Getting Fired the Hollywood Way

Streaming’s sudden shrink means your job on your show is suddenly in peril

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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.