Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Friday, Mar. 18, 2005 - 12:11 a.m.

I know there are those of you out there holding your breath, so I will end the suspense and tell you that yes, the gigantic, 7" scaly monster from last night did, indeed, make its way back into the house. Happily for me, however, it did so about an hour later, and as TB was still up, he managed to catch it and release it back into the wild, where with any luck, some owl feasted on all 8" of it.

Okay, Los Angeles? Hello? Robert Blake? THIS is why the rest of the country mocks the entire state, and pretty much rightly so. How is it at all possible that 12 people exist on the planet who are so naive as to believe that a) he just brought a gun into a restaurant, right out in the open and merely laid it in the seat next to him, and b) he then walked off and forgot that gun, thus necessitating a trip back into the restaurant, during which strangers came unexpectedly upon his wife, shooting her dead? More, what are the odds the lawyers for that case managed to find all 12 braindead persons in one room? Here's a little tip, people. If YOU find a gun so intimidating that you would not carry one, much less right out in the open to dinner, neither will a person who actually knows how to use or owns a permit for carrying said weapon. People who carry guns certainly do not leave them lying on the chair at a restaurant table. I can not tell you enough how absolutely idiotic that scenario is, and I am fucking flabbergasted ANYONE on this planet was that frigging gullible, let alone 12 of you.

So, workplace has gotten so downright Machiavellian that I have to marvel. See, yesterday, Bruce brought in Frankie. Frankie and Bruce have been friends for something like 6 months or so, having met each other 3 months before Bruce came to workplace. Bruce wanted to bring Frankie in for the position I currently hold, but The Boss said absolutely not after interviewing her, because she has no experience. Like, at all. So instead, Bruce talked someone else in the company into hiring Frankie on as a logger...and then set her up in my office, right across from me. So yesterday being her first day, Frankie fires the opening salvo of "So, Katie, what's your title? Uh-huh; and how long have you been working here?" (like she didn't interview for the job right before I did, and like Bruce didn't tell her when I was hired on...liberal, please) She followed up with "Where did you work before? How much experience do you have? Oh really? On what shows?" And that was pretty much all she had to say to me the rest of the day. Then today, she tagged along when a nice coworker named LT went for her morning walk, and pumped her for information about me. "So, what's Katie's title, again? Uh-huh, and what, exactly, does that entail? Is she very good at it?"

(She also bitched about the company they used to work at and how awful it was, though she would not name names, and then said that the reason Bruce quit that company is because she "couldn't learn the software" they used, which is a completely ridiculous and fishy story, but whatever. There are only a few programs necessary to television production, and all companies use the exact same stuff, except this one, which doesn't use any.)

So I went out to lunch for the first time today, and the waiter was horrible and forgot to turn in an order, so we were 20 minutes late getting back, which I'm sure directly fed into what happened at 6:03, which is that Bruce slams in in overdrive, with Chip (The Kid) and LT in tow, and demands to know when I will finish the project I'm on, because it is ridiculous that I haven't finished it yet, and I am holding every other person up in the company. She made sure to very loudly announce this and scold me in an entire suite full of people, including Chip, LT, Frankie, and 3 or 4 editors - whom I am supposedly holding up. Chip just sort of stood behind her looking at me miserably, and people poked their heads out of doorways to see what the fuss was. I turned bright red but managed to stay calm and pointed out the flaw in her logic, which was that SHE gave them to me late, and that while I sympathise with the current snafu, I can not be held responsible for her vagaries. She then tells me that if I am so incompetent that I can not finish my projects on time, she will have to put Frankie on them instead, and then demands to know when they will be done. I say before I leave tonight, which is perfectly okay, as there was no one left to work on them by this time, since it's St. Patrick's Day, and let's face it: no one in television needs a reason to go drinkin' anyway; St. Patty's Day is just permission to get a 3 hour jump on the activity. She again treats me to the incompetency tirade, and then storms out, followed by Chip, who mumbled to please email them to him, he had to go to a wedding or something.

I finished the last 4 in an hour and a half and then went down to tell her they were done, and to inform her that while I am willing to stay late when we are in a bind, I can not know it's necessary if she fails to communicate it to me, so if she will do her job in future, I will do mine, and with smile to boot. Only I don't get to tell her this, because she has gone out. Drinking.

So I went to The Boss and asked if I could help with anything else. He says just finish the project, and I say I have. It sounded like he knew all about the scolding, so I then I say I certainly hope he knows that I am more than willing and happy to stay and work late if we are in a bind, and that while I stayed late last night, I would also have done so the rest of the week, had I known there was a problem. To which he replies he doesn't know what I'm talking about and was not party to any discussion on the matter. I said oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were part of that loop; can I do anything else? No, he says, looking really irritated, and I say goodnight and leave. But not before touching base with the guy who brought me into the company, who is pretty livid about it, since he is responsible for bringing Bruce in, and is pretty much over her bullshit. And we both agreed that in all probability, next Friday will be my last day there. Although, it turns out the run is over at the end of April, so I suppose it's possible they'll keep me on until then, since Frankie has no experience and is apparently not even a good logger, as she has already screwed that job up, a mere 2 days in. And you have to be really bad at logging if you have trouble with b-roll of big horn sheep and backhoes, because that entails such erudite descriptions as "Medium shot - big horn sheep grazing" and "Long shot of back hoe digging."

I'm just saying.

Peace out,
Katie

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Yesterday's News - Next Stop

In which Katie shares sad news - Wednesday, Apr. 01, 2015
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In which Katie asks you to write your congressman again. - Monday, Jun. 02, 2008
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