Hollywood Confessional

Mind the Gap

• Ninth Way Media • Season 3 • Episode 2

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Imagine you're working your ass off for a thankless 60+ hours a week job on a TV show, and you discover everyone else in your position is making more than you.

PS, they're all men. And you're the only woman.

In this week's episode of the Hollywood Confessional, we hear a confession from an office production assistant who found herself in this very dilemma.

"When I was handed all of the pay cards with everybody's rates on them for
that week, it happened that the card on top was another production assistant.
And when I looked at his card –- not trying to look, but in receiving something, one
must look at it -- I realized he was getting paid $50 more a week than me."

Awareness leads to action in this inspiring story from a PA who found the courage to confront her boss and demand fair pay... despite the very real fear that doing so could end her career.

"I was really scared. I feel scared even just describing this story to you.  Because think about what this guy could do to me, you know? He could make it so I could never work in this town again."

We get into the dangers of taking a stand when you feel like you have no power, and the calculated risks that come with following your beliefs. Finally, we discuss what entertainment industry workers can do to protect themselves in similar pay gap situations. 

Spoiler... sometimes these stories have a happy ending.

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Hollywood Confessional is a Ninth Way Media production, produced by Meagan Daine and J.R. Zamora-Thal.

Sound Effects and Music provided by Zapsplat and Pixabay.

Keywords: filmmaking podcast, film podcast, screenwriting podcast, entertainment podcast, Hollywood, filmmaking, writerslife, actorslife, setlife

J.R.:

In nomine Cinema e TV, Espiritu Streaming Amen.

Meagan:

Hello Hollywood Faithful. This is your favorite podcast priest Meagan Daine.

J.R.:

And this is J. R. Zamora-Thal back at you with another episode of the Hollywood Confessional.

Meagan:

Thank you guys so much for joining us now. If you are joining us for the first time, you will be thrilled to know that this is a podcast where Hollywood professionals share their deep, dark, most insane behind the scenes secrets, and we are so thrilled to have a great story this week from someone who knows who sort of figured out the secret to Hollywood, what we all want to know, which is what to do when you find out that someone is secretly fucking you over..

J.R.:

You know, I got some advice from a concierge in Italy. It was advice for crossing the street in Rome, but it applies to Hollywood and it applies to this story.

Meagan:

Okay, let's hear it.

J.R.:

The advice is you must be bold, but not too bold.

Meagan:

And.

J.R.:

.

Meagan:

I love that you must be bold, but not too bold. Should we like go out and get into it?

J.R.:

Let's step into the booth.

Confessor:

Forgive me, Father, for I saw what was right in front of me.

J.R.:

Oh, the cardinal sin in Hollywood. We're so sorry that happened.

Meagan:

Also please tell us what you saw.

Confessor:

I come from a family where you have to work hard. I didn't go to a big school. I went to a state school where I studied drama and I realized sort of midway through that while I enjoyed acting, I wasn't willing to put up with the specific kind of cruelty that you face as an actor.

J.R.:

Actors have to have the thickest skin. In Hollywood, I tried being an actor and I went on one audition and they told me that I wasn't fat enough and that I wasn't dark enough. It was so fucking weird. I was like this feels terrible.

Confessor:

Yeah, I couldn't handle that Like that level of personal and unfixable rejection. You can't hard work your way out of that. That's just luck. At the same time, I had always been a person with really strong opinions and a lot to say and I had a really good professor who sat me down and was like you're so good, you work so hard, I believe in you. But you never told me what you want to do and I want to help you do whatever you want to do. So tell me what you want to do.

Confessor:

And it felt so hard to admit that what I wanted to do was writing. It felt at the time like how dare I believe that I could do this, how dare I think I'm so special that I can become a writer? But he was so very wonderful about it. He was just like of course you can Like, if anyone can do it, you can. I believe in you. What a great guy. He was also like you actually have to get over yourself and fucking write something down. And I was like ooh, scary. But he pushed me to write my first scripts and taught me a lot about the industry. He was just a really meaningful figure in my life After college. I was just like. I will do anything in the film industry at all. I would do anything for anybody.

