Oh C'mon

" I sometimes stand on top of something I know I shouldn't just because I can"

From: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/column-9-the-balloon-bottom-epoch

Five years earlier, I was working on a popular reality show. Before the holiday break, the executive producer pulled me into his office and said to call him in January because he was moving to another show and wanted to bring me with him and make me a producer. I bragged about it to family and friends. I think I even bought a blazer. When I was back in Los Angeles, I called him but the line got all fuzzy when he answered.

“Hello? Hello?” He’d said. “HELL-O-O-O? Who is this?”

I told him it was me several times then hung up, and feeling nervous and embarrassed, waited a week before I rang him again. I called him from a laundromat because it seemed less scary to crowd the phone call with the sounds of strangers instead of the silence of my apartment and hope.

“Hi Todd, it’s me…”

“Hello? Who? I can’t hear you. Hello?”

The line crackled and got fuzzy, so I hung up and never called him again. I convinced myself he had changed his mind about me. But quite possibly the only reason I’m not a reality TV producer right now is because of bad phone reception. I think I’d hate being a reality producer, though. I’d rather have the freedom to document people’s lives as I see them instead of getting network notes to cut and paste their thoughts, splice their boring humanity with B roll footage of them doing something dramatic.

 Flash to 10 columns later, and Willen does what Willen does- lie very badly. But, sadly, after reading a few of these for the first time... she totally can write. Why she chooses to maliciously lie(in my case) or just plain lie in more benign ways.... SAD SAD SAD

Vs . https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/column-19-im-here

I spent two years, working on a popular reality show. I made my way up from a lowly Production Assistant to an Associate Producer, but I quit the day Deb from clearance started decorating the office window with Halloween decals a month in advance. It wasn’t the fact she was covering up our only natural light source with pumpkins that felt so suffocating, it was the sudden realization that there was no light at this job for me. I didn’t want to become a producer.

( Me talking: I don't think she ever worked on any show. I know she did work for an Amy Alkon. I need to go and see what she said to Ira Glass on NPR about this reality TV lie now... Oh what fun to have to fight so hard to get any justice amidst this obscene bunch of ruins.

Updated to add transcript of Willen on her one time deal on NPR(note she says she's a regular contributor). Haven't had energy(hard to summon up energy to expose an unknown writer who ruined your life with lies I tell ya) to give it the gimlet eye and try to spell out to the reader how many lies and how the less obvious lies can be seen. But anyone at Simon and Schuster should just read it and there is no ambiguity that Willen can't keep  these well written but completely false stories straight. Would anyone want to pay for a book where they can't trust a word the authoress says?  A memoir. Non Fiction? Seems the answer is painfully obvious. And has been for a very long time. But, when you have Willen's luck when it comes to lying up a storm and facing no rain/consequences... well I got to keep working this CRAP.

Vs. What Willen would tell Ira Glass(who had her on as a favor to Nick Kroll cause funding etc)

"KISS ME DEADLY", LITA FORD]

Act Four. Underling Gets An Underling.

Ira Glass

Act 4, Underling Gets An Underling. This is the story of somebody in a job that sounds like the kind of thing that would be, sort of, exciting. Stef Willen worked on a bunch of reality TV shows, but she was a production assistant, a PA, which is the lowest rung on the ladder. She did a lot of emptying trash cans.

Stef Willen

I remember running around town with the weirdest lists of stuff to get, like toilet paper with a specific pattern on it. I've had one boss, she would do things like ask me to hang curtains in her office. And I was like, "Oh, but your wall is made of concrete." And she was like, "Oh, you can do it." You know? Stuff like that. I would be given these bizarre tasks, and if you didn't do them right, there was always this sense of are you stupid?

Ira Glass

And so the way understand it is that towards the end you came up with a plan. Can I ask you to just describe the plan that you came up with?

Stef Willen

I just thought it would be hilarious if I came in the next day with an eager young person who was my production assistant.

Ira Glass

Oh. So you would be a PA and you would have your own PA.

Stef Willen

Exactly. Which is really unnecessary. It's a gopher with a gopher, so I don't know. I wanted to make a point. It'd just be like a little sweet revenge, you know?

Ira Glass

Right.

Stef Willen

I don't know.

Ira Glass

No. No. I understand. You'd be upsetting the natural order.

Stef Willen

Right. Totally. It's like, if you can get someone under you, it's simple math, but you are not at the bottom. I just knew that I was somehow taking control over what was happening in my life if I could put someone just right under me.

Ira Glass

So, OK. So you're a PA hiring a PA. How'd you go about it?

