With the Streaming Wars’ slide, layoffs have begun. Netflix axed 150 jobs last week; most creative execs. With that, projects in development also were killed. Indeed, for writers, whose jobs are inherently unstable, the terror is acute. This week, Rob Long’s Martini Shot podcast offered “advice for those people who find themselves in precarious employment situations.” Today, TV comedy writer Kit Sargent (a pseudonym) offers The Ankler’s first Saturday Read, for anyone facing perilous employment. In other words, everyone.

I was talking to a Young Person recently. She’d just started her first TV staff gig. “Wow, congrats!” I said. “Thanks,” she replied, looking miserable. She had her dream job and all she could think about was getting fired.

I offered up some platitudes: “You’ll be fine!” and “They’re lucky to have you!” She smiled politely. I knew I wasn’t helping. Every bit of reassurance thrown at an anxious writer is a hapless Athenian youth being sacrificed to the Minotaur. Things will calm down in the short term, but the beast will only grow hungrier. I never would have guessed you could create a multibillion-dollar industry around insecure people needing validation from sadists, but

then again I’m not a businessperson.

Anyway, it got me thinking. Is it possible to stay sane in a career that, on the job security spectrum, falls somewhere between telemarketer and U.S. President?

The answer is “absolutely not,” but I do have a few thoughts.

I remember the first time I got fired. It was the tail end of the dot-com bubble, and everyone was scrambling to court Gen Y viewers through original content start-ups with names like “Xoom!” and “Lunchbox Comedy” and “Blorp.” Sure, we were getting notes on comedy from a 50-year-old guy who wore a backpack and a leather bracelet and called Los Angeles “El Lay,” but the money was good. Plus there was a cool open-plan office and free Diet Coke.

In retrospect, the biggest red flag about those internet companies was that the internet never worked. As the months went by, our headquarters started shrinking. By the end, we were working out of an office park near a Trader Joe’s. I was one of the last people to get canned. It was the kindest, gentlest introduction to losing your job imaginable. Later we would find out the place was rife with mismanagement and skeezy double-dealing, but don’t worry, our boss got his comeuppance. He’ll spend the rest of his life surrounded by friends who own their own jets while he has to settle for renting his.

I moved on and eventually got a job writing for TV. The show was canceled almost immediately. I got a job on another show. And another. All canceled. This is pretty normal in television. Stressful, but normal. Even before Peak TV, conversations between writers were remarkably similar to now: 

“Hey, what’s up? You still on Suddenly Christine? ”

“No, we didn’t get picked up. Now I’m on New Relationship Smell. Waiting on the back nine. You?”

“Just started up on Your Place or Mike.”

“I heard that was a great pilot.”

Then you’d both look longingly across the room at someone who worked on The Simpsons.

Over the years, I tried to cultivate a healthy attitude toward the vicissitudes of working in a “creative” (i.e. run by alcoholics and the criminally insane) business. Still, I was frustrated. When your job only lasts a season, it’s harder to move up the ranks. I would be hired as a Staff Writer then end up repeating the same position on the next show. At one point I managed to move up to Story Editor, only to be busted back down to Private again after that show was canceled and I had to find a new job.

Then I got my big break. An offer on a hit show. In this business, that matters because no matter how much people try to tell you “you are not your credits,” you totally are your credits. If your name is on a script, people assume you wrote it. It doesn’t matter that two Co-EP’s stayed up all night re-breaking the entire story so they could add a second act break where the main character shits his pants on a camping trip. 

It’s called teamwork.

I felt like my life was starting, and it was about time. It had taken me a while to get where I was, and I was getting older, at least by Hollywood standards. This industry thinks it’s a bastion of liberal tolerance, but it’s every bit as ageist and reactionary as a manosphere video telling women to maximize their dating market value before their eggs dry up. So, yes, I was excited. I was also terrified of messing up. Part of the reason I got hired was that half the staff had been let go the year before. All in all, a great set-up for being spontaneously hilarious in a room full of strangers!

I told myself I’d get my shit together. I studied the show in detail, noting dynamics and character arcs. I read up on the showrunners’ interests. The Beatles? I love those guys!  Did you know that John Lennon used to sleep in a coffin?

I wish I could say I triumphed. I wish I could say I’m the kind of person who’s good under pressure. Like, I don’t know, Michael Jordan or any of the other athletes the other writers discussed constantly in between winging balls around the room. (Maybe instead of learning about The Beatles I should have been watching SportsCenter.) When it was time to pitch, I couldn’t. When it wasn’t time to pitch, I couldn’t shut up. I ended up doing one of the worst possible things you can do in a writers room: re-pitching a joke with one or two words changed. (For the uninitiated, this is a privilege reserved for people the showrunner already likes.)

I was spinning out. Years later, when Donald Trump called Mitt Romney a “choke artist,” I had an epiphany. That’s me!  Okay, want a more literary comparison? There’s a character in Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, an awkward, creepy stalker named Eliza. She’s obsessed with playing the guitar and secretly thinks she’s great at it but refuses to do it in front of the main character because she’s afraid she’ll screw it up. Which she does. Also me.