Confessor:

I knew one person from college who had come to LA to try to work in the industry and she happened to know someone who worked at and that's where I got my first job. It was kind of an adjacent job. I was basically like a post PA, but I was so idolistic I wanted everyone to think I was so good at my job. But I was so idolistic I wanted everyone to think I was so good at my job. Like I never even checked my Facebook while I was at work. When I was bored I would read CNN, so I would look busy. I would always be going to people's offices Like how can I help you? What can I learn? Like so fucking green and just the exact naive, young, vulnerable person that you imagine.

J.R.:

The one that we all were.

Confessor:

There was one time when I went into somebody's office and I was like is there anything I can do to help you? I just really want to be helpful. And he I now know as a joke was like go get me water, which is kind of a mean joke because I did. It doesn't sound that crazy to go get someone water, but in retrospect he was just one tier above me. It wasn't like he was the big boss in the middle of a desperate situation. It was like this guy who was fucking with me. You know what I mean. I hate this man. Yeah, I was just so fucking naive and had no spine.

Meagan:

I never pushed back on anybody, but it sucks that you're in a position of responding to this guy being a dick by, like, blaming yourself. I mean, you do have a spine, you were a hard ass worker and you were determined to make it, and you were also clearly a very nice person who wanted to learn and do a good job and like all of those things, and this douchebag guy took advantage.

Confessor:

I was very easy to take advantage of. At that time I just really hadn't developed like the toughness that you need to survive in this industry. People here will push you until you say no. And if your bar for when you're going to say no is as low as it was when I was in that situation, people are going to push you really hard and they're going to push you really far. Part of growing up in this industry is like realizing that you have to move that bar a lot further. You have to be a lot stronger in what you are or what you're not willing to put up with and there's a lot of things that I'm willing to put up with, if I'm being honest. But back then the bar was like below the floor. It was like a hole dug in the earth.

Confessor:

Luckily, my boss at this company was a very, very nice person. Like when I first accepted the job I took the first rate I was offered and he just looked me in the eyes and was like no, you're asking for more. A really, really lovely boss. So one day someone on a show our company was involved with, let me know that their show had an opening for an office PA. It felt like this really big entry point for my career, potentially my first job on an actual show. I basically stormed into my boss's office and was like look, I have a confession to make. I don't actually want to be doing the things that I'm doing with you at all. I've been pretending so you would like me, but you like me now. So please help me get an interview on this other job. And, to his credit, he immediately got me the interview. I hadn't washed my hair, I wasn't ready for this at all, but it was.

Confessor:

Oh that is insane. It felt very Hollywood. It was like, oh my God, my big break it's happening. I had to go over and meet with the line producer. I went up to the office it's like up in this big building. You know, I'm in like a really classic part of Hollywood. I meet with the line producer and he's in flip-flops.

J.R.:

Uh-oh.

Confessor:

He was a fine guy, but he was a line producer. You know what I? Uh oh, you're just like wow, I'm so impressed by these people. They make more money than I could imagine. It's like they're glittering, even though in reality that's just like a fucking guy. The interview was short, a slapdash.

Confessor:

Then I started the job and it turns out being an office PA is hard. All PA jobs are hard, but something that's weird about being an office PA is that you're alone. Like set PAs have other PAs around them, but an office PA at least in this job, I was the only one with people who were above me on the chain of command, and then I was driving around a lot and delivering stuff to and from set. So if you're an office PA, then you're basically also a car PA. People aren't particularly polite to you.

