September 12, 2024 • 24 mins
Trigger Warning: Self-harm and drug use.
We all know how hard it is to land a job in this industry, but what about how hard it is to fire someone... even when they deserve it?
In this week's episode, we hear from a confessor who was an executive producer on a 20-episode order of a first-season show. The challenges they faced just to run the room and keep good scripts coming on time were compounded exponentially by a writer who disrupted the room at every turn.
September 29th, appeared visibly intoxicated while working in the room.
October 5th, he was rolling a Swiss Army knife around on his knuckles with the blade out while appearing to be under the influence.
October 25th, he left over an hour early without telling anyone.
11/11, an unidentified pill was found outside his office.
Incredibly, these and many more infractions weren't enough to convince HR to take action. It was up to our confessor to find a way to manage the problem, all while running a TV show, dealing with the writer's mental health issues, and taking care of their own.
Join us for a discussion on firing and being fired, how to cope with toxic behavior in the workplace, and why we absolutely must destigmatize mental health care to make Hollywood a happier place.
Connect with us:
Check out some of our favorite shows:
- Screenwriters' Rant Room
- Screaming into the Hollywood Abyss
- It Happened in Hollywood
- The Secret History of Hollywood
Hollywood Confessional is a Ninth Way Media production, produced by Meagan Daine and J.R. Zamora-Thal.
Sound Effects and Music provided by Zapsplat and Pixabay.
Keywords: filmmaking podcast, film podcast, screenwriting podcast, entertainment podcast, Hollywood, filmmaking, writerslife, actorslife, setlife
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
In nomine Cinema e TV Espiritu Streaming.
Amen.
Hello, Hollywood, faithful,Welcome back to another episode
of the Hollywood Confessional.
I'm your podcast priest, JairZamorathal.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
And I'm Megan Dane.
Thank you guys so much forjoining us again here on the
podcast where people confesstheir deep, dark secrets, and
this is a really interestingepisode this week because the
secret that we are here to talkabout has to do with getting
fired, firing and getting fired.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Have you ever gotten fired?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This is the weird thing about, like Hollywood is
that it's really hard toactually get fired, like they
just kind of stop talking to you, right?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I mean, and they stop paying you too, which is a
pretty good indication.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, yeah, like I think it actually.
I think I just went throughthis a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Your podcast priest is here and waiting.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I'm not entirely sure , but I was doing a sort of side
project for a company, you know.
Everything started out reallygood, but it was all fully
remote and I did my firstproject for them.
Then I didn't hear back.
And then I wrote and I was like, hey, just checking in, just
like, am I supposed to keepgoing?
(01:26):
And I heard like a nice emaillike oh yeah, you did a good job
on the first part.
But then I never heard anythingelse.
So I think I got fired.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Oh, that is so tough.
I hate the ghosting.
You know, a similar thinghappened to me.
I was a script reader for amanagement company, but the
extra confusing part is that itwas an unpaid internship.
So there was no lack ofpaycheck to alert me to the fact
that I had been fired.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
But that's okay.
I mean, come on, if they'reusing you for free labor, the
least they could do is like,have the courtesy to let you
know if they want to fire you.
You know, give you someguidance, tell you like, hey,
this is what wasn't working,this is what you could do better
in the future.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
It was an internship.
I was there to learn and I wasjust a kid so I didn't know.
Here I was emailing this guyevery other day, being like
waiting for the next script.
Would love the next script.
Read three scripts looking forthe fourth.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Oh my God, ok, okay, so confess.
What company was it?
Oh, it was you can bleep itreally yeah, those are both.
That sucks man.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Those are both like legit, quote-unquote legit
companies oh, and the worst partis a mentor wanted to hook me
up there and I was like I don'tthink I should be going in there
oh wow.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Oh man, what a man, what a bummer.
You should have taken yourmentor to task.
Yeah, so we've actually got aninteresting story coming up in a
couple weeks from a studioreader who will talk a little
bit more about what it's likebehind the scenes to be a reader
in like a legit paid job.
I know that I didn't actuallyrealize those existed, but they
(03:07):
do, apparently.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
And they're unionized .
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, yeah.
So we'll be getting into that,all that interesting, like
completely revelatoryinformation.
But for this week there's theghosting thing that happens like
pretty much all the time.
But then there's like legitfiring situations, like what
happens when someone is legallygainfully employed W-2 or
(03:31):
whatever it is and doessomething that is absolutely a
fireable offense or it becomesnecessary to fire them.
How does that work out?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I think we're going to find out if we step into the
booth.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
This is a story about how HR fails us, about a writer
who has serious drug and mentalhealth problems and why it was
nearly impossible to get rid ofhim.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
I have a feeling this confession is either going to
piss me off or make me cry.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
A lot of times it's both.