A friend recommended taking beta blockers, which are great if your goal is to faint during a run-through then spend the rest of the season trying to convince people you’re not a drug addict. After clearing up the whole “not a drug addict” thing, I asked my bosses how I could do better. The problem is, people who run shows tend to be a. insanely busy and stressed-out and b. pathologically non-confrontational. “You’re doing fine” can mean anything from “You’re doing fine” to “I can’t stand you” to “I’m not paying any attention to you because my wife left me and I just realized I have to sell my entire comic book collection to pay for the divorce.” I tried going a couple rungs down the ladder for feedback, but the best I could get out of the Supervising Producer was “I think the thing you need to work on is being funnier.”

I managed to limp along for the rest of the season, getting three jokes to the floor, one on the air, and my name on half a script. My contract was not renewed for the next season. 

I wish I could say I got over it, but I’m not sure I did. I got other jobs, but I’ll always be haunted by The One That Got Away. The show that, like most of my exes, only seemed to blossom in my absence. The ultimate betrayal: my parents kept watching it! 

The past few weeks have been a bloodbath for Hollywood. Layoffs, firings, conscious un-couplings, it doesn’t matter what you call it. People are losing jobs, now more than ever, or at least that’s how it feels. I can’t stop the industry from ultimately becoming InterLace TelEntertainment (sorry for the Infinite Jest reference but it really is true) but I can give some advice on how to not make the situation worse.

Okay, here we go. Here are my Rules for Not Getting Fired:

Do Not Work in This Business

Go to medical school and become a surgeon. People always need surgery and if “Dr. Death” is any indication, it’s almost impossible to get fired until you murder at least six people. If you’re like me and not smart enough to go to medical school, consider becoming a veterinarian. I have to imagine the standards are even lower. 

Of course, if you’re reading this you’ve already probably decided to work in this business, which brings me to my next piece of advice…

Separate Your Identity from This Industry

I know people always say this. I heard it a million times when I was younger, but I never really listened. I thought the only way I could succeed was by completely immersing myself in the industry: working in it, reading about it, dating people in it. Resist the temptation. Marry someone normal. Normal and rich. Hang out with more veterinarians. Unlike your peers, they’ll think you’re hilarious. Again, the standards are lower.  

Accept That You Will Lose Jobs

Sure, I know a handful of people who have managed to not get fired, but I make a point of avoiding them, mostly because they won’t answer my emails. For the rest of us, getting fired, and rejection in general, is part of the business. I personally wish people would talk about it more. They’re talking about everything else. TV writers feel perfectly free at this point posting unhinged political rants and being horny on main. But no one talks about getting fired or, euphemistically “not getting your contract renewed.” The more you accept the fact that this industry is insane - that it was designed that way – the less freaked out you’ll be. Share your experiences with peers in a non-deranged way.

And, again, try not to take it personally. Sometimes writers get fired because they make mistakes, but that’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s part of the learning process. Other times, firings are political: there’s instability at the top and someone decides to pull an Elizabeth Holmes. It’s also possible that you’re just not a good fit for the particular project you’re working on. Ray Romano was fired from “Newsradio” and replaced with Joe Rogan for chrissake. It was the right decision too. And everything turned out fine. Romano became a comedy legend and Rogan has a successful career interviewing Fascist fitness grifters and trying to talk Hotep Jesus into buying Deer Antler spray.  

With that said…

Don’t Give People Excuses to Fire You

Rule number one: don’t be late. Especially on Zoom, that’s just embarrassing. Learn to read the room. Instead of talking, take a breath and listen. Also, don’t assume that just because someone else on staff acts a certain way or takes certain liberties (being late, interrupting people, endless discussing Buddhist philosophy) that you’re allowed to do the same. That person might be higher-ranking than you. You just don’t know. Focus on the show. Focus on the characters. Love them. Treat them like a crush: even if you know they sort of suck, focus relentlessly and obsessively on their positive qualities. 

Understand That It Gets Better (Sort Of)

You will get better at reading the room. You will get better at writing - especially if you do more of it when you’re not on the clock. Resist the urge to slack on your own scripts just because you have a job. Even an hour a day is better than nothing and easier to squeeze in than you think. (Check your Screen Time app if you think I’m lying, then find a trusted friend to lock you out of social media. Better yet, throw your phone in the garbage disposal.) 

Understand that you’ll never feel totally secure. I know people who have been on the same show for years. I know people with vacation-in-Antarctica money. They all feel the same way. It never stops. We’re all Tommy from Goodfellas. I heard an interview with Judd Apatow recently where he talked about how he spent years in therapy and finally realized he was always going to feel the same way he did when he was 12, which is to say miserable and terrified. 

It made me so happy.

Kit Sargent is the pseudonym of a television writer now pitching at an office suite near you. Earlier she wrote a piece on the agony of unemployment for The Ankler’s Anxiety Week.

New on The Ankler.

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