Working in the entertainment industry is notoriously difficult.Ā
With extreme barriers of entry to horrible bosses, it seems as if living the Hollywood dream is nearly impossible. These horror stories from people who have worked as assistants in the industry are proof of how hard it can really be.Ā
Thanks to the Me Too movement, it seems as if the world is waking up to troubling power dynamics and bad workplace environments. However, there is still a long way to go.
Vulture compiled a list of some of the worst horror stories from assistants ever!
In an anonymous email, multiple assistants in Hollywood came forward to talk about their horrible bosses. Multiple people explained how their jobs made them feel physically ill, mentally unhealthy, and the compensation was never worth what their workload and hours entailed. All of these jobs were in the name of growth, but rarely did people see any reward for their hard work.
One person had to make two trips just to get her boss ice.
"I planned one of her kidās birthday parties, bought makeup bags as party favors for the girls, and booked her other kidās travel. Then the writerās assistant left and I filled in while still being the assistant and making a writerās PAās negligible salary: $750 a week with a 50-hour minimum, no benefits."
"When I went on to become a de facto assistant and writerās assistant, I wasnāt allowed to ask for more. It was presented as an expansion of writerās PA duties. My boss made me go across town to get her salads for lunch and ice for her cocktails. One time, she threw out the salad when I handed it to her and sent me out for a second ice trip to find 'actually good ice.'"
The anonymous tip-off let people be brutally honest about their working conditions.
Another person explained that their boss almost made them find their own way home from New Haven, Connecticut, to Brooklyn.
"In the car, he decided to give me an in-depth performance review about all my flaws. Including, by the way, how oddly āroboticā I was in that I didnāt seem to show enough emotions for a woman. Meanwhile, I was attempting to not drive us both into oncoming traffic."
"Once we arrived, he informed me that I would have to find my own way home. (This was a Tuesday and I was expected at work the next day.) After frantically calling my Yale friends to find a place to sleep for the night, he mentioned that heād changed his mind. I could ride with him back to NYC that night. But I had to take the subway at 1 a.m. from the Upper West Side to Bushwick."
There was little upward mobility in most of these stories, and they were pushed to unfair conditions.
"Every production job Iāve ever had, thereās not really a break. You are at the beck and call of everyone else," they explained.Ā
"No one ever gets trained in that office because heās constantly firing people, or people quit with no notice. Youāre supposed to warn him about meetings and phone calls an hour out, half an hour out, 15 minutes out, with emails, texts, or by telling him directly in the office."
"One day, he had this meeting with two big writers and he was out of the office, so I was sending him emails and texts. He has four numbers on this sheet we have, and I was calling all of them. He just blew it off, and then he screamed at me and fired me. He would accuse me of not sending emails or texts, but I talked to the IT guy and he told me, 'No, I can see him opening them.'"
Some people came forward on Twitter about their own experience with bad work environments.
"This is absolutely my experience of working in the UK Film and TV industry at an assistant level. I got shingles at the age of 23 from stress," one person shared on Twitter. Power dynamics in the office shouldn't be this unbalanced. In the entertainment industry, it's clear that people are treating individuals who aren't going to speak up poorly, because they haven't been punished for it.
Some of these stories prove that lower employees don't feel comfortable about speaking out.
Another person tweeted about their experience, "When I left the film industry last year, the first response from all of my assistant peers was 'Good for you. You got out.'"
One person explained in their anonymous response, "Itās funny, all this time later I still feel guilty telling you this. Like Iām betraying my former boss and the companyās trust. Iām years out of it and am doing very well. But thatās what they do to you. They make you feel a debt to them. Like theyāre doing you a favor. Like youāll never work in this town again if you say something. Thatās why I never spoke up. I was a terrified little brown boy making terrible money. If there was going to be mass action, it would have to be fueled by people of color. And I wasnāt brave enough."
This is the way things have been for so long, it's hard to tell if things will ever change.
One person pointed out in a reply, "Someone in the comments asked why these assistants' parents didn't teach them to stand up for themselves. A lot of assistants are hearing the same thing from their Boomer parents as they are from HR: it's all 'just part of the paying your dues.'"
Another anonymous responder said, "Youāre never gonna move up ā that became really clear to me right away. But thereās always something being dangled in front of you. When I went to film school, we learned you start at the bottom and you work your way to the top."
"Now, the friends I have who are successful were never assistants, and Iām like, 'Well what the [redacted] was I doing? Was this all a lie?' Sometimes people are really lucky, or really good, and other times theyāre just really rich and can do whatever they want to do."