Tell us how it happened.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Well, I start by saying that, as someone who
struggles with mental healthproblems myself, I have enormous
sympathy for people dealingwith these issues.
None of that stuff is easy, andalso as someone who has fired
multiple people over my career,that is not something I think is
fun and it's not something Iever want to do.
(04:39):
It's just that sometimes, forthe good of other people in the
workplace, it has to be done.
This story started back in Mayof I got a job on a new show.
Generally, the way a writer'sroom works is you've got a group
of writers who are on staff.
You work on one episode at atime, trying to figure out what
(05:04):
we call the story break, whichis the order of things that are
going to happen in an episode.
You come up with an idea for anepisode.
You pitch that to theshowrunner.
The showrunner says yes or no,and then you take that idea and
expand it, get enough to writelike one pager for it and then
enough to write an outline.
So the writer's room is sort oflike a little factory that's
(05:28):
churning out story break overthe course of a season.
And in a well-functioning roomyou've generally got a
co-executive producer or ahigher level writer who's there
all the time running the roomand making sure the discussion
stays focused.
And then you have somebody atthe showrunner level who's there
as much as they can be to sortof help guide the discussion.
(05:50):
I call it having the greenlight in the room.
You have someone there who cansay yes or no.
In the case of this show, we hadan overarching showrunner who
was focusing on multiple showsand then we had two executive
producer level writers who wererunning the show day to day.
I was one of those people.
When you're running atelevision show, your job is to
(06:14):
be the person who stays calm.
You're running a small businesswith 200 to 250 employees and
all their jobs depend on youmaking smart decisions about a
lot of different things.
This show started with a prettytypical writer's room, but it
was a weird situation.
(06:35):
One of the writers this guynamed was an old friend of the
showrunner and you immediatelygot the sense that one of these
things is not like the other hadproblems from the get-go.
He was kind of combative, likeif somebody pointed out a
problem with one of his pitcheshe'd say see how it goes next
(06:57):
time you're pitching.
He was more concerned with hispersonal status in the room than
with the success of our team,and he wasn't that great at the
job.
There was this one pitch he gotstuck on.
I don't remember if it was forone episode or if he kept
pitching it, but I feel like itwas in many episodes I'd seen it
(07:18):
before.
The idea kind of fell flat, buthe just kept pitching the same
thing, so it wasn't going great.
Really early on this is likelate May.
Then at some point in June Igot a report from one of the
writers that there had been abag of white powder found on the
(07:38):
floor.
Oh shit, when somebody pointedit out, he grabbed it and threw
it out, you know, giving theimpression that it might have
belonged to him and he didn'twant it to be seen.
That was the first idea I gotthat maybe there's something
else going on, maybe this guy'sgot a drug problem.
(08:02):
You know people have problemsand it was a first season show.
There was a lot of pressure, wewere racing the clock and it
wasn't a great environment tobegin with, but you could sort
of feel the pressure mountingfor this guy as he continued to
not fit in.
Then it had to have been likeSeptember, a big turning point.
(08:24):
One of our writers comes to meand she's very worried.
I'm like what's going on andshe's like I don't know if this
is okay for me to tell you about, but I don't know what to do.
I was contacted by a friendlast night who was also friends
with.
They were talking and he saidhe's thinking about killing
(08:46):
himself oh, oh, my god and Itell the other ep on the show,
we talk about it with thiswriter, and then we pretty
fucking quickly go to our bossand say, hey, this is the
information we have.
I don't know what to do withthis, but I don't want anything
(09:07):
bad to happen.
Our boss called hr and we'relike okay, maybe they're going
to do something, maybe he'sgoing to get some help.
The next day we found out thatthe studio's response was to
5150.
This poor guy.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
That's literally the worst response.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Oh my God.
So the cops showed up at hisplace to take him in.
He starts talking lawyer talkto the cops and scares them away
so they don't take him in.
And this whole thing infuriatesme, because how does that make
anything better?
In no way does having thepolice grab this guy and take
him to some sort of psychiatricfacility like I have fucking
(09:49):
depression and I've beensuicidal.
It's not a thing you want tofuck around with.
And sending the cops tosomeone's door, let me tell you
that wouldn't help, but that'swhat the studio did.
So when got in the next day orthe day after, it was obvious
we'd been told the other EP saidyou know, we talked to him at
(10:10):
length about what he was goingthrough and what he needed, and
I feel for the guy Like itsounded like he was going
through a tough go.
So I'm doing my best, but I'm aproducer on a TV show, not a
trained mental healthprofessional.
So from there things get worse.
Back in June there had been amass shooting in the news and
(10:33):
there was a conversation in theroom that I wasn't there for in
which said he had guns and noone was going to take them away.
It was.
It was no big deal at the time,it was just, you know, a
conversation.
But as things progressed andwe're also in a very busy season
trying to make a show that'svery hard to make several
writers asked not to be leftalone in the room with him.