Confessor:

I had one experience when we were in skid row and we were filming and I in my young 20 somethingness and I would still do this today but I was like, look, we have all this food and all these water bottles. I'm going to bring some water bottles to get to these guys that are just outside the set, that are clearly very homeless and having a tough time and the transpo guys laughed at me and made fun of me until I cried those fuckers. They would also make fun of me because my car was dirty and I was like it's dirty because I can't afford to clean it. They're paying me very little money and the same guys detail the line producer's car every week.

J.R.:

Those fuckers.

Confessor:

You do get paid mileage, and people would always tell me that as though it was a great thing. They'd be like well, I know you're not getting paid very much, but like you get mileage, that's amazing. And I would be like that's like compensation for wear and tear on the car that I had to buy to do this job. I mean it's not like it's like free money, but the people above me in production would always be like you're so lucky. You should be thankful for this abusive relationship, exactly, exactly. I think that's just the vibe of a lot of PA jobs. It's like sort of like well, aren't you very, very grateful? And of course, I was very, very grateful to be there. I loved working in TV. I liked the show that I was working on a lot. There were so, so many many reasons why I was happy to be there, but it was weird that in this industry they're like you should be grateful.

Confessor:

Part of my job was to alphabetize everyone's contracts and then take everyone's pay cards in every week to the accounting firm, and so I knew very vaguely how much money everybody was making. But in my super sweet naiveness I wasn't like trying to figure out where I fell in that spectrum. You know what I mean. Now I would be all over that shit. I'd be digging in there making charts, making spreadsheets, but at the time I was just like, oh, what a cool thing to be alphabetizing people's contracts. But one day, when I was handed all of the pay cards with everybody's rates on them for that week, it happened that the card on the very top was another production assistant. And when I looked at his card again not trying to look, but in receiving something one must look at it and when I glanced at it I realized he was getting paid $50 more a week than me. I think I was making $600 a week for 60 hours. That's criminal Somewhere between $600 and $700. And I was sharing a one-bedroom apartment with my boyfriend. We never bought anything. My whole life was like teensy tiny. So $50 a week was a significant amount of money to me. And at that point point I looked at the other time cards and I found out that all of the male set PAs were getting paid the higher rate.

Confessor:

I said I was naive, but I was also very indignant about inequality and looking at the situation where every man was getting paid more money than me and I, who I was intentionally or unintentionally segregated from them and was the only woman at this level was getting paid less. It just felt like such a clear violation of the ethics of me as a human being. Also, some of the content of the show was about the gender pay gap. The show I was working on was very clearly trying to send a message about the exact situation that I was in. It sort of felt like a message from the universe or whatever, like divine intervention. I had been so excited about the content they were doing. I was really proud to even be a teeny part, like just to be the person alphabetizing those time cards so the show could get made. You know what I mean.

Confessor:

And it felt so crushing and painful to see how, like, the veneer lifts and the reality is more sinister. You know, the reality is that we may believe this, but we're not willing to act according to our values. We're not willing to do the hard and messy work that it takes to live up to the people that we thought we were. It feels very akin to like any Hollywood movie, where this is a glittering place full of opportunity and pizzazz, and then you see the next shot, which is inevitably like people doing drugs on the street ass. And then you see the next shot, which is inevitably like people doing drugs on the street. It's the dichotomy of this town On one hand, anything is possible and dreams can come true and on the other hand, it's a meat grinder and will crush you.

Confessor:

So what did you do After I found out? I immediately called friends. I did a lot of like research because, like, if I'm gonna go into the situation I had to be ironclad and know that I'm not just reacting emotionally to what feels unequal. So I called everyone I knew who could maybe shed light on whether or not these jobs were normally paid differently. I did a lot of research, I talked to a lot of people at my own level and then the first boss I had I wound up going to him because he had been so supportive of me. I was like, hey, I need a quick gut check. I'm really upset about this, but I need to know if I'm being irrational here. I want to say something, but I don't want to lose my job or look like an idiot. And again, to that man's credit, he was very kind about it. He said that he thought it was fucked up and he told me that I should go and talk to the line producer myself, but that he would have my back, which was amazing.

