I was all set to start work on a TV show today. Sure, the start date had been pushed back before, but it seemed to be a go this time around. This shoot would have been fun, involved travel, been far more interesting then a lot of my other jobs, lasted several weeks, and paid me extremely well. Then I get a phone call from the production manager yesterday around 6:30PM

PM Tom: Hey its Tom, afraid I have some bad news. There was a problem with the family we want to follow, and it looks like the shoot is not going to happen.

My voice: What? Oh. Ok. Wow, that sucks. All right.

My thoughts: Are you fucking kidding me! You guys are going to fuck me over like this the day before I was supposed to start because you did not do your background checks right?

PM Tom: Yeah, I will be calling you tomorrow to let you know where we go from here, but no need to come in for preproduction tomorrow. Sorry.

My voice: Ok.

My thoughts: If you need me, I will be at the bar down the street.

What kind of ridiculously fucked up person decides to freelance, knowing full well that this sort of stuff happens on a regular basis? No amount of creative pursuit is worth this. I like what I do, but I also like being able to pay the rent. No real job would do that to someone. I have a friend in finance that got fired a few weeks ago, he got one month of severance pay, and went off to play on the beach for a week.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened. Last time I was, pretty much, fired from a steady TV on a talk show, the production manager pulled me into her office. She explained: Well, we are trying to make some changes in production. And while we all love you, really, we think we are going to try out Kristen as our PA next week. So, yeah, thanks. I will call you in a few weeks and maybe we can bring you back.

That was on a Friday, so they gave me three days notice. Slightly better than this show.

I was scheduled to do an independent film last year that I had several friends working on. They hired me to do it three weeks in advance. Then I got a call from my friend, the assistant director, a week later who informed me that he got the call sheet that day, and I was not on it. I called the bastard producers, and found out they hired someone who would work for far less than me, and just did not see the need to call me yet to tell me this. Resisting the urge to call them cheapskates and assholes, I convinced them that I was worth the extra money. They agreed, and the shoot was back on. And then it was pushed back a week. And then two weeks. And then a month. And then I never heard from them again. Amazing how you forget all these stories when you have steady employment, and how quickly they popped back into my head when I got off the phone with the bastards from the reality TV show. That and how much money I was spending on moving to a new apartment soon, and how many bills I had to pay, and how the next few weeks were going to be spent sulking and watching reruns of Dawsons Creek. Pretty much, I felt like I had been dumped without any warning by a loser boyfriend.

Oh, and since writing those last couple paragraphs yesterday, the show called me back again. Change of plans. The shoot is back on. I am still going down to the bar.