Way to go SAG

Thanks for ruining my job prospects...

Just Kidding. You know I love you.

However, with 2/3 of the industry shut down, and Paramount now on it's 3rd series of layoffs, lots of people are losing their jobs. And, since people are LOSING their jobs, there's not a lot of jobs to go around. Writer's Assistant jobs are going to WRITERS who were laid off, Production Coordinator jobs are going to UPMs who were laid off, and so on down the line.

So, for those of you moving to the gold coast, I'll summarize what a Temp Agent told me today: "This town died in December". Now, that's quite an oversimplification, and there are still jobs, and there will always be jobs, at least in TV.

But, people are MUCH pickier now than they were pre-strike. Someone told me that they are looking for resumes and interviews from TEMPS! you know, the guys who come in and screw everything up...well now they want to interview the temps before the hire him. My question would be, shouldn't you be trying to fix this problem and don't do you have something better to do than to interview temps? I guess not, since there are no films going on.

And the big issue is, people with much more experience than you were laid off, and they need jobs. Since they can't find another job at their level, they are settling on jobs below their level. And THEY are competing with YOU. So, good luck with all that. Before you make the trip, make sure you can roll calls, take notes, do budgets, write coverage, and do all the other assistant type duties. I was told that I may be a hard sell because:

a) I can't roll calls and
b) I have ambition.

Yes, that's right. Apparently, according to a different temp agent, people want to you know you'll be there forever, and that you can't or don't want to do anything but be an assistant for the rest of your life.

If this is true, it paints a very bleak picture of breaking into an already difficult industry to break into. So, please, for my sake, stop trying to do better by yourself, and do better by me...

Just kidding. Solitary.