(10:55):
B***h was becoming moreargumentative and when the other
EP and I are in the room, theother writers have to be the
ones to tell him no.
And you don't want to say no tothe guy who takes it personally
when you kill his pitch.
And who's already said that hehas guns it personally when you
kill his pitch.
And who's already said that hehas guns.
(11:15):
And the other EP brought abaseball bat to keep by his desk
.
But he didn't listen to thewriter's requests that they not
be left alone with.
So by late Septemberth appearedvisibly intoxicated while
(11:38):
working in the room, keptinterrupting and could not seem
to follow the thread ofconversation.
October 3rd fell asleep whilereading lunch menu.
October 4th worked with shirthalf unbuttoned and belly button
showing.
October 5th he was rolling aSwiss army knife around on his
(11:58):
knuckles with the blade out,while appearing to be under the
influence.
October 25th he left over anhour early without telling
anyone.
November 4th he arrived 30minutes late and then he had to
leave midday, to quote, meet afriend in the parking lot.
November 11th an unidentifiedpill was found outside his
(12:20):
office.
November 15th he laid down forhours, came out of his office
reeking of alcohol at 5.30,ruined the productivity of the
room.
Why we were still in the roomat 530 and working for hours
beyond is another story.
November 21st fell asleep inthe room again Asked questions.
That evidence he hasn't beenreading the script.
(12:43):
He would sleep at the scriptcoordinator's desk Like he could
have gone in his office andslept all day long and everybody
would have been fine with that,but for some reason he was
falling asleep in the writer'sroom and covering himself with
the blinds.
How did he even?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
do that.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
He's like leaning on the window with his head out and
they're like what are you doing?
And he's like, no, no, no, I'mlistening, I just need some sun.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
That's incredible.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
So it was all the chaos of living with someone
with an active drug and alcoholproblem, but he's not our
relative, this is our workplace.
It added enormously to thestress that everybody was going
through.
By November the other EP and Iwere talking we need to be able
to fire this guy, but becausethe studio's first move was to
(13:32):
5150 the dude, the dude was nowtrying to sue them.
So, no matter what, the studiowould not let us fire him.
We just went on and on in thisreally awkward situation.
In like February we werestarting to come out the other
side of our 20 episode order.
We were like, okay, fine, wecan make it through this season.
We were like, okay, fine, wecan make it through this season,
(13:53):
we don't have to fire him.
Then we started seeing hintsthat, despite all these issues,
he's going to be brought backfor a second season.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
God, this is like the end of a zombie movie, where
they got him buried and the handjust jumps up out of the grave.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
And I spent hours on the phone with HR documenting
his behavior.
I read them, all the things Ijust read you, and talked about
a lot of shit that I've probablyblissfully forgotten.
It was not a great time.
None of this was fun.
I hope it's funny from adistance, in the abstract, but
(14:32):
living through it it was justgut wrenching.
So I'm going through thecontemporaneous notes and then
we move offices and we'rethinking, oh, he just won't move
with us.
But he moved with us and we'relike, oh God, they're giving him
(14:52):
an office for next year.
And that's when there was asecond drop pill found on the
floor.
This is just insane.
I've heard stories about some ofthe big hit shows in the 80s
and 90s and you know the amountof drugs that were being done,
but I've never seen anythinglike that.
(15:12):
Most writers rooms that I'veworked in are you know the
amount of drugs that were beingdone, but I've never seen
anything like that.
Most writers' rooms that I'veworked in are, you know,
creative but very conventionalworkplaces.
This was anomalous for me in mycareer.
Now, for all I know, this thingwas a vitamin, but it was found
on the floor outside his office.
I'd held on to the first onethat I had like picked up and
(15:34):
bagged like I know what I wasdoing.
So I bagged this one up, youknow, and dated them and, per
instructions from HR, I mailedthem to the HR office for them
to I don't know test.
I had a hunch, they wentstraight into the fucking
garbage, but I did that.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
I think HR was watching too many cop shows.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
But we're finding actual drugs.
There are drug dealers beinglet onto the lot as near as we
can tell Would call in adrive-on for a buddy and then go
meet him in the parking lot andwe'd never see him again.
So all this is going on and, bythe way, this is an office
(16:20):
where we also have rats.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Absolutely not.
No, no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Rats in the break room, bugs that live in the
standing water below thebuilding.
So I'm like calling facilities,telling the assistant to call
facilities.
It's like a drug addict andrats, and nothing we can do will
get rid of them.
Until finally, one day, westopped talking about unsafe,
(16:48):
unprofessional and unacceptablebehavior and start making the
only argument that worked hecouldn't write.
Huh, I mean, I remember sayinglook, I am not an expert on
mental health or drug addictionor any of this other stuff, but
I am an expert on how to writethis show and I am telling you,
(17:10):
in my expert opinion, this guycan't do it.
