People love to talk about the time they met [insert_name_of_famous_person_here]. My mom had a story about running into Jerry Lewis at an ice cream parlor she told for years. And given where I worked, I had plenty of “sightings,” if you want to call them that, but for me they were just another day at the office, so I didn’t give them a second thought, though when Charlie Sheen gave his ostensibly drug-induced, highly public interview describing himself as a “winner” and his lifestyle choices as “winning” as he spoke of his “warlock brain” and “tiger blood,” I did think (only briefly) of contacting the press and selling them the story of the time I drove him around Los Angeles looking for a restaurant that had tuna tartare.
And I have never revealed the name of the international film star whom my boss called me at 2am and told me to bail out of jail after the studio had been tipped-off by the chief of police that he’d been arrested for public intoxication outside a gay bar wearing a lovely off-the-shoulder number with taffeta elbow gloves, a matching clutch, and six inch pumps. He’d been recording ADR (automated dialogue replacement) at Technicolor earlier in the day, and had no Id on him but for my boss’ business card in his purse. I took him to Norm’s in Hollywood and filled him with coffee to sober him up, let him change into something a little less ostentatious back at his hotel, then put him on a flight out of LAX heading east. We are still in touch to this day via email. And if you’re reading this, your secret’s safe with me.
But one story I have told over the years, at parties or after I’d had a few too many at the bar, happened shortly after I’d made the leap from IT guy to facilities manager. In my new role as the guy who makes the trains run on time, I found myself in charge of a group of 18-year-olds trying to break into the business, and employed, for the time being, as what you might call “gophers” – go get this, put that over there, etc. So when Mary Two-Tits, my name for the receptionist who was utterly incompetent but kept around because clients (and quite a few staff it must be said) liked her rather generously-sized bosoms) called me in my office, it was because there had been a mishap involving a gopher and a 3/4” tape deck.
When I got to reception, the gopher was on the floor, shoe and sock off, rubbing his foot, bits of what had been a Sony VO-9850 (see left) strewn about him.
There were also quite a few “civilians” around, waiting for their call time on a stage or some other business with the studio. It was about 3 in the afternoon. All in all, a rather typical scene for reception, except for the debris field and barefoot teenager in the middle of the floor.
When he saw me, he jumped up and started limping away, saying, “don’t worry Mr. Wilkinson, I’ll go get Terry to help clean this up.” I stopped him. If he was injured, this could turn into a workers’ comp. issue, and he was union. So I knew I had to send him out to occupational health to be evaluated by a doctor, and I told him as much.
“I’ll be fine,” he pleaded, “…just need to walk it off.” He didn’t want to go to occupational health because they always send employees back on “limited duty,” meaning I had to find something light and non-physical for them to do; this usually meant serving coffee and pastries on the stages to talent and production teams, and my band of gophers, all teenaged boys, considered that “girly work” and would taunt anyone in such a situation with sexist slurs. It was less than ideal, but I wasn’t there to promote feminism, just make tv and film, so I let it slide.
The taunting that is. Casey was still going to have to be seen by a doctor. So I said to him, “just head over to Saint Joe’s on Buena Vista and get an x-ray, I’m sure it’s going to be fine, but better safe than sorry.” I’d like to sound caring here and say I was worried about him, but I wasn’t. HR and the union had been “cracking down” on work-related injuries, and I knew if I didn’t follow procedure it was going to be my ass in a sling. Just then, someone tapped me on the shoulder. Without turning around, I said, “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Casey continued to plead his case. “Seriously, I’m okay, let me get this cleaned up.” I told him, “I’m sure you are, but I have to write this up for HR and your union shop steward, and I have to include a doctor’s note clearing you before you can return to work.” Again, someone tapped me on my shoulder.
This time I did a sortof half turn while staring down at the floor and said in an annoyed tone, “I said I’ll be with you in a minute, I’m in the middle of something here.”
When I looked up, Casey was doing jumping jacks… “see, I’m fine.” When he stopped, he began to jog in place. I suddenly became aware this was playing out in a very public place in front of clients and looked very unprofessional; my “protection of the company” instinct kicked in, so I turned to Mary Two-Tits and said, “get someone down here to clean this up,” and then to Casey and said, “let’s continue this in my office.” As I did, someone tapped on my shoulder for a third time.
In my defense, I was new at being senior management. I was new at wearing a tie. I was new at dealing on that level with employment issues involving the HR lady and a guy from the union who had already called me a “sniveling little poof.” I’d only been to two offsites, one covering the Sarbanes–Oxley Financial Act and one covering HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). I’d been quite happy being the IT guy for so many years, mainly because nobody really understands what you do so they just kindof leave you alone. But now, there were all these expectations, from corporate, and from our French overlords (Technicolor was owned by a publicly traded French multinational, Thomson S.A., with 105,000 worldwide employees and $12 billion dollars US in annual sales). It was all overwhelming. Maybe it was that moment that the pressure which had been building inside my noggin for months chose to relieve itself, but all I can say for myself is that I snapped. And I’m sorry.
I spun around facing this annoying person and screamed, “what the fuck do you want, can’t you see I’m busy?”
I was now face-to-face with a somewhat attractive woman with very long black hair that draped down the front of her chest, but you could tell she was much older than she appeared and had had work done. She was dressed rather unassumingly in faded blue jeans but wore a gem-studded white leather jacket. When she spoke, I instantly recognized the voice even though I had not yet put together who I had just unleashed a torrent of vulgarity on. She said, “I’m here for a re-recording session, which way to Stage 1?” And then it landed on my head like a ton of bricks.
I had just used profanity to shout in anger at Cher.
