Getting Fired

I just watched a clever indie documentary about getting fired, titled appropriately, "Fired!" Annabelle Gurwith, and actress in LA who was fired from a Woody Allen play by Mr. Allen himself, who told her (among other things) that she "looked retarded" during a scene. Hey, he's a pedophile and an asshole! I know, he's a genius, but still. Anyway, the experience lead her to create both stage productions of stories of people getting fired and this documentary. It's hilarious, with great cameos by Andy Dick and David Cross, not to mention a puppet show featuring Tate Donavan, something you will not soon forget.

It got me thinking about my own getting fired story. Oh, you'd like to hear it? Well. Ok. Just this once.

The Scene: Los Angeles, circa 1998. Sunset Boulevard, baby, right around the corner from The Whiskey and across the street from The Viper Room. (The places where the Doors were discovered and River Phoenix died, respectively.)

The Company: Entertainment Marketing Group, aka EMG aka we launder money for big studios like Fox and NewLine, so they can continue to ask for huge marketing budgets and get them.

The Job: Sports Promotion and Product Placement, a job I couldn't have been less qualified for or less interested in, but I was working on Sunset Boulevard, baby!

A little background. Post-college, I had been working at a mutual funds company in Seattle, wanting to blow my brains out. I had recently broken up with Matt a.k.a. my adorable, sweet, Jewish "If I Could Just Have a Threesome My Life Would Be Complete" boyfriend and had started cocktailing part time near Pike Place a few nights a week in addition to my day job, because I was so bored and heartbroken. And depressed. Let's just say this was a time in my life where I slept whenever possible. I mean, I really enjoyed my sleep. On the bus on the way to work, in the comfy chairs in the lobby during my lunch hour, on the bus on the way home, and once, in the middle of a meeting about our mutual funds. This was a job that I was even less qualified for than the one in LA and less interested in, so when I waited on a crazy man named Phil Alexander at my part-time cocktailing gig, (who, because I didn't write his order down and could repeat it to him backwards), offered to fly me to LA to interview for a job, I jumped at the chance.

Did I mention all my Seattle friends were married or coupled up and talked a lot about things like using lowfat mayonnaise in their potato salads and how their boyfriend/husband(s) "never noticed," not to mention the amazing benefits of the Downey fabric softener ball? This caused me to forget all the reasons I left LA the first time around and fool myself into thinking it would be a good idea to live there again.

Anyway, upon my arrival at EMG, my job was a little amorphous, to say the least. It was kind of one black hole after another, actually, especially when the two girls who were going to run the "Sports Marketing" division with me stole the client list and left a month after I got there. I didn't miss them, per say, as Myken wore suits that resembled Heather Locklear's on Melrose Place, but with the added bonus of 38DDs, and Mia was a tiny, childlike girl who also wore tiny skirts and blinked rapidly instead of answering a question. With them gone, I was soon sharing an office with a lovely gay man named Eric, who was sort of supposed to be my assistant, and while we were trying to figure out what it was we should have been doing on a daily basis, we would blast Courtney Love's only contribution to society, "Celebrity Skin" by Hole. Remember when she was still insane but kind of cool? When she looked like this? Just to clarify, that's when I was into her. I mean, she dedicated the album to, "All the stolen water of Los Angeles, and to anyone who has ever drowned." That is some good shit.

Anyway, then we would take out morning break, either by going to AM/PM for Fritos (which Eric called Cafe Ahm Pahm) or to the Hustler store (Cafe UUstler) across the street. That's right, Larry Flynt's magnificence was right outside my window, and while you were picking up a whip and tickler, you could also get a pretty good cup of coffee. Then it was time for lunch, unless Phil interrupted our tranquility by barrelling down the hall, red-faced and dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, cowboy boots and too-tight jeans, shouting, "Who fucked up all these magazines? I was looking for a pacific fucking issue of AdAge!"

(This is what Courtney looks/sounds like now. And I can't listen to it. In fact, I can barely look at it. Again, just to clarify.)

Of course, Phil himself had fucked up the magazines that morning, usually by taking them out of their neat racks and throwing them on the floor or by grabbing a handful and putting them in his car, then forgetting he had done that. For five months, I was nice enough to straighten up the magazines and not point this out to him, or that the word he thought was "pacifically" was actually "specifically." Ok, once in response to some ridiculous thing he asked of me, I said, "Pacifically, what would you like me to do?" He didn't even blink, and it was an accident. I swear.

