What You Should NOT Do on a Friday Night
Okay, this is a shock. I didn't have a date. But I did have a phone call. A phone call from a market research woman who wanted me to go to a focus group. Every year around this time there's this place called ASI that screens TV pilots. So you basically sit in a screening room with a bunch of other random people without dates or families or money, watch the TV show, hold a little apparatus in your hand and indicate when you'd turn the channel (which happens alot) or when you like something (which doesn't happen a lot). At the end of the show, you fill out a questionnaire indicating what you liked and didn't like about show, the characters, the storyline, blah blah blah. And me? Well, I always have a lot of thoughts about these things. Which is a bonus. Because people with too many thoughts scare them. They send us home and we don't have to take part in the discussion group. Which is a bigger bonus. One which means my hourly rate increases. I get seventy dollars cash for an hour and half of my time. And I know what not to watch when the Fall season starts. Not to mention, what not to feel bad about not getting paid to write for. If only.
So, yes. The long and short of it is that I sold my Friday night for $70. And the worst part about it is that I never even got paid the $70. No, for what should have been a 25 minute drive, I spent an hour in traffic. I arrived late. Two minutes late. The lot was full. I was sent to another lot. I walked into ASI ten minutes late. I was told that ten minutes was too late for them. I was apoplectic. I wanted to see if something could be done. Anything. Well, something could be done, apparently. Apparently, I could be scolded by a very mean woman close to my age wearing too much make-up for someone our age who thought that I should be able to get somewhere on time by now (aka this age-- our age)-- after all, if all those other people could do it, then why couldn't I? (Traffic? Had that occurred to her?) Well, I didn't like that so much. Was not quite my usual perky, thankful self and was basically told never to come back again. As if that was on my agenda for next Friday night. Oh, who am I kidding, maybe for $80 bucks it would have been. But it is no longer an option and oh how happy I'll be when ASI is screening my TV pilot and I get to repeat those "never come back" words to the very mean woman close to my age. And I'm sure you're holding your breath, too.
So the drive home took me an hour and forty-five minutes. It seems I did a nearly 3 hour round trip for nothing. I could have gone to San Diego to visit a friend. Or basically anywhere I was welcome. Still, I did manage to pollute the environment and use up a quarter a tank of far too expensive gasoline. And remember back to some of my bad jobs to help the screenplay along. And remember even farther back to when I actually did do focus groups somewhat regularly and thought they were kind of cool -- a novelty. Can you imagine? Although, in all fairness, some were cool and I am ever so thankful to my friend Kate for turning me on to craigslist and focus groups. Focus groups bought me groceries when my jobs didn't and made me thankful for other things. Which I'm sure will occur to me after a glass of wine... or two. Actually, tonight might require a martini. I do shake a good martini when I actually bother to shake.
Anyway, in my focus group days, I did a car study where I had to pretend I had children (although my kid's name and sex kept changing throughout the course of the study as a result of my competitive nature... Lana's kid Michael needed trunk room for his sports equipment and suddenly my girl was a son who needed both the backseat and the trunk for his equipment AND awards). I made collages for an Ikea study (I do like my arts and crafts). And offered up my news habits. There were other things. I always have other things. But now I'm tired. My sciatica is hurting and I've decided I'd rather have an imaginary date than an imaginary son because of the whole cart and horse thing and so basically, this is the end of the post.
So, yes. The long and short of it is that I sold my Friday night for $70. And the worst part about it is that I never even got paid the $70. No, for what should have been a 25 minute drive, I spent an hour in traffic. I arrived late. Two minutes late. The lot was full. I was sent to another lot. I walked into ASI ten minutes late. I was told that ten minutes was too late for them. I was apoplectic. I wanted to see if something could be done. Anything. Well, something could be done, apparently. Apparently, I could be scolded by a very mean woman close to my age wearing too much make-up for someone our age who thought that I should be able to get somewhere on time by now (aka this age-- our age)-- after all, if all those other people could do it, then why couldn't I? (Traffic? Had that occurred to her?) Well, I didn't like that so much. Was not quite my usual perky, thankful self and was basically told never to come back again. As if that was on my agenda for next Friday night. Oh, who am I kidding, maybe for $80 bucks it would have been. But it is no longer an option and oh how happy I'll be when ASI is screening my TV pilot and I get to repeat those "never come back" words to the very mean woman close to my age. And I'm sure you're holding your breath, too.
So the drive home took me an hour and forty-five minutes. It seems I did a nearly 3 hour round trip for nothing. I could have gone to San Diego to visit a friend. Or basically anywhere I was welcome. Still, I did manage to pollute the environment and use up a quarter a tank of far too expensive gasoline. And remember back to some of my bad jobs to help the screenplay along. And remember even farther back to when I actually did do focus groups somewhat regularly and thought they were kind of cool -- a novelty. Can you imagine? Although, in all fairness, some were cool and I am ever so thankful to my friend Kate for turning me on to craigslist and focus groups. Focus groups bought me groceries when my jobs didn't and made me thankful for other things. Which I'm sure will occur to me after a glass of wine... or two. Actually, tonight might require a martini. I do shake a good martini when I actually bother to shake.
Anyway, in my focus group days, I did a car study where I had to pretend I had children (although my kid's name and sex kept changing throughout the course of the study as a result of my competitive nature... Lana's kid Michael needed trunk room for his sports equipment and suddenly my girl was a son who needed both the backseat and the trunk for his equipment AND awards). I made collages for an Ikea study (I do like my arts and crafts). And offered up my news habits. There were other things. I always have other things. But now I'm tired. My sciatica is hurting and I've decided I'd rather have an imaginary date than an imaginary son because of the whole cart and horse thing and so basically, this is the end of the post.
posted by jodypwrites | 8:04 PM
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