Confessor:

If you're going to be anybody in Hollywood, be that guy right. Be the guy that sees a person who is suffering over $50 a week and says I will be behind you in that. He also told me that I should also ask for back pay, which is something I hadn't even thought about. We were far enough along in production that adjusting this for the duration would have cost them about $200, were far enough along in production that adjusting this for the duration would have cost them about $200. But adjusting it for back pay costs, like you know, probably two grand, which is a huge amount of money at that pay rate. That was like a month of rent.

Confessor:

Confronting the line producer was so, so scary. Still, like in the top of some of the most terrifying things I'd ever done in my life. I sent him an email and I was like hey, when I come by set, I need to talk to you. So I came by set and I went to his little trailer. I also had severe anxiety. So at the time I was like I was sweaty, my voice was shaking, I was already crying. I was not girlbossing my way into this. I was like like imagine a wet ferret shows up at your door and says you're not paying me enough. That's the vibe here. Just very easy for a man to sort of be like. Look at that hysterical little bitch, you know what I mean. Damn, it felt horrible and I was really scared. I feel scared even just describing this story to you. Like I feel a tightness in my chest just remembering how scared I was, because think about what this guy could do to me. You know he could make it so I could never work in this town again.

Confessor:

Any future job was tied to this one. And that's how it always is in this town, like if you can't get someone to say that you were good at the job that you just did, it's really hard to get your next job, and especially when you have very few jobs on your resume, when you're like I've got two jobs to my name and one of those jobs that guy fucking hates me. That's scary. This was the kind of place that I hoped I would get promoted in. You know, I hoped that I would wind up as one of their writers one day, and so causing trouble at that low level felt really scary. But on principle I had to do it. So I went in and I like blubbered through, like hey, I noticed when I was looking at the time cards that I'm $50 less than like all the other PAs and it just feels like I just I just really like wanted to discuss that. You know what I mean. And he was just like OK, so what?

J.R.:

What an asshole.

Confessor:

He really made me work for it. He kept being like, so what Doesn't matter? And it was a good thing. I did all that research. Because he was like office PAs are always paid less than set PAs. And I was like no, they're not. I've researched it, I have asked many people, I have Googled it, I have like I have data that shows that they're not. And then he was like, well, like I have data that shows that they're not. And then he was like, well, that's just the way it is. Like what are you even doing here? You wet little ferret Like fuck you. Until, eventually, I said the magic words for getting sued, which are.

Confessor:

It just really feels bad as a woman to know that all the men are getting paid more than me, oh shit. And that was when I could see his brain start to flip and realize that like it was going to cost him more money to say no to me and keep in mind up until that point I hadn't brought up back pay. So in his mind he's being this much of a dick. Over 200 bucks. This is a man who's getting his car detailed every week. Like the money that I'm asking for is less than he's spending on making his fancy car look nice.

Confessor:

But if he gives me anything he's setting a precedent and he didn't want to. He didn't respect me and he didn't respect you know the hard hours that I was putting in and he thought I should be grateful for the position that I was in. I also think you know, if you're looking at the deep psychology of it. I hope his reaction a little bit came from shame. We're literally making content about how horrible it is to treat people this way. I think it's hard to admit that you've done that Also. He's just a dick.

Meagan:

Yeah, there it is.

Confessor:

The minute I said it feels bad as a woman to be paid less than a man, he said okay, fine you can have the money money. I'll adjust it on your time card. And then after that I immediately turned to him and said okay, let's talk about back pay then, and he like literally swallowed. He was pissed that I said that, but like he looked like he was doing the math in his head and was like okay, fine.

J.R.:

Oh, my God.

