The Importance of Being an Assistant

If you have any aspirations at all about working in the entertainment industry you will probably spend some time as an assistant. One of the things you will notice as an assistant in Hollywood is that everything is important. “Shit, Julia they still haven’t delivered that three-hole paper! Get them on the phone and don’t let them hang up until you get a straight answer from those assholes!” or “Where are the good forks! The meeting is in 5 minutes and I’m not going to have it with these shitty plastic forks!” Another thing you might notice is that your definition for what counts as a good joke will alter drastically, “We took Jeff’s precious tricolor highlighter and… get this… hid it! He’s going to be looking for that fucking thing forever *snicker snicker*!”

Also people swear a lot.

Things Overheard at a Student Art Show

All of the following are real conversations faithfully transcribed.

Please to enjoy:

Stomach

Guy with a Fauxhawk: Next time though, I really want to make it more shocking.

Girl with a lot of tattoos: Well we could always do "Stomach."

Guy with an ironic shirt: What's 'Stomach?'

Guy with a Fauxhawk: That's the one where we use that cement tubing, paint it pink, drill holes in it and lead everyone into a central chamber. And wait until someone realizes that it's a model of a human stomach. As soon as someone says the word 'stomach' we spray water through the holes at them.

Girl with a lot of tattoos: With acid.

Guy with a Fauxhawk: Yeah there's a lot of acid in the water.

Guy with an ironic shirt: And then what happens?

Guy with a Fauxhawk: We go to jail probably.

Girl with a lot of tattoos: It's part of the piece.

Guy with an ionic shirt: I love it.

You've never heard of The Cremaster Cycle?

Boyfriend: This one reminds me of The Cremaster Cycle.

Way cute Girlfriend: Hmm?

Other Girl: I know right? Its like, 'Ok, we get it, you like Matthew Barney.'

Boyfriend: Ha ha. I saw a huge exhibit on that at the Guggenheim actually. It was pretty great. I didn't know it was about testicles though, until I'd been there for about an hour and a half.

Other Girl: Ha ha! It's all about balls dude!

Way cute Girlfriend: What are you guys talking about?

Other Girl: Did you know he's like practically married to Bjork?

Boyfriend: I thought they just lived together.

Other girl: They have a kid I think.

Way cute Girlfriend: Wait, go back, what is this?

Boyfriend: I'm breaking up with you.

An 'A' For Effort

Probably a Teacher: It's too bad we weren't able to get it to spin.

Female Student: I'm surprised how many people were upset by it. It's totally tongue in cheek.

Probably a Teacher: Controversy is good. Controversy sells.

Female student: I guess…Have you ever seen Deepthroat?

Probably a Teacher: You don't want to call something 'beauty, that's a 4 letter word around here- The Watergate thing or the porno?

Female student: Either.

Office troubles

Every office has that one co-worker who is an absolute dick. In Funbox's office our dick jokes around constantly, and his jokes are always at the expense of interns and other underlings, and always along the lines of “you are incompetent and will be fired soon.” When you work in an industry like I do, where such things are a real possibility, it’s rather cruel perpetually tell underlings that they might not make this months rent.

That’s why I'm grooming one of the interns to kill him.

It starts simply enough. A few jokes by the water cooler, a shared commiseration that we have to spend 10 hour days cooped up with this asshole, and of course a steady supply of fruit snacks to reward any thought that leans in a murderous direction. The groundwork thus laid, I then began a series of casual IM’s that I would send whenever the offender was yelling at the intern. He would try to hide his smiles when “FUNB0xx1: What a Dickhole!” poped up on his desktop while the oblivious red-faced ass-munch screamed away. After that, it was simple, almost too simple. I just slowly increased the frequency and intensity of the IM’s. Now the IM's are more like “FUNB0xx1: Soon he’ll be dead, and we will consummate our love. Soon my angel… soon.”

Every now and then he will express reluctance “InTERnGuy1444: What about an office prank instead of, you know, first degree murder.” But I just ease his mind with more fruit snacks.

Robot Office

So at my office, I work with a bunch of robots.
I’m actually the only human there. I don’t know if you’ve ever been the only person in your office of a specific race/gender/ethnicity but it can get awkward.

I was walking down the hall and these two robots were totally talking about me. I could tell.

Robot 1 (Not his real name): And he’s always doing “breathing” thing. I mean I know he needs to do it to live, but do you have to do it like, in front of me?

Robot 2 (Not his real name): Yeah it’s like, “You’re a human, that’s fine. You can be a human, but you don’t need to rub everybody’s face in it.

Robot 1: And like he gets to go home to “sleep” or whatever. I don’t see why we need to pick up the slack just ‘cause he has special needs. (Stops, hears me) Oh! Heyyy… Guy.

Me: Hey robots, what were you guys just talking about?

Robot 1: Nothing.

Robot 2: What’s that in your hand?

Me: Oh that’s food… I need it to live.

Robot 1: (rolls eyes).

Then we got in a huge fight. And now my robot manager is making me take "insensitivity training."
Jerks.
At least I get my own bathroom.