Let me see if I can reconstruct the conversation I had this morning at Starbucks. (Bob's was closed for cleaning. Sigh. And me dressed like a grown-up for once.)
Man walks into a coffee house, orders, pauses at a table to wait while his haiku of a beverage is constructed. There's a newspaper on the table.
"None of us are going to get rich at this rate," he says in my direction. "Well, I never expected to get rich. I just didn't expect to be poor."
I pause for a second. Are we talking about what I think we're talking about?
"It doesn't look like it's going to end anytime soon," I say, my fountain pen hovering over my notebook.
"Nope. This is terrible. Terrible. They're going to ruin television," he says. "These guys aren't going to budge."
"I don't think they are." Not sure which side he's talking about. "There aren't even any talks scheduled at this point."
The barrista recites his haiku and he gets up to fetch his beverage. He turns around and looks from my face to my notebook to my face again.
"I do script research for a living," I tell him, "We're hoping to hang on till the new year, but... No scripts, no research."
"Oh, yeah," he says. "You're done."
He has good timing.
"Are you in production?" I ask. He has an ID on a lanyard around his neck. In this neighborhood, that usually means a studio or maybe St. Joseph's hospital, but he's wearing a cream cable sweater, not scrubs.
"I work for the actor Rob Lowe who's on Sisters and Brothers." Yeah, I know of Rob Lowe. "He's not working."
We wish each other good luck, and he heads for the back door.
I was going to print a disclaimer here, saying that this blog entry does not represent the opinions of Rob Lowe or his employees or associates. But then I realized that neither of us expressed an opinion beyond an agreement that our livelihoods are in jeopardy.
I guess that's how amicable strangers agree to disagree.
Or not.
Anyway, here's another fine video from those writers whose creative talents are being used to keep the discussion interesting.
2 comments:
I hope for your sake that this strike is over soon. It's such a shame how corporate greed prevents people from doing the right thing and paying folks what they're owed.
Thanks, Liz.
It's really hard for me to fathom why people with so much need more. I was talking with friends the other night about how creative jobs and jobs that people love are typically undervalued in our culture. Writers, artists, teachers, back country rangers... Those who are willing to work for the love of it are a bit taken advantage of.
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