And that's how we were finallyable to fire him.
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I did not see that coming.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
If there's a moral to this story, or an amoral, it is
that the HR departments inHollywood don't work at all Full
stop.
They exist to protect thecompany from lawsuits.
Theyweighs their responsibilityto create a safe and
(17:53):
professional workspace for theiremployees.
So that was a nightmareeverybody on that staff had to
live through.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Having gone through this nightmare, what would you
say to other people who might beexperiencing something similar?
Speaker 3 (18:06):
If I knew somebody in the same situation, the big
thing I would tell them is thestudio HR department is never
going to care about theirperson's behavior, they're going
to care about the quality oftheir work.
I really do hope that post MeToo, all this stuff has gotten
at least a little better, but itwas really shocking to me that
(18:27):
evidence of drugs being broughtinto the workplace, sleeping on
the job, not keeping up with thebasics of the job, like reading
other scripts None of that wasdisqualifying.
The thing that they believethey could legally defend, I
guess, was me and my fellow EPsaying he can't write the show,
they don't care about SAFE, theyjust care about not getting the
(18:50):
company sued.
So they should probably callthat department something else.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
You've talked a lot today about trying to mitigate
the stress other writers werefeeling in this situation.
What about the stress you weredealing with?
As a person whose job it is tostay calm, how do you make sure
you're available to manageeverything?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
For me, as someone who has depression, medication
was pretty life-changing.
I went to it reluctantly You'retalking about changing your
brain, and my brain is how Imake my living.
I was really worried that itwould affect my ability to write
, but if anything, it's been theopposite.
My 20s were basically spentwhite-knuckling it through some
(19:32):
pretty serious depressionsymptoms, and it wasn't until I
got onto antidepressants in mymid-30s that I was able to look
past the symptoms and startgetting at the underlying causes
.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
That's a fantastic answer and so candid talking
about the way thatantidepressants help people.
I mean we've definitely done alot of work in the last five,
ten years to destigmatize mentalhealth, but not enough has been
done to destigmatize what helpsmental health get better, and
in some cases it is medication.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
You know if you told the people you had cancer you'd
have an outpouring of sympathy.
And if you tell people that youknow you have depression or an
eating disorder, you know you'rethinking about killing yourself
.
You are frequently treated likeyou're the problem and it is
every bit as much a disease ascancer.
(20:23):
I have survived with depressionfor I'm not going to say how
many years, but quite a few.
I live with this disease and itfucking sucks.
And one of the things thatmakes it suck is that you're
kind of expected to hide it.
Since crawling out of that holefor the first time I've tried
not to hide it, but you knowit's not fun.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
It's incredibly tough , but we really appreciate your
openness about it and we hopethe subject of your story was
also able to get the help heneeds.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for sharingthis story with us and for all
you do to help people create.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
In peace God.
That's so frustrating.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
And I just I feel bad for everybody else in the room
that had to endure that.
I mean, you work so hard to getinto a room and then for it to
be a negative experience and tohave someone like kind of
actively destroying the workthat you guys are doing.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, it's.
I mean it's a complicatedsituation and I love the fact
that the confessor was socompassionate.
I mean, at the same time asthey had all this responsibility
and we're trying to take thebest possible care of everybody
in the room, that included thisperson who was acting in this
horrible way and like concernfor their mental health, which I
(21:46):
thought was incredibly just,selfless.
I really appreciate that, butat the same time, it puts the
confessor in this impossiblesituation, because they do care.
They care about all the peoplein the room, and then you've got
this one person who, like yousay, is just destroying the
dynamic and you can't doanything about it.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah, it's horrible, and I think just to talk about
the Confessor again for a momentit's such an underrated and
underdeveloped skill, I feel, inHollywood to be a good manager.
I mean, you work so hard onyour writing skills, on your
storytelling skills, even likethe skills that it takes to
produce but once you get to acertain level, you have to be a
(22:29):
good manager in order for theshow to go right.
And they showed what abrilliant manager they are in
taking care of both the personwho was the problem and
everybody else in the room.
It's really inspiring to hear astory like that.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, that's a great point, and I think I mean, I
think it's important to say thatthis carries across all
departments.
Like whenever you become adepartment head, you're, the
nature of your work changes andyou're absolutely right.
For the most part there's notraining for that.
It's like you're a cameraoperator and then all of a
sudden you're the head of thecamera department, and that is a
(23:03):
very different skill set.
And I think when we talk abouthow work environments become
toxic in Hollywood, it's veryoften because people don't have
this kind of training or theydon't have these kinds of skills
, and so they don't know how toaddress problems like this when
they arise.
And then you've got the wholesystemic issue where, even when
(23:24):
they want to fix these problems,people in managerial positions
are just sort of like hamstrung.
