Ever find yourself dressed in a Disney-esque dog costume in the dead of summer at an American Red Cross blood drive?
What about lost in the Valley driving a 12-passenger van at 5 a.m. filled with muscle-bound, spandex-wearing, American Gladiators named Zap, Thunder, Hawk and Ice heading for a press junket?
Or working on the “VH1 Honors” and being told last minute that Prince no longer wants to be known by his (already fake) name, resulting in you having to replace his name on all the press materials with some new symbol?
These are just a few highlights, or lowlights, from my career. Times when I’d have a moment of self reflective clarity and ask myself … what the "F" is happening to my life? How is this helping my career? Is this really what a college degree gets me?
There’s an industry term for this line of thinking, it’s called: If you aren’t happy doing it, we will happily replace you with someone else who is!
In Hollywood, or really any field, situations will arise when people at the bottom of the food chain get assigned crap tasks. It’s not personal, so don’t take it to heart, it‘s simply a matter of there being a job that needs to get done. You can take some solace in the fact that the person who assigned you the job has, at some point in their career, walked in your shoes.
Hopefully doing menial and nonsensical tasks will light a fire and give you the incentive and motivation, to work hard in order to advance your career to a place where the shoe will be on the other foot.
Just remember when you get the power, don’t abuse it. There’s a nice way to tell a PA that they are on Orangutan duty (doodie) … If you know what I’m saying.
In retrospect, I wear my ridiculous jobs badge of honor proudly on my sleeve. These experiences really make for good stories, not to mention elevating the "special skills" section of my resumé: dog-suit specialist, symbol-gluing technician, gladiator-driving expert.
I feel like if I apply all of these skills at once I could be a shoe in for hosting “The Soup” on E! or even landing a seat in Congress!