Last Tuesday, I had a meeting with a showrunner about filling an open writer/producer position on his new series. I learned yesterday, a week later, that he was going with somebody else. That's no big deal, it happens all the time. But here's the twist… it turns out that an hour before my meeting last week, the showrunner tweeted that he'd just made an offer to a guy I'll call "Producer X" and that he was "crossing his fingers" that the offer would be accepted. So when I had my meeting, the showrunner had already decided to go with someone else…and had announced it to the world…but not to me. He was seeing me as, at best, a back-up in the case the other guy passed…which would be fine, if he hadn't already announced publicly that he really wanted somebody else.
But wait, there's more. Last Wednesday morning, the day after our meeting, the showrunner tweeted that he'd just hired Producer X. But he didn't get around to telling my agent it was a pass until yesterday…a full week later. He couldn't wait to tell the world his decision…but blew off my agent for a week.
This is sort of disturbing. I just wrote an article about Twitter and healthcare and the lessons seems to be that an awful lot of people treat Twitter as if it was as reliable and universal as e-mail or a phone call, which ain’t so, Joe.
What a bastard! I recommend following the example of Topaz…
What ever happened to good old fashioned polite behaviour? I’ve noticed a trend in the entertainment industry – I am often ignored when I correspond with someone. They just don’t write or email me back. My mother taught me that this sort of behaviour is very rude. Why do people continually forget their manners when they deal with other people?
Patricia
I’m sorry you had to go through this, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. He should have hired you both and then if it didn’t work out with the other writer he would have hedged his bet, especially considering all of your experience. But I guess everybody has to make mistakes and learn from them what not to do. Here’s hoping something good comes out of it — that this leads to a position in the future, or that you get a great story for a new series of mystery novels about desperate showrunners in L.A. — humor and mystery!