And so it went. Until Phil started dragging me to sales meetings and promising things like we would get "Baseball For Dummies" on the Jumbotron at Dodger Stadium for free. I mean, we would give away copies of the book to fans in exchange for Jumbotron time, and those marketing people at the stadium can't wait to do this, right Abby? Oh, and Abby's going to make all that happen. She's a smart girl that Abby and she can make anything happen. Anything at all. Oh, and she'll be your contact for the remainder of this project.

This was when I started to realize I was in a little bit of trouble. Phil had a very bad habit of overselling even when the deal was already done. As Eric used to say, "Phil will promise that the Goodyear blimp will fly over the stadium with the clients name on it, and then Jesus himself will descend from the blimp. Or Marilyn Monroe. All for pennies on the dollar." I ignored these problems for awhile, trying to tone down the clients expectations in-between visits to Cafe Hustler and Hole, but then we all got the email that we wouldn't be getting our checks this week. And maybe not the next either. There was just no telling. It came from our CFO Michael, who kind of fluttered up and down the halls in those rare moments he actually emerged from his office. He spent a lot of time in his office alone and with his girlfriend, who looked like a Playmate, and teetered around the office in gold high heels most of the time. (We thought she might be a hooker, and that they spent their time in there snorting cocaine and doing it. I don't think this was an entirely crazy theory.)

Another stellar Eric quote, "EMG. We don't care if you snort cocaine off a hooker's tits."

We confronted Michael for being a chicken shit with his email, and we did get our checks, although a few days late. Then the layoffs started and Phil stopped talking to everyone in the office. Instead, he sent this greasy kid Patrick around, the "office manager" (I think the thing he managed previously being a Pizza Hut) to ask us to describe our jobs to him. Then people started to get laid off. Eric and I survived the first round, and we heard through the grapevine that we were "safe" but we talked at length between our Cheetos and Diet Cokes whether or not we should just asked to be laid off, rather than wait for the axe to fall.

Then Patrick came around again, and informed me that I could float between departments or be Phil's assistant. Phil had been trying to get me to be his assistant for a few weeks now, and I told him I didn't move 2,000 miles to be someone's assistant. I managed not to cry, and tried not to become suicidal about my entire silly life in LA, which consisted of dating a guy named Chuck Dick (I am not joking, again. I said to him at one point, "Charles is such a lovely name. Why don't you go by Charles?" ) this stupid job and a roommate who was stunning, a size zero, and also owned a cockatoo named Baby, a free roaming turtle named Honey and a dog named Bear. And 50 houseplants. She eventually left me in charge of all these things for about 2 months, but that is an entirely different story, and I digress.

I stared at Patrick when he told me this, admiring the chest hair that nearly reached the whisker line on his chin, his greasy, greasy hair, the acne in his eyebrows and the key he wore around his neck like a third grader and decided I needed to be laid off. Immediately. I told the sales manager that night, saying I would be happy to finish up my "projects" etc., that I just wanted out. And unemployment.

The next day, I came back from lunch to an anxious Eric in the parking lot.

"Miss Mims," he said. He often called me Miss Mims. I don't know why. I kind of liked it. "I have something to tell you, but you need to remain calm."

"Ok," I said. "What?"

"We've been given our final checks and we have 20 minutes to leave the building."

"What the fuck? Is Phil here?"

"He is, but he's hiding in his office and Patrick is escorting us out. I told him I would tell you, or he might have to deal with some broken windows and shit."

Now, I've never broken windows in my life, but I wanted to just then. Very, very badly. So, Eric and I were completely humiliated, unable to touch our computers as Patrick inspected the things we took. I lost my shit. I screamed and yelled that Phil was a liar and a coward and that Patrick should "get the fuck out of my face." Not my finest moment, but as I walked out (Hole CD in hand) directly to the bank to cash my check, I felt vaguely empowered. Very, very vaguely.

I only started to cry later, as Eric and I sat at Rage, a gay bar complete with go-go dancers in tiny thong speedos, eating "Dinner for a Dollar" and drinking Cape Cods. He consoled me, as did the bartenders there. They were the ones that called me "Pretty" every time I came in, as if this were my name.

God, I miss LA.