Confessor:

It wasn't even that much money. But after this conversation I walked away and obviously like I cried for like an hour as I was driving stuff from point A to point B because I wasn't about to stop doing my job. So I'm crying and driving, and then a couple of days later I came back to set and he ran into me and pulled me aside and he went how did you know? How did you find out about this? He was like angry and he was trying to figure out like who had told me how much money they made. And I just looked him in the eye and I was like you handed it to me. Every day you hand me their time card. You gave it to me.

Confessor:

His rage was so intense and it was just there's no one to blame but yourself. You asked me to alphabetize everyone's contracts and then he was like well, how did you see it? And I was like I have eyes. I know you hope that I don't, but it would have to have been hard for me to not see it, because I have to, because you put it in front of my fucking face and I'm not brainless and stupid that I can't see the numbers that I was taught in kindergarten.

J.R.:

What was he like after that?

Confessor:

It was just sort of like he was neutered, you know, like he was mad, but there was nothing he could do. I wanted to give him very little credit in the story but to his credit, he didn't fire me. After that I became an assistant on the creative side and then I worked my way up.

Meagan:

Wasn't expecting that. Was he still the line producer?

Confessor:

Yeah, but like by that time I had him by the balls.

Confessor:

I was so sweet and naive that I didn't know that. But I had him by the balls, I had powerful people on my side and they believed in me. So I wasn't even mad at him anymore. I was sort of just like I got you and I can say hello to you and congrats on your baby or whatever, because that doesn't matter to me anymore. And in some ways I think that like he gained a little bit more respect for me from doing that. It's really hard for me to give anyone advice from this story, but I would say pick the battles you can win and be prepared to not win. You can't control the outcome of anything, especially in this town. You can't control other people's behavior. You have to behave in a way that will make you proud regardless. And when I walked into that room I knew I was proud of what I was doing, and it didn't matter how he responded or what that led to. I just knew that the version of the career I would have had otherwise wouldn't have been something I wanted.

J.R.:

Go create in peace.

Meagan:

Okay. So going back to that advice at the beginning be bold, but not too bold. I think this was a really interesting story because it was like so scary to be bold. It's like the most tremulous version of bold, like the wet ferret.

J.R.:

I can never get away from that.

Meagan:

That's so good I love it and it's like so honest and the idea of this producer, this line producer, just looking at this, this person like who are you?

J.R.:

yeah, go be gone and as a PA, you're like literally the bottom of the totem pole. There's 10 people behind you that want your job.

Meagan:

So to stand up like that, like oh, I would be sweating yeah, it's, uh man, incredibly brave and like it got me thinking about like that moment of being bold and how it doesn't. It doesn't ever really look like you're being bold, I think.

J.R.:

No.

Meagan:

And like how scary that is, and I'm seriously racking my brain for a single time in my life when I have ever had that kind of courage, and I'm hoping that, while I am trying to think of something that you can like, inspire me with a story when you've done it.

J.R.:

Yeah, I uh. There was one time that I fought for pay that I thought was fair. I thought that I was being underpaid and I was in a situation where I was getting paid a certain rate. I had been at this job for a year and they brought somebody in who is technically under me and who is making the same amount of money that I was after being a year onto this project.

Meagan:

Oh wow, how did you find out?

J.R.:

I asked her what she was making, because I had a hunch that they were underpaying me.

Meagan:

Very sneaky yeah, you asked her.

J.R.:

I said hey what are you making? Yeah, but we were. We were friends at that point.

Meagan:

So it wasn't.

J.R.:

I wasn't trying to compare anything with her, I was just. I was trying to see if the company was trying to do me dirty. Well, if I don't know if this is like my friends, I was the one in the friend group making no money and at this time in my life I was going out a lot and blowing it all on Ubers.

Meagan:

Also not what I was expecting you to say. Just going out every night blowing it all on Ubers.

J.R.:

I was like hey, I'm not making any money, are you guys? And they all said yes, and I got very offended so then, what happened? Uh. So eventually, uh, I went to the CEO of the company and I said, hey, this is what people with my job title make, this is what I want to be making, and he fired back quick. He said why do you think you deserve that?

