You know how TV shows about work rarely match reality? Marketing today is not quite as dramatic as Mad Men in the 1960s (and certainly, there’s less heavy drinking at the office).
A friend used to work as a paralegal in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. As a legal assistant, she handled paperwork, transported evidence (like the occasional brick of cocaine), and did the scut work that the assistant DA’s didn’t want to do.
We got to talking about all the different versions of Law & Order. She pointed out that the TV shows are nothing like actually working inside the legal system.
On television, someone’ll say, “Get me those phone records!” and a few minutes later, they’ve got ‘em. Reality, she said, is more like this:
- Submit a request to Verizon for the phone records. Wait a couple weeks.
- Call to follow up. Verizon says they need additional authorizations.
- Submit the extra form. Wait a few more weeks.
- Call to follow up again. Oops, Verizon lost the paperwork.
- Submit everything a third time.
- Eventually, they send you the records…for the wrong phone number.
What about your job would make for good — or bad — TV?
No related posts.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Sometimes I think our office is one of those hidden camera comedies. We really could be a sitcom, and one day maybe the producers that work with Charm City Cakes will find us. Why you ask? Well, there really is not ever a dull moment in the office. Most people would think a web design company would be boring, a bunch of guys in front of computers building thousands of websites each week, living and breathing code with the occasional snort of a laugh over a joke that only they get. There’s a reason there haven’t been any Web Developer Tv shows in prime time. In reality that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Our days are filled with crazy hijinks, meetings that start with the words “what if…” and use of technology for our amusement, yeah that still sounds pretty dorky, but where else can you throw nerf darts, play Mario Cart and other classic games on the projector, do basketball dunks, build crazy window displays, design the next snack sensation and not be unemployed in your moms basement?
@Brian: Sounds like fun — seems like variety is the key at Fragment Labs. Sadly, that nuance might not translate to the small screen, where reality TV producers want one-dimensional characters who fight with each other… Thanks for sharing!