I am listening to the client’s thoughts on a few finalized TV spots via a conference call. The scripts were approved a month ago, and a member of the client’s staff was on set during the shoot.

Client: “I don’t know. I don’t really want to bring this up…”

Me: “What?”

Client: “Well, there’s just something about two guys standing at a bank counter…”

Me: “What?”

Client: “Gay.”

Me: “Two guys standing at a bank counter seem gay to you?”

Client: “Yeah.”

Me: “I don’t see that.”

He says the following as if it’s a perfectly logical statement.

Client: “Well, you’re from the city, though. We’re from a smaller town. Of course, you don’t see that.”

I work at a TV station. The other day, we did a segment on electric cars and how people are renting them to try them out, in case they want to consider one in the future.

A few minutes after the segment aired, I took a call from a lady.

Caller: “I want to know about the ‘free electric car rental’ from Hertz.”

I hadn’t listened to the segment itself, so I pulled up the script on my computer and read through it to make sure I understood what she was talking about. Of course, it said nothing about a free car rental. 

Me: “I’m afraid I’m not seeing anything about that.”

Caller: “No, you’re mistaken. I need to speak with the man who said it on the air. I’ve already called AAA and Hertz, and they knew nothing about it, but I definitely heard the man say that Hertz was offering a free electric car rental this weekend, so you need to tell me how I can take advantage.”

Me: “You’re welcome to track down the man who said this, but it looks like it might be a waste of time for you because there’s nothing free about any car rental based on what we’ve aired.”

After several minutes of huffing and puffing, she finally said something sarcastic about her wasting my time and promptly hung up. I hope she was able to get where she was going!

I’ve just answered a client’s question about what my fee would be.

Client: “Yeah… Right, that should be okay. I’ll need to speak with my producer first. She gets angry when I spend money without speaking to her first.”

Me: “Haha, yeah, that’s fine.”

Client: “Like, I just bought a taxidermy cat on eBay, and that was our entire prop budget. Also, do you mind not telling the other crew that I’m paying you?”

Every Christmas, our news station is sponsored by the local botanical garden. We have these beautiful red poinsettias around the anchor desk. I have been working for about a year in production and this is my first full-time job. Not only am I one of two women in the department but I’m currently the only one in this office.

Boss: “So, once again, we have poinsettias, and they will need to be watered every other day. Usually, the newbie has to water them, so [My Name], you’ll be the Water B**** this year.”

I stare at him in shock. Until that moment (and since that moment), I had never been called a b**** at work. And never Water B****. I could tell he was used to saying it every year but didn’t realize it could be offensive to a woman.

Boss: *Embarrassed* “Um… that’s what we call them every year…”

Unsurprisingly, that wasn’t the only moment of misogyny from him. Go figure…

I found a Craigslist ad for a company that just started. They were looking for an animator to do an animation for their small company so they could pitch it to a free-to-air broadcasting network.

Client: “We have this great idea to do an animation for a children’s educational television show for autistic kids, so that kids and parents know how to deal with the behavior properly. We need you to do the pitch animation for us to show PBS. Once we get the green light, we want you to start working on six twenty-five-minute episodes. You think you can get some of your friends to help out and do one episode per week?”

Me: “An episode per week?! That’s impossible. I’ve done research about how long an animated TV show takes, and one episode of Family Guy or The Simpsons takes about four to six months.”

Client: “What? No. That’s not right. If it took them that long to do one episode, they wouldn’t be on the air.”

Me: “Well, I’m telling you as an animator that one week is impossible.”

Client: “Well, once we get the money, anything is possible.”

Me: “…”