The Semi-Annual Semi-Holiday: 4.10

Across the entertainment industry, the worker bee assistants have begun to return to their hives today. Oddly though, reports are coming in from all across Hollywoodland that offices are half-empty. Why would the industryites abandon their posts, leaving deals unmade and projects untouched and souls uncorrupted?

Why because it's one of the industry's semi-annual Semi-Holidays! That's right-- on this glorious day, no one's quite sure if anyone has to work at all. With the holidays being short this season, thanks to a Sunday Christmas (way to go Jesus), most of the assistants out there were hoping for yet another day of pot-enhanced video game play and obligatory masturbation to free internet porn. And they got it! Sort of.

My experience is perhaps typical. The decision on whether or not we were working, having not been conclusively made before the holiday break, was apparently never made at all. God bless the quasi-work environment of the entertainment industry.

Essentially, this meant that I ventured out in a Louis Quinze-like deluge. Yeah, that's right. I just dropped a European history reference.

It also meant that I showed up to an empty office, despite showing up an hour late because if I was in fact working that day, then by God, I was going to sleep in a little.

After entering my empty office, I did my usual morning routine of checking messages, emails, etc. A little while later, a production assistant showed up. Her name will be Carla for the purposes of this dialogue, in honor of the fact that Rhea Perlman helped me win a game of Scene It: TV Edition. (yes, that was an Xmas present) The question was: which actor/actress won 4 Emmys during the run of Cheers?

CARLA: Hey, Atlas. I thought I was going to be the only one here.
ATLAS: Oh. Well, I had work to do. Were we supposed to have the day off?
CARLA: I dunno. I don't think so.
ATLAS: I thought the whole industry didn't work from like December 20th to January 5th or something.
CARLA: I guess we're just friggin* lucky.

*she didn't use 'friggin', since our office is at least rated R, if not NC-17.

About an hour later, I got an email from a co-worker asking if my New Year's was good and what I was doing on my day off. Despite the fact that I probably should have known from the empty office that some people were having the day off, it was still a shocker. Finally, after a flurry of emails, it was determined that Carla and I assumed we were working, while three other people assumed we were all sort of working from home on a few critical things. Everybody else was sure we had the day off. So Carla and I left far before the normal end of the workday to compensate for the fact we'd worked at all.

And I wasn't alone in my aloneness. At the roomie's workplace, he and a dedicated editor were the only ones to show up. They had to mop up a bit of flooding, but then the roomie got to have the day off. He spent it playing "Guitar Hero" and smoking pot. Bastard.

So don't worry, y'all. Your favorite anonymous assistant is still alive and kicking-- despite having little/no memory of my New Year's activities much past midnight. But hey, I arrive home with my keys, clothes and wallet, so that's a good sign, right? Now if only I could explain my painful o-ring and bloody stool.