My Day in Television

Alright, as a recap I am a PA (Production Assistant) with the production office for my television show with Disney. Now some may wondering what a PA does. Well, there are four types of PA's to my immediate knowledge. Office PA (me), Post PA (post being editing and such after filming), Writer's PA (this is the guy who sole purpose is to take care of the writers), and Set PA (the person on set, assisting the AD's (Assistant Directors)) Each set of PA's has their own duties and I will try with some effort to describe what they are. And they are, to be everyone's slave. HAha, oh I jest... or do I? Let's start with ye olde' office PA.

Office PA: Now this may vary from studio to studio, and much more for between television and film, but for now, this is what the Office PA's do where I work.
In the morning, get bagels and fruit for people in the office. This is something you do on your way to work, so it makes you get up extra early, and sucks. It sucks even more if you are supposed to be in to work early. It sucks even MORE if you are supposed to be into work so early that it is before the bagel place opens and you have to go the night before. Yea. That time sucked.
But your usual call time is 8:00AM and that can vary depending on the day. I will detail that more for me when I write out what I do for a week. Also I think the other PA's have it WAAAAY better, but they do have their crappy stuff too.
So you've gotten into work. You turn on all the lights and make the coffee and unlock everyone's door and fluff everyone's pillow (well not quite, but sometimes I wonder....) They you grab a seat and wait for everyone to show up. Your production office bosses should show up soon, they get in near when you do. Everyone else though comes in at all hours (though usually just closer to 9) It is about this time (and this is only specific to working at Disney which buys its employees food) that you start taking food orders. This is an almost all day task as we have 25 people and you have to, and now this is important, get every order exactly right! If you don't, your life becomes hell. Classic LA right there. And people can be PICKY! But I'm used to it cause my wife has a sensitive palate and I've gotten used to seeing her happy. But when you go to pick up the lunches you have to make sure everything is correct. That's right, finger and fish through everyone's food to makes sure this person has no onions, and this person has this odd dressing and that person has an egg on their cup of coffee or whatever. Cause if you don't, and one of them is wrong, you ARE the waiter, and they ALWAYS send it back, and it is a longer jaunt than to the kitchen. Better jump in your car, you have some driving to do.
Alright, and aside from getting lunch, you are just given tasks all day. Simple office tasks really. You copy this, you give this paper to that person. You will "distro" stuff, which is a daily task where you copy call sheets and stuff and give a copy to everyone there is. You will be told to move furniture. You will be send of grocery runs to re-stock the fridge. You will be asked to do a million and one easy as ass tasks and you will be here till 8 at night. That's right. A 12 hour day. And you've worked through lunch. And you don't get overtime cause overtime only comes after 12.5 hours. And the writers leave around 6 or 7 and you stay on working doing whatever simple tasks people give you. And they will give you the simplest of tasks, and you will get a mountain of shit if you don't do everything perfect. If you don't notice a fax that comes in immediately (Shit) if you don't make sure the kitchen is clean (Shit) if you don't make sure trash is off of other people's desks (Shit) if you don't make sure you sign in and out on the call board to say where you are (Shit). And it kinda sucks. And then after everyone is gone, you say goodbye to your boss who actually works longer hours than you, and you lock up the office, turn off the lights and head home to eat dinner at 9 pat your cat on the head and go to bed only to get up the next morning and start it over. And you work a 60 hour week this way for $550 with no health benefits but you get food (huzza). And if you have a wife who likes to "point things out" you make $9 / hr. And you wonder why people are begging on the street all over the place. It's because it PAYS BETTER.
Now it has its up sides as well. I mean you harass people and learn what you can about he buisiness and try to ingratiate yourself to people, make friends, show willing. Show that you will do any shit job so they will ask you to do something more important. But it is a long dusty road that horses and been on since the dawn of time so, that's right, it's covered in shit.
Some good parts of my day though: the people, very friendly and just a pleasure to be around for the most part. It is a good work environment where I don't feel stressed. Though I think I am lucky here as I hear about other jobs where people are stressed because those in charge are crazy. I get fed (Disney only). I get to work in close proximity to everyone and the cast, though my ability to socialize with them has not yet been fully explored.

One thing to definitely keep in mind while reading this though. It is basically me talking about work and it will be different for different jobs. How different I don't know.

Okay, the other PA's I'll add as I get a summary of their day's duties.

But in general the Post PA comes in around 9 and leaves around 6-7 and doesn't have much to do during the day. They help do tasks like get stock footage for exterior of buildings and do tech equipment runs and run the tapes to the color correction labs and so forth.

Set PA's are on set all day, so they come in around 9 or later on days not needed, which can be quite often, and they leave when they are done on set for the day which will be when they are done filming on shoot days or early on non shoot days. They help organize the situation on the stage at all times and they, to my knowledge, never do runs. But they do give out paperwork on set, and make sure everyone is on time where they need to be including actors.

Writers' PA comes in when the writers do around 9 and sits in on writing helping out where possible (I'm not sure what tasks there are here yet). They do some small runs like an Office PA such as Coffee for the writers. The task they have that SUCK are that they have to copy any rewrites on the script and deliver all of them to everyone. Yea, that means drive to the actors houses, and this isn't as glorious as it sounds, some of them are RICH and can afford to live FAR THE FUCK away. And he has to do that after the writers are done writing, so he is there pretty late some nights, but it is offset by coming in pretty late in the morning.

I will get them to summarize their duties and I will post them online for more specification. But again being a PA is akin to being a slave. No respect, and lots of crappy tasks, but you do meet people, you do see things, and you do get to get around. Its like being a servant, a servant with 100% access to everything, but still a servant so "Know your place" Boooo! But we all climb the ladder don't we. Le Sigh.