Stef Willen

I wrote up a Craigslist seeking a production assistant on a popular reality TV show. For the ability, I said must possess a medium work ethic, the ability to take out trash, and then sit for hours and work for free. And 21 people responded. 21 people. I was amazed.

I ended up going with this guy, I'll call him Adam. It was interesting, I hired him because I actually felt like he might be slightly delinquent. When we had our, quote, unquote, "interview," he never turned down his car radio. And it was that kind of thing. And I'm like, OK. Well, we're going to meet at the coffee shop and we're going to drive to set. "OK." I'm like, "Do you want to get out a pen and a paper and write this down?" "Oh, OK."

Ira Glass

Oh, wow. So he's really a real beginner. Like, he really was not necessarily ready for the responsibility of a--

Stef Willen

Of a phone conversation.

Ira Glass

Yeah. Or a job.

Stef Willen

Yeah. I met him at a coffee shop. And he was this nice looking young guy. And he was wearing this argyle sweater and this scarf and a beret. And I was like, "Oh, my gosh. What did I just do?"

Ira Glass

A beret?

Stef Willen

A beret. Yeah. He followed me in his car to set, and I was getting a little nervous because I actually hadn't planned anything past this point. The first person we see is the line producer, and she was frantic, as always. You know, "Come on. Come on. We've got a big day. We've got to get going." And I said, "Oh, well you'll be glad to know I have some help. This is Adam, and he is my production assistant for today." And she just sort of stopped and looked at me. And she goes, "Well, good. We need the extra help." And there was no Stef is a genius. Or, oh look what Steff did. It was, literally, like oh, thank you. Oh, we need the help. How did you get him to work for free?

Ira Glass

And so you did introduce him to your bosses?

Stef Willen

Yeah. I introduced him to everybody. I mean, I don't know why I thought that they would learn something from it, but I totally underestimated I guess, the joke, but also their need for workers. They were in production mode. They're not stopping to look at what I'm trying to say. They're like, OK. Well, we're 10 minutes behind. We can use Adam over here in hair and makeup.

Ira Glass

So you were hoping that they would get the lesson of, you see, this whole system you have is so arbitrary? And, we're not just cogs in a machine. Like, I could be a boss. And the lesson they took was not only are you all cogs in a machine, but you're such a cog, we can't even see that you're talking. Like you're not even an animal making noise here. Like, OK. Now, hand me that other animal over there.

Stef Willen

Yeah. Exactly. It's like, oh, two cogs for one. Awesome. We'll take this one, you know? I went from his boss to his sidekick to, I don't know, his buddy? I'd be like, oh, I got this trash can. So it would be really gross and disgusting, and I'm like, oh, I don't want to mess up his scarf. I made sure he ate first. Like, he got his lunch before me.

At one point, we were all sitting around the table. We'd been sitting staring at each other for about two hours, because they were filming, with nothing to do. And I looked over at Adam, and he had taken his beret off and it was on his knee. And he was, sort of, slouched down, and he was moving M&M's across his plate, one by one, with his index finger. And I think he said, "I have never not done anything for this long a time." And I was like, "Well, you know, it did say in my ad the ability to sit for hours." And he laughed.

But shortly after, I told him to go. I was like, "Well, you know, you did a great job today. Definitely send me your resume." He kept in touch, like, he would email, do you know so-and-so? Or just little questions, you know? And then, at one point, he stopped asking me questions. And I got this text from him at 8:26 AM, and it said, "I want you." Period. "I want your body." Period. "Right now." Period. And I was like, OK.

Ira Glass

What did that say to you?

Stef Willen

That he had not taken me seriously at all.

Ira Glass

So you got him into your life because nobody else took you seriously, and then even he doesn't take you seriously.

Stef Willen

Right. It just, sort of, made me laugh. I thought, OK. Well, he wants my body right now, which, 8:26 AM, that wasn't a good time for me.

Ira Glass

Stef Willen, she has quit her PA jobs. She starred in the independent film, M, which won last year's Seattle International Film Festival, and she's writing a book.

"THE JUDGEMENT", ELVIS COSTELLO]

Ira Glass

Well, the program was produced today by Sarah Koenig and myself with Alex Blumberg, Sean Cole, Jane Feltes, Lisa Pollak, Alissa Shipp, and Nancy Updike. Our Senior Producer is Julie Snyder. Our production help from Andy Dixon and Aaron Scott. Seth Lind is our Production Manager. Music help from Jessica Hopper. And this is our last show with our very precocious intern, Andi Dixon, who we all wish the best to, whether she ends up in grad school, or a job, or what's most likely, both.

Credits.

You'll have Sky TV and a PlayStation. Nurses will bring you pizzas.

Ira Glass

I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.

"THE JUDGEMENT", ELVIS COSTELLO]

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