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Beth picked her cup up, peeled herself off the counter on the other side of the coffee machine, and leaned into my shoulder. “You think I could sleep under my desk without Siobhan noticing?”
“She came by earlier. You must have been away from your desk. She’s looking for the staffing plans for the launch, worried you haven’t hired enough temps.”
“I showed her the entire plan three times this week. From start to finish, pointing out all the exact places the temp staff I’ve hired for the night will be working.” Beth continued, “She’s going to be the death of me.”
“The event will be a great,” I said. “And I, for one, can’t wait to spend New Year’s Eve at work.”
Beth laughed. “We’re earning our bonuses.”
“You’re earning your promotion.”
“I wish.”
“You so are. I bet Siobhan will announce it when we get back in the new year, and soon you’ll be running the department, and I’ll be able to say, ‘We were colleagues once. Way back when, I attempted to do the same job as Beth Chan, and it became so painfully clear that she was much better at it than I was that I gave up and went to work at Tim’s.’”
Beth snorted. “I’m going to march over to her office now and take her through the launch plans.Again. And I guess I’ll work on the summer design mag pitches. They plan so far in advance. Maybe I can catch a bored junior editor who’s stuck in the office.”
“I wasn’t joking about the promotion. You are a far superior publicist to me. You actuallylikethis job.”
There was no doubt that Beth had a whole lineup of media pitches in her outbox ready to go—she’s that organized. I was always that little bit behind, relying too much on my personal relationships to get things done in a pinch. Calling in favors, looking for an in—that’s how I survived. It was a miracle I still had a job.
Beth left me to the gurgling coffee machine and headed off to find Siobhan. I dumped a whack of sugar into my mug and made my way back to my desk. Our floor was cubicle after cubicle, with a large quartet of open-concept desks where the assistants and interns worked. Floors above us had actual offices, like Garrett’s. But on these floors, where the publicists were, privacy was impossible. Everyone was used to ignoring the more personal conversations that went on from row to row around the edge of the building, where the lucky ones like me had windows. I sat back down and stared out, squinting at stormy Lake Ontario. I loved to look out my tiny sliver of a window at the beautiful cityscape. I wondered what people were getting up to in the offices and condos all around me as I gazed at rows of window dressings and patio furniture being pummeled by the weather. I wanted to take a camera and a mic pack around and interview them about their days. Cut it all together into some slice of life doc that highlighted how we had crept so far away from humanity in these places.
Marianne was still working out, and I managed to ignore her completely by turning my attention back to the fact that I had to find some way to make a documentary about the history of the sewing machinesexy.
Beth pinged:5, 4, 3, 2, 1 … now be sure and breathe…
I shot back a quickLOLand then,Lunch?
She replied,Can’t. Meeting the BF.
Everything OK re: SB?
Yup. She’s fine.
TTYL.
U2.
We logged off, and I went back at it—and thought of a better angle for the documentary. It was kind of an early feminist series looking at how technology freed up women’s time because they didn’t have to do all this work by hand. I wrote my tag: “Imagine your hands were freed from a thousand stitches.”
With my presser done, I got started on my customer service email. By a stretch, this was the worst part of my job. I could not believe the stuff people complained about: the volume level of the show compared to the commercials (which were always louder); last-minute schedule changes that weren’t properly advertised; an incorrect card at the end of a show advertising the wrong thing. On and on. One of the publicity assistants on my team sent me the more serious problems—those complaints that needed to be dealt with on a more senior level.
Dear Mrs. Smith, we sincerely apologize for incorrectly representing the graphic nature of the television show that aired on December 1. I understand that your sensibilities were shocked. However, this is network television, and people do have sex. Not sure if you’ve made it out to the movies in the last, oh, fifty years, but there are a lot of bare breasts in entertainment these days. And the film did come with a warning that it was for adult eyes only …
This was the draft I didnotsend. I was desperate for something more stimulating to do, but in the current climate, I was lucky to have this job. Still, I had to ignore the constant churning of unhappiness in my stomach, the regrets that piled up like extra calories. Of all the things that I regretted, the event that hung around my subconscious and stayed almost as long as this hangover was dropping out of my film MFA just before I finished. After Queen’s, I had ended up at Ryerson, but I was in all kinds of debt—my penchant for living beyond my means had not yet been curtailed (Rob and I weren’t living together yet; he was at Western finishing his MBA). I lived large. I had a great apartment right on College Street, refused to get a roommate, and burned through all my student loans in record time.
When this job as a publicity assistant at an actual television network came up, I had seen it as an opportunity to learn the ropes and get paid. You know, the once you’re in, you can move anywhere approach to a career.
Working in television isn’t the same as what I was doing in film school. I’ve got real work experience now, but I had thought I’d start in publicity and move over to programming. In reality, it isn’t easy to make the leap. My dream of being on set has not been fulfilled by showing up to photo calls for pampered, grumpy lifestyle hosts.
Beth pinged:OMG, has she finally stopped?
I hit Reply.I was halfway to dumping my coffee on her head.
What IS it about today?
It’s the day after the party, she needs more more more more more more oxygen!!!!!
