on your time cards (to their benefit)! Eventually we were “told” we needed to take lunch when it became an issue, but it’s just continuously something that hasn’t been respected. Did you know assistant’s don’t need to eat? And they love not getting paid for those 30 minutes set aside for them to take a break that they don’t get! We work overtime, and are told not to report it because it “evens out” with the down time we get at our desks. My co-worker was told to work a sixth day, but told not to report it and to take a day off in the middle of the week instead. She should’ve been paid time and a half for her sixth day. She, of course, didn’t end up getting a day off in the middle of the week, and to my knowledge was never paid accordingly, as it was, as our boss put it, “only a one time thing.” Also, a few months into the job I was told not to share with my co-assistant that I was getting a raise because she wasn’t, which is not right… and I believe telling your employees not to discuss their salary is illegal… She’s an all star assistant and had worked there for about two years without a promotion – she just wasn’t as optimistic about our toxic work environment as I was. So remember to remain happy and to smile!!! It’s okay for CEO’s to talk to their assistants as if they’re inadequate and less than... and if those they talk down to can’t handle the pressure of their verbal abuse, then maybe they’re not fit for this industry. As an assistant, it’s your job to do everything perfect, so if you mess up, you deserve to be yelled at. That’s just their personality and you can’t change who someone is. I was told two weeks in when I didn’t automatically know a piece of information off hand that my boss had no confidence in me. I was instructed to lie to HR, about money re. his travel arrangements. He stood behind me, telling me what to write. When I tried to speak to HR, I expressed how I felt that I couldn’t speak up, and asked if they could periodically take anonymous workplace surveys to keep everyone accountable, but was told no. That would be crazy, right? The only solution was for them to speak directly with me and my boss, which is not what I wanted. When my boss got called in, because someone else reported him over another matter, he pulled me into his office before speaking with HR, and asked me if I knew anything and if I had talked to them. These are the things men are allowed to say or yell in the office that I am too afraid to report: You’re not listening! You’re not listening! You’re not listening! We need to get them pregnant. I’ll massage them. I don’t want to get raped on this deal. I have to f*****g blow her or else I’m going to kill myself (My cousin killed herself, and despite telling my boss this, it was a battle to get my him to stop angrily threatening to kill himself every time I did something he didn’t like). How do f*****g retards keep getting jobs? I don’t want to get boned in the back end. Amongst other racist and problematic things, one that really gets me is someone pitched a project about three middle eastern women in fashion, and as if he were offended by the pitch, as if it were a joke, he said Middle America will only see terrorists – no one will buy that. We hold so much power by working in media to make a difference in our country, and we don’t. When I interviewed with my boss for this position I was asked if I were easily offended. RED FLAG, RED FLAG, RED FLAG. At first this made me uncomfortable as I’ve been sexually harassed in the past. When I asked him to clarify what he meant, he pointed to the posters on his wall and explained how the content we created isn’t the best. I should’ve known he wouldn’t be either. If you’re a low level employee who believes that people should treat others the way they want to be treated, then you must adapt, because if you speak up, then you aren’t strong enough or committed enough to this industry. There seem to be no consequences for the men in power, only excuses. I think Joffrey spent the night at Finn’s last night. I’m glad that he had a friend to go to. Breaking up is not having an appetite and ordering just rice and chicken from Chipotle because you have to eat something. I hear him in the kitchen. I hear my tears hit the pillow. I’m terrified to lose him. I’m really gonna miss him. I can’t stop sobbing. It hurts too much. I feel like I have no one else here in Hollywood to go to but him. He’s the only one who loves me out here. I only have him and my dad. I hope Katy moves back in. I wish my family lived out here. I wish I could call a friend to come over to help me through this break up. It’s so hard breaking up and having him here. I can’t get up. I can’t even change out of my clothes. I should go for a drive and call everyone until someone can hang. Maybe they’d want to be there for me. Or maybe I’ll just be doing something. 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