My mantra since I started this job has been this: It's always the user. Sure, it's not politically correct to think that, but 99 times out of 10 (that's not a typo, I mean 99 times out of 10), the problem begins with the user. They've modified something intentionally or through a misunderstanding of how things work and then they call for help. Thank God they screw up, or I wouldn't have this job. When I saw my mail had disappeared, though, my mantra was off having coffee and I figured it was a software problem.
Ever play one of those damned Facebook games? The kind where you need to accrue friends who aren't actually friends?
Don't play those damned Facebook games. I added my e-mail address to a list of people looking to amass a lot of friends who would make up the ranks of their virtual mob with their own virtual avatars. Eventually I lost interest in the game, but I kept getting requests to add friends. It turns out my e-mail address was then added to a larger list on a blog created for people to harvest addresses to invite to join their mob or their farm or their harem or whatever, with the added bonus that since the listing is available to anyone on the web through that blog, any spammer can pick up e-mail addresses with zero effort, so now I've been getting a ton of new spam.
After putting up with these messages one-by-one, last week I decided to set a rule in my mail client. Being such a handy computer technician, I made a rule that would move any of the e-mails associated with that mass listing into the deleted items folder...Aw, the hell with that, just delete them completely, I don't need to review those! I set the parameters to weed out those messages, then added the caveat that if the sender isn't in my previous senders, torch the message.
Except...I set the rule to sort out those messages, then told it to verify that the senders WERE among my previous senders, and instead of making sure both criteria were