They can't do anything about it, because apparently saying that
someone was using drugs andfalling asleep at the table
isn't enough.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Oh, my God, I'm just thankful that I'm still at the
level where I only have to focuson my writing.
I know right.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, there are definitely some benefits to not
being the boss sometimes.
Well, that's all we've got foryou guys this week.
Thank you again so much forjoining us, and we'll be back in
a couple of weeks with a story,like I said, about a studio
reader and what it's like to bea Hollywood gatekeeper.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Join us in two weeks, but until then, you can hit us
up at Fess Up Hollywood onInstagram and X.
And if you've got a confessionyou know, reach out, let us know
.
Until then, go create in peacethis episode, vicky george.
(24:29):
Special effects provided by zapsplat and pixabay.
Hollywood confessional is aninth way media production.
Follow us on socials at fess uphollywood.
In nomine Cinema e TV Espiritu Streaming.
Amen.
Hello, Hollywood, faithful,Welcome back to another episode
of the Hollywood Confessional.
I'm your podcast priest, JairZamorathal.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
And I'm Megan Dane.
Thank you guys so much forjoining us again here on the
podcast where people confesstheir deep, dark secrets, and
this is a really interestingepisode this week because the
secret that we are here to talkabout has to do with getting
fired, firing and getting fired.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Have you ever gotten fired?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This is the weird thing about, like Hollywood is
that it's really hard toactually get fired, like they
just kind of stop talking to you, right?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I mean, and they stop paying you too, which is a
pretty good indication.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, yeah, like I think it actually.
I think I just went throughthis a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Your podcast priest is here and waiting.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I'm not entirely sure , but I was doing a sort of side
project for a company, you know.
Everything started out reallygood, but it was all fully
remote and I did my firstproject for them.
Then I didn't hear back.
And then I wrote and I was like, hey, just checking in, just
like, am I supposed to keepgoing?
(01:26):
And I heard like a nice emaillike oh yeah, you did a good job
on the first part.
But then I never heard anythingelse.
So I think I got fired.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Oh, that is so tough.
I hate the ghosting.
You know, a similar thinghappened to me.
I was a script reader for amanagement company, but the
extra confusing part is that itwas an unpaid internship.
So there was no lack ofpaycheck to alert me to the fact
that I had been fired.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
But that's okay.
I mean, come on, if they'reusing you for free labor, the
least they could do is like,have the courtesy to let you
know if they want to fire you.
You know, give you someguidance, tell you like, hey,
this is what wasn't working,this is what you could do better
in the future.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
It was an internship.
I was there to learn and I wasjust a kid so I didn't know.
Here I was emailing this guyevery other day, being like
waiting for the next script.
Would love the next script.
Read three scripts looking forthe fourth.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Oh my God, ok, okay, so confess.
What company was it?
Oh, it was you can bleep itreally yeah, those are both.
That sucks man.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Those are both like legit, quote-unquote legit
companies oh, and the worst partis a mentor wanted to hook me
up there and I was like I don'tthink I should be going in there
oh wow.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Oh man, what a man, what a bummer.
You should have taken yourmentor to task.
Yeah, so we've actually got aninteresting story coming up in a
couple weeks from a studioreader who will talk a little
bit more about what it's likebehind the scenes to be a reader
in like a legit paid job.
I know that I didn't actuallyrealize those existed, but they
(03:07):
do, apparently.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
And they're unionized .
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, yeah.
So we'll be getting into that,all that interesting, like
completely revelatoryinformation.
But for this week there's theghosting thing that happens like
pretty much all the time.
But then there's like legitfiring situations, like what
happens when someone is legallygainfully employed W-2 or
(03:31):
whatever it is and doessomething that is absolutely a
fireable offense or it becomesnecessary to fire them.
How does that work out?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I think we're going to find out if we step into the
booth.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
This is a story about how HR fails us, about a writer
who has serious drug and mentalhealth problems and why it was
nearly impossible to get rid ofhim.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
I have a feeling this confession is either going to
piss me off or make me cry.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
A lot of times it's both.
Tell us how it happened.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Well, I start by saying that, as someone who
struggles with mental healthproblems myself, I have enormous
sympathy for people dealingwith these issues.
None of that stuff is easy, andalso as someone who has fired
multiple people over my career,that is not something I think is
fun and it's not something Iever want to do.
(04:39):
It's just that sometimes, forthe good of other people in the
workplace, it has to be done.
This story started back in Mayof I got a job on a new show.
Generally, the way a writer'sroom works is you've got a group
of writers who are on staff.
You work on one episode at atime, trying to figure out what
(05:04):
we call the story break, whichis the order of things that are
going to happen in an episode.
You come up with an idea for anepisode.
You pitch that to theshowrunner.
The showrunner says yes or no,and then you take that idea and
expand it, get enough to writelike one pager for it and then
enough to write an outline.