J.R.:

And at that moment I became the wet ferret in the office. My heart was racing, my hands were shaking. I know that I smelled bad from flop sweat, but but I stuck to my guns and I told him everything I had done for him over the last year, and he hit me back with the things that I had fucked up. It was a. It was a real life, real life negotiation.

Meagan:

Whoa.

J.R.:

But I had the secret ace in the hole, which only works if you really mean it, and that is I was willing to walk if I didn't get what I wanted. Yeah, that gave me that extra bump of confidence, that little secret edge to to be able to do what I needed to do.

Meagan:

I love that.

J.R.:

And I ended up getting a really nice salary bump that I quite frankly needed to live in LA.

Meagan:

Yeah, that's amazing, congrats to you. And like the willingness to walk away or the power to say no, I think is it's probably just about the only power that you typically have, and I mean, you know that was in a different industry but, like in Hollywood, the only thing that you have, your only leverage, is the ability to say no.

J.R.:

I think what, what people should know, especially PAs, is that if you're a hard worker and you're showing up consistently and doing a good job, that power to say no is really strong, because it's hard to replace you. It's hard to replace a good worker and nobody wants to do it. If they've got somebody doing a great job, they want to keep you. That's right, and if you're not making a livable wage, you need to be making a livable wage.

Meagan:

That's right, and you know there's a, I think, a very positive movement going on in Hollywood for people to kind of share that information Like how much are you making? You know there's obviously, you know, lots of people are unionizing that were not unionized before, and that helps because you're setting, you know, a wage minimum, but also just like letting it be known so that we can all share information and help each other.

Meagan:

And then you know, hey, the, the woman that just got hired after me, like a year after me, is making more, and then you have something to go on. Like you, you have to have some kind of facts. I think that was another thing that um that I really admired about this confessor, and was like, wow, that's, that's the way to do. It is like arm yourself with all the facts so that then, when you do go and and confront the powers that be and demand what you're worth, at least you have something to back you up there.

J.R.:

I think that's so, so important. I think anytime anybody asks me what I've been paid on any job that I've had, be it a PA, writer's assistant, whatever I'm more than willing to tell them what I got, how I got it and everything that went along with my deal.

Meagan:

So what's the worst paid job you've ever had?

J.R.:

I worked in construction for a summer at absolute rock bottom minimum wage.

Meagan:

Oh wow, Was that in Texas?

J.R.:

No, it was in California. Oh okay, so that's not as bad. Texas minimum wage oh wow, Was that in Texas? No, it was in.

Meagan:

California oh OK, so that's not as bad. Texas minimum wage is worse.

J.R.:

I think it was about $12 an hour.

Meagan:

Oh, wow.

J.R.:

And it is the only job I've ever gotten fired from.

Confessor:

So add insult to injury.

Meagan:

Oh, man, yeah, that's the worst. The job that you hate the most is the one that's going to fire you anyway, All right Well that's all we've got for you this week, guys. Next week or, excuse me, next episode, so two weeks from now we have a very special interview that's going to be a great follow up to this week's episode, with the founders of Pay Up Hollywood.

J.R.:

It's an incredible interview that I almost didn't even have to edit. It was so great. Yeah, you're going to get the full thing.

Meagan:

Yeah, they have great information, great things to share about their organization and where it came from and how a couple of individuals can make a huge difference in Hollywood. So please join us for that one again, two weeks from today and meantime two weeks from today and meantime, go create in peace.

J.R.:

The Hollywood confessional is produced by Meagan Dane and J. R. Zamora- Thal. Joelle Garfinkle is our co-producer and AJ Thal is our post-production coordinator and editor. Our cast today Taylor Brooks. Special effects provided by Zap Splat and Pixabay. Hollywood Confessional is a Ninth Way Media production. Follow us on socials at FessUpHollywood.