Monday, April 26, 2010

Confirming meetings

A lot of what I end up doing at my various assistant jobs is "confirming meetings." For those of you who don't work this kind of job, what that means is that the day before something is scheduled on the calendar, I call the office of the other people involved in the meeting to make sure we're still on. Many of the times I've gotten in trouble at my job were when for some reason I wasn't able to get in touch with the other party and someone didn't make it to the meeting/was late etc... I'm always told that every assistant HAS to confirm every meeting.

So here are the things I'm left to ponder from that:

1) Why is it that I almost never get calls from other assistants confirming us? I'm always the one confirming with them, and if for some reason I forget to call, a lot of the time I don't get a call from even if the other side is has some issue and needs to change things.

2) How is it that in this day in age when everyone has smartphones that sync up to their computers and all that, why is it that nobody is capable of just showing up where they're supposed to without someone like me reminding them?

The past couple weeks have been especially annoying because I've been confirming a client's meetings in London. Not only is the time difference such that unless I do it first thing in the morning I'm screwed, there was also a giant volcanic ash cloud that made it such that I needed to cancel and reschedule all the damn meetings.

So seriously people, keep track of your own calendars. If you depend on the safety net of an assistant catching you if you flake out on something, you'll just become a bigger flake.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Haven't had time to post

I haven't had time to post in the last few days, but I just had to squeeze in a moment to talk about how much Writress knocked it out of the part with my birthday.

She made me pancakes on the morning of, was luckily able to get out of work in time to go out for dinner and drinks with me and a friend that night, and was an amazing host for the beer tasting party on Saturday. She put the whole night together, acted as an amazing hostess, and went above and beyond the call of girlfriend duty. She even baked me a cake rather than buy one. Yep, this girl is awesome. This birthday was automatically better than last year, but because of her it was a great one.

My roommate made sure to wish me a happy birthday with gusto, and got me a present that showed some thought this year, so that's a plus. Not sure if he realized what a douche he'd been last year, but for the moment, all is well on that front.

On the writing front, I've been starting to work on things a bit more during my lunch breaks, especially this week since I'm kinda broke until I get paid tomorrow, so I've been packing a lunch at home and eating in my car. With that extra time I've been doing a bit of writing.

I fixed a lot of the problems with my Castle beat-sheet, and I think it's really starting to take form in interesting and fun ways. I want to get it done in time to submit to the Warner Bros program again this year, but that'll be tough as I've never written anything that fast before. I think if I get it done it'll be a great sample for me, applicable to a lot of different shows.

I've also got a couple other projects distracting me. A friend of mine wants me to write a short for him, and I've been working on a half hour single cam comedy script with one of my brother's college friends. He's a funny guy, but he'd never written a pilot before, so a lot of what I've been bringing to the table is how to structure and build a story that can run for 100 episodes. It's also looking pretty good and taking shape fast, so that's a good thing. The roommate has been crazy busy recently with these comedy shorts he's working on, so we haven't had a chance to polish the pilot we've been working on forever yet, but hopefully we'll get that done soon so we can move on to a new project together, maybe a comedy feature.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Birthday preparations

Writress organized a party for me on facebook. Nothing crazy, just a fun beer tasting thing in my apartment. Which is what I want. I don't want anything too crazy, just fun times with people in LA whose company I enjoy.

But so far, we only have about 15-16 peoples RSVPed as coming. Knowing the LA flake factor will be in full effect, we may only end up with 5-6 people at a given time with that number.

So I invited more people. Right now the "awaiting reply" part of the guest list has like 50 people on it. Potentially this could blow up and there'd be way too many people in my apartment. But I doubt it. It's a springtime saturday night in LA, and people who come will still likely just "make an appearance" for the most part. And even if we get up to 40 RSVP's, with the flake factor we'd only have about half of that.

Really, I just wanted to counteract the shitshow that was my birthday last year. Between my friends bailing, Easter, and Passover, only a few people were able to come out, and they weren't even out for that long. It was kind of depressing. I'm not the kind of guy who normally needs a lot of people to feel validated, but since it was my birthday and my best friend had bailed on me, the lack of people partying with me still kind of stung. So that's why I went a little crazy on the invites today.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Dating without benefits

I was talking to a friend of mine about this weird situation she's in. Her best friend is a guy. They've hooked up in the past, to what extent, I'm not sure. They're pretty much codependent at this point, and hang out with each other constantly. Both admit that with the amount of time and dedication they have to each other, they really couldn't fit a real relationship with someone else. To me, this sounds like dating.

But here's the kicker: they're not sleeping together. Or rather, she's not sleeping with him. He still tries, and why wouldn't he? If you get along that well with someone you're attracted to, why deny yourself from being with each other completely? Especially since their relationship basically cock blocks them with other people too. I just don't get it.

They're not friends with benefits, they're the opposite. They're dating without benefits.

And I find that to be kind of stupid.

I can see not wanting to get involved with someone because you're worried about how it'll affect your friendship, or because you know that long-term it's a disaster, or that you realize 30 is rapidly approaching and you don't want to waste any time in a relationship that isn't "the one." But if that's the case, why take yourself off the market like this while still hanging out with this person constantly?

My guess is that there are some deeper issues at play here, because honestly, as happy as these two are as friends, they're already dating, whether they acknowledge it or not. And this day in age, it's okay for people who are dating to screw. It's healthy. It's fun.

Writress is my best friend right now. We hang out, enjoy the same things. Some of those things we both happen to enjoy are having sex and sharing a bed with somebody. And that's the way it should be.