The Ugly Side of Nepotism...

I work in the entertainment industry.  I grew up eating, sleeping, and breathing theatre, film, and television.  Whether I was at a Christmas party with several industry names in attendance, helping backstage at benefit performances, or actually on the stage, this is what I was meant to do with my life.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with how the entertainment industry operates, I'll tell you that almost no one got here on merit alone.  Basically everyone in entertainment knew someone, who knew a guy, who knew this other guy, who worked for someone important.  They went through the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon and got their first job in the mail room (or whatever other bottom rung job was available), and worked their asses off to get where they are now.  Or they had a dad or an uncle that handed them their first job on a silver platter.

I personally tried to do it myself, pushing my resume on all kinds of job databases, before I took the Six Degrees route.  Luckily, my first bottom rung job has been to be a Production Assistant for a bunch of editors on a major motion picture.  I'm a girl in a boys club, and I have managed (a few panic attacks later) to hold my own pretty well.  Last week was particularly difficult, starting with a panic attack over thinking I lost my badge and my parking pass (which turned up under the driver's seat of my car), and ending with a $343.00 parking ticket so that the men I work for could have coffee they no longer wanted. That's how it goes.  They say "jump," I say "how high?"

Come Monday, I had basically recovered from my meltdowns, and was having your average day, when at the end of the evening, they dropped the bomb on me.  As of two weeks from now, the show is going on hiatus for the holidays.  It is at this point, that I will no longer be of service.  I have been replaced by someone working for one of Big D's other sons.  He can no longer keep this guy (who is a guy) so he pawned him off to Daddy.  Since this guy has worked for them before, and actually wants to be in editorial, it only made sense.  Of course, that leaves me, once again, jobless.  Merry Christmas.

That being said, I do understand the situation.  They apologized for having to do this to me, and softened the blow in every way they could.  And as strange as it may sound, I have grown a little attached to these guys, and I will miss their little eccentricities.  So I sat there, head held high, with a smile on my face to show that there were no hard feelings.  That's showbiz.  Them's the breaks, kid.