Tinseltown

The hiring manager at The Store had promised that hours were always available and that speedy advancement was practically guaranteed. She told me that acting was her passion, but that her retail job had allowed her to survive while she pursued the acting career, and she said that The Store could be the same sort of salvation for me. But when I arrived on my first day of the job, she handed me the paperwork to be filled out and announced that it was her last day on the job. She was gong to go work for some other company in the same mall. This was not a good sign, but I tried to ignore this fact.

Then I got my schedule for my second week with The Store, and the signs got a little harder to ignore. It indicated that I would only have eight hours in the coming week during which I might prove to the bosses that I was their next personal shopper or outstanding key-holder to be. I discovered that eight hours was, in fact, just enough time to convince the store managers that I was really not good at sales. The outlook was dim.

Luckily, my extensive craigslisting from the previous weeks was about to pay off a second time. One afternoon, I received a voice message from a staffing firm that specialized in entertainment. They wanted to see me for an interview.

I was overjoyed. I have had previous success with staffing firms for only one reason; they test their applicants.

Most people hate tests. Some people even go as far as to say, “I am not a good test taker.” It stands to reason that an equal number of people would be able to say the opposite, but I suspect that this is not the case, since each time I say that I am an outstanding test taker I get dirty looks. While this deters me from bringing my own bubble sheets to cocktail parties so that I may astound my friends with my standardized test-taking prowess, it has not stopped me from admitting without shame that I am a truly terrific test-taker. For example, each time I go to a staffing firm and take their little typing test and Microsoft Office test, I impress the recruiters. Some people are just lucky, I guess.

You, dear reader, may wish to suggest that my luck is rather limited. You might think that I would want to trade in my test-taking capabilities for some other qualities, like being born at the top or being devastatingly beautiful. You might suggest that I would be a more cheerful individual since such charms would take me much further in the realm of social interaction. You may be right. Especially since networking is everything. Nevertheless, I cling to the few footholds that I have.

So, I eagerly returned the call to the staffing firm, and, woe! There was one unforeseen obstacle in my way. The woman who answered the phone when I called to schedule my appointment was quite rude. Unhelpful even.

She refused to schedule an appointment when I called. “I schedule appointments from 1pm to 3pm. Call back,” she said. It’s one thing to covet a sorority girl’s ability to drive a stick shift. It’s another thing to realize that the Gatekeeper of All The Real Jobs has a job that you could do better but that you will never get the chance to prove this. My patience was bolstered only by remembering that there were tests to be taken here, and I imagined what kind of horrors were revealed when, during the fall of her senior year, the Gatekeeper opened the envelope from the College Board and saw her woefully unamazing SAT scores. I agreed, though scornfully, to call back when it was most convenient for the receptionist at the other end of the line, and finally scored an interview.

This employment agency, being a super special entertainment industry agency, has its office on Sunset Boulevard. But nothing on Sunset Boulevard is ever clean, pleasant, or hopeful. Hollywood is, in general, a nasty place. No, I’m not referring to the American film industry. I’m talking the part of the City of Los Angeles that is actually called Hollywood on the map. It’s not a nice place for a number of reasons. It’s dirty and crowded, the parking is sparse and expensive, all the single men are pick-up artists without an ounce of sincerity in their bodies, and so forth.

Furthermore, it’s crawling with tourists, and while we’ve all been tourists at some time or another, we all hate tourists when we’re being normal people in our own town. My abhorrence of fanny-packed, sock and sandal wearing men who feel it necessary to take pictures of the sidewalk is hardly unique. But, then again, I have to feel sorry for the tourists who come to Hollywood. Some of them are clearly from foreign countries, and even the American ones look like they might have traveled a very long way to see Tinseltown. And when they get there, they don’t find anything worth taking pictures of except for the sidewalk. Because the names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame are just about the only thing in Hollywood that has anything to do with the film industry. That, and the adult bookstores that look from the outside like they haven’t been dusted since the advent of VHS.

No one actually makes movies in Hollywood, and there’s actually nothing to see there except a couple of famous theatres and some seedy-looking movie museums. Though “Hollywood” is a word synonymous with entertainment, there’s nothing there to entertain, and the physical place itself has become irrelevant to the entertainment industry.

So it stands to reason that the reception area of this entertainment staffing firm located in Hollywood would be less than appealing. It was, in a word, wretched. The California sunshine filtered through one large window that had been coated with something to keep the heat out, but the heat came through anyway, and the sunshine was dull and illuminated only the dust filtering through the air. While the other half a dozen or so applicants and I sat and waited for their interview, we entertained ourselves by avoiding the sight or touch of a dirty, shaggy, smelly dog which weaved his way around the legs of our cheap chairs.

After a long, claustrophobic wait in the dingy waiting room, I took a long, but blessedly easy test in a dingy room full of computers and another half dozen applicants.

Finally, I was ushered by someone into a crowded, cluttered office, where a Recruiter huffed about the way I’d written my resume while she scratched the head of the mangy cur that had, unfortunately, shuffled into the office while I sat there and waited for the Recruiter to say something helpful. I told her I was a writer, she asked me if I wanted work at the agencies. I told her no, that I wanted time to keep writing. Then she sat up in her chair as if her addled brain had suddenly been shocked into competency for the first time in years.

“I have just the thing! Just the perfect job for you!”

The Recruiter at the entertainment staffing firm had a hedge fund client who needed a receptionist. It was the perfect job for me, she said, because the hours were from 6 am to 3pm. I would be able to write for the rest of the day! And there would be no traffic at those hours, so the commute to Santa Monica would be no trouble at all!

I agreed to go to the hedge fund for an interview, and the Recruiter called them that instant and set the appointment for the next morning. The Recruiter scooted me out the door and reminded me to “look gorgeous,” as though she were sending me to a casting call.

I successfully escaped the dreary reception area and fled to the dreary street where I’d parked my car. I was caught between two thoughts; I was thrilled to have an interview so fast, but chagrined that the job was not even related to entertainment.

But I got in my car, shut the door and looked around at the bland, sun-baked buildings in Hollywood and wondered. Did I really want a job in entertainment? Maybe it would make more sense if I worked outside of the industry while I wrote. Maybe finance was actually a good place for me. Still, I couldn’t understand how I’d managed to sign on with an entertainment staffing agency in Hollywood and walk out with an interview with a hedge fund. Except for the fact that Hollywood really doesn’t have a lot of entertainment to offer these days.