So the writer's room is sort oflike a little factory that's
(05:28):
churning out story break overthe course of a season.
And in a well-functioning roomyou've generally got a
co-executive producer or ahigher level writer who's there
all the time running the roomand making sure the discussion
stays focused.
And then you have somebody atthe showrunner level who's there
as much as they can be to sortof help guide the discussion.
(05:50):
I call it having the greenlight in the room.
You have someone there who cansay yes or no.
In the case of this show, we hadan overarching showrunner who
was focusing on multiple showsand then we had two executive
producer level writers who wererunning the show day to day.
I was one of those people.
When you're running atelevision show, your job is to
(06:14):
be the person who stays calm.
You're running a small businesswith 200 to 250 employees and
all their jobs depend on youmaking smart decisions about a
lot of different things.
This show started with a prettytypical writer's room, but it
was a weird situation.
(06:35):
One of the writers this guynamed was an old friend of the
showrunner and you immediatelygot the sense that one of these
things is not like the other hadproblems from the get-go.
He was kind of combative, likeif somebody pointed out a
problem with one of his pitcheshe'd say see how it goes next
(06:57):
time you're pitching.
He was more concerned with hispersonal status in the room than
with the success of our team,and he wasn't that great at the
job.
There was this one pitch he gotstuck on.
I don't remember if it was forone episode or if he kept
pitching it, but I feel like itwas in many episodes I'd seen it
(07:18):
before.
The idea kind of fell flat, buthe just kept pitching the same
thing, so it wasn't going great.
Really early on this is likelate May.
Then at some point in June Igot a report from one of the
writers that there had been abag of white powder found on the
(07:38):
floor.
Oh shit, when somebody pointedit out, he grabbed it and threw
it out, you know, giving theimpression that it might have
belonged to him and he didn'twant it to be seen.
That was the first idea I gotthat maybe there's something
else going on, maybe this guy'sgot a drug problem.
(08:02):
You know people have problemsand it was a first season show.
There was a lot of pressure, wewere racing the clock and it
wasn't a great environment tobegin with, but you could sort
of feel the pressure mountingfor this guy as he continued to
not fit in.
Then it had to have been likeSeptember, a big turning point.
(08:24):
One of our writers comes to meand she's very worried.
I'm like what's going on andshe's like I don't know if this
is okay for me to tell you about, but I don't know what to do.
I was contacted by a friendlast night who was also friends
with.
They were talking and he saidhe's thinking about killing
(08:46):
himself oh, oh, my god and Itell the other ep on the show,
we talk about it with thiswriter, and then we pretty
fucking quickly go to our bossand say, hey, this is the
information we have.
I don't know what to do withthis, but I don't want anything
(09:07):
bad to happen.
Our boss called hr and we'relike okay, maybe they're going
to do something, maybe he'sgoing to get some help.
The next day we found out thatthe studio's response was to
5150.
This poor guy.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
That's literally the worst response.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Oh my God.
So the cops showed up at hisplace to take him in.
He starts talking lawyer talkto the cops and scares them away
so they don't take him in.
And this whole thing infuriatesme, because how does that make
anything better?
In no way does having thepolice grab this guy and take
him to some sort of psychiatricfacility like I have fucking
(09:49):
depression and I've beensuicidal.
It's not a thing you want tofuck around with.
And sending the cops tosomeone's door, let me tell you
that wouldn't help, but that'swhat the studio did.
So when got in the next day orthe day after, it was obvious
we'd been told the other EP saidyou know, we talked to him at
(10:10):
length about what he was goingthrough and what he needed, and
I feel for the guy Like itsounded like he was going
through a tough go.
So I'm doing my best, but I'm aproducer on a TV show, not a
trained mental healthprofessional.
So from there things get worse.
Back in June there had been amass shooting in the news and
(10:33):
there was a conversation in theroom that I wasn't there for in
which said he had guns and noone was going to take them away.
It was.
It was no big deal at the time,it was just, you know, a
conversation.
But as things progressed andwe're also in a very busy season
trying to make a show that'svery hard to make several
writers asked not to be leftalone in the room with him.
(10:55):
B***h was becoming moreargumentative and when the other
EP and I are in the room, theother writers have to be the
ones to tell him no.
And you don't want to say no tothe guy who takes it personally
when you kill his pitch.
And who's already said that hehas guns it personally when you
kill his pitch.
And who's already said that hehas guns.
(11:15):
And the other EP brought abaseball bat to keep by his desk
.
But he didn't listen to thewriter's requests that they not
be left alone with.
So by late Septemberth appearedvisibly intoxicated while
(11:38):
working in the room, keptinterrupting and could not seem
to follow the thread ofconversation.
October 3rd fell asleep whilereading lunch menu.
October 4th worked with shirthalf unbuttoned and belly button
showing.
October 5th he was rolling aSwiss army knife around on his
(11:58):
knuckles with the blade out,while appearing to be under the
influence.
October 25th he left over anhour early without telling
anyone.
November 4th he arrived 30minutes late and then he had to
leave midday, to quote, meet afriend in the parking lot.
November 11th an unidentifiedpill was found outside his
(12:20):
office.
November 15th he laid down forhours, came out of his office
reeking of alcohol at 5.30,ruined the productivity of the
room.
Why we were still in the roomat 530 and working for hours
beyond is another story.
November 21st fell asleep inthe room again Asked questions.
That evidence he hasn't beenreading the script.
(12:43):
He would sleep at the scriptcoordinator's desk Like he could
have gone in his office andslept all day long and everybody
would have been fine with that,but for some reason he was
falling asleep in the writer'sroom and covering himself with
the blinds.
How did he even?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
do that.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
He's like leaning on the window with his head out and
they're like what are you doing?
And he's like, no, no, no, I'mlistening, I just need some sun.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
That's incredible.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
So it was all the chaos of living with someone
with an active drug and alcoholproblem, but he's not our
relative, this is our workplace.
It added enormously to thestress that everybody was going
through.
By November the other EP and Iwere talking we need to be able
to fire this guy, but becausethe studio's first move was to
(13:32):
5150 the dude, the dude was nowtrying to sue them.
So, no matter what, the studiowould not let us fire him.
We just went on and on in thisreally awkward situation.
In like February we werestarting to come out the other
side of our 20 episode order.
We were like, okay, fine, wecan make it through this season.
We were like, okay, fine, wecan make it through this season,
(13:53):
we don't have to fire him.
Then we started seeing hintsthat, despite all these issues,
he's going to be brought backfor a second season.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
God, this is like the end of a zombie movie, where
they got him buried and the handjust jumps up out of the grave.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
And I spent hours on the phone with HR documenting
his behavior.
I read them, all the things Ijust read you, and talked about
a lot of shit that I've probablyblissfully forgotten.
It was not a great time.
None of this was fun.
I hope it's funny from adistance, in the abstract, but
(14:32):
living through it it was justgut wrenching.
So I'm going through thecontemporaneous notes and then
we move offices and we'rethinking, oh, he just won't move
with us.
But he moved with us and we'relike, oh God, they're giving him
(14:52):
an office for next year.
And that's when there was asecond drop pill found on the
floor.
This is just insane.
I've heard stories about some ofthe big hit shows in the 80s
and 90s and you know the amountof drugs that were being done,
but I've never seen anythinglike that.
(15:12):
Most writers rooms that I'veworked in are you know the
amount of drugs that were beingdone, but I've never seen
anything like that.
Most writers' rooms that I'veworked in are, you know,
creative but very conventionalworkplaces.
This was anomalous for me in mycareer.
Now, for all I know, this thingwas a vitamin, but it was found
on the floor outside his office.
I'd held on to the first onethat I had like picked up and
(15:34):
bagged like I know what I wasdoing.
So I bagged this one up, youknow, and dated them and, per
instructions from HR, I mailedthem to the HR office for them
to I don't know test.
I had a hunch, they wentstraight into the fucking
garbage, but I did that.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
I think HR was watching too many cop shows.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
But we're finding actual drugs.
There are drug dealers beinglet onto the lot as near as we
can tell Would call in adrive-on for a buddy and then go
meet him in the parking lot andwe'd never see him again.
So all this is going on and, bythe way, this is an office
(16:20):
where we also have rats.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Absolutely not.
No, no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Rats in the break room, bugs that live in the
standing water below thebuilding.
So I'm like calling facilities,telling the assistant to call
facilities.
It's like a drug addict andrats, and nothing we can do will
get rid of them.
Until finally, one day, westopped talking about unsafe,
(16:48):
unprofessional and unacceptablebehavior and start making the
only argument that worked hecouldn't write.
Huh, I mean, I remember sayinglook, I am not an expert on
mental health or drug addictionor any of this other stuff, but
I am an expert on how to writethis show and I am telling you,
(17:10):
in my expert opinion, this guycan't do it.
And that's how we were finallyable to fire him.
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I did not see that coming.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
If there's a moral to this story, or an amoral, it is
that the HR departments inHollywood don't work at all Full
stop.
They exist to protect thecompany from lawsuits.
Theyweighs their responsibilityto create a safe and
(17:53):
professional workspace for theiremployees.
So that was a nightmareeverybody on that staff had to
live through.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Having gone through this nightmare, what would you
say to other people who might beexperiencing something similar?
Speaker 3 (18:06):
If I knew somebody in the same situation, the big
thing I would tell them is thestudio HR department is never
going to care about theirperson's behavior, they're going
to care about the quality oftheir work.
I really do hope that post MeToo, all this stuff has gotten
at least a little better, but itwas really shocking to me that
(18:27):
evidence of drugs being broughtinto the workplace, sleeping on
the job, not keeping up with thebasics of the job, like reading
other scripts None of that wasdisqualifying.
The thing that they believethey could legally defend, I
guess, was me and my fellow EPsaying he can't write the show,
they don't care about SAFE, theyjust care about not getting the
(18:50):
company sued.
So they should probably callthat department something else.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
You've talked a lot today about trying to mitigate
the stress other writers werefeeling in this situation.
What about the stress you weredealing with?
As a person whose job it is tostay calm, how do you make sure
you're available to manageeverything?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
For me, as someone who has depression, medication
was pretty life-changing.
I went to it reluctantly You'retalking about changing your
brain, and my brain is how Imake my living.
I was really worried that itwould affect my ability to write
, but if anything, it's been theopposite.
My 20s were basically spentwhite-knuckling it through some
(19:32):
pretty serious depressionsymptoms, and it wasn't until I
got onto antidepressants in mymid-30s that I was able to look
past the symptoms and startgetting at the underlying causes
.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
That's a fantastic answer and so candid talking
about the way thatantidepressants help people.
I mean we've definitely done alot of work in the last five,
ten years to destigmatize mentalhealth, but not enough has been
done to destigmatize what helpsmental health get better, and
in some cases it is medication.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
You know if you told the people you had cancer you'd
have an outpouring of sympathy.
And if you tell people that youknow you have depression or an
eating disorder, you know you'rethinking about killing yourself
.
You are frequently treated likeyou're the problem and it is
every bit as much a disease ascancer.
(20:23):
I have survived with depressionfor I'm not going to say how
many years, but quite a few.
I live with this disease and itfucking sucks.
And one of the things thatmakes it suck is that you're
kind of expected to hide it.
Since crawling out of that holefor the first time I've tried
not to hide it, but you knowit's not fun.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
It's incredibly tough , but we really appreciate your
openness about it and we hopethe subject of your story was
also able to get the help heneeds.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for sharingthis story with us and for all
you do to help people create.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
In peace God.
That's so frustrating.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
And I just I feel bad for everybody else in the room
that had to endure that.
I mean, you work so hard to getinto a room and then for it to
be a negative experience and tohave someone like kind of
actively destroying the workthat you guys are doing.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, it's.
I mean it's a complicatedsituation and I love the fact
that the confessor was socompassionate.
I mean, at the same time asthey had all this responsibility
and we're trying to take thebest possible care of everybody
in the room, that included thisperson who was acting in this
horrible way and like concernfor their mental health, which I
(21:46):
thought was incredibly just,selfless.
I really appreciate that, butat the same time, it puts the
confessor in this impossiblesituation, because they do care.
They care about all the peoplein the room, and then you've got
this one person who, like yousay, is just destroying the
dynamic and you can't doanything about it.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah, it's horrible, and I think just to talk about
the Confessor again for a momentit's such an underrated and
underdeveloped skill, I feel, inHollywood to be a good manager.
I mean, you work so hard onyour writing skills, on your
storytelling skills, even likethe skills that it takes to
produce but once you get to acertain level, you have to be a
(22:29):
good manager in order for theshow to go right.
And they showed what abrilliant manager they are in
taking care of both the personwho was the problem and
everybody else in the room.
It's really inspiring to hear astory like that.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, that's a great point, and I think I mean, I
think it's important to say thatthis carries across all
departments.
Like whenever you become adepartment head, you're, the
nature of your work changes andyou're absolutely right.
For the most part there's notraining for that.
It's like you're a cameraoperator and then all of a
sudden you're the head of thecamera department, and that is a
(23:03):
very different skill set.
And I think when we talk abouthow work environments become
toxic in Hollywood, it's veryoften because people don't have
this kind of training or theydon't have these kinds of skills
, and so they don't know how toaddress problems like this when
they arise.
And then you've got the wholesystemic issue where, even when
(23:24):
they want to fix these problems,people in managerial positions
are just sort of like hamstrung.
They can't do anything about it, because apparently saying that
someone was using drugs andfalling asleep at the table
isn't enough.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Oh, my God, I'm just thankful that I'm still at the
level where I only have to focuson my writing.
I know right.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, there are definitely some benefits to not
being the boss sometimes.
Well, that's all we've got foryou guys this week.
Thank you again so much forjoining us, and we'll be back in
a couple of weeks with a story,like I said, about a studio
reader and what it's like to bea Hollywood gatekeeper.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Join us in two weeks, but until then, you can hit us
up at Fess Up Hollywood onInstagram and X.
And if you've got a confessionyou know, reach out, let us know
.
Until then, go create in peacethis episode, vicky george.
(24:29):
Special effects provided by zapsplat and pixabay.
Hollywood confessional is aninth way media production.
Follow us on socials at fess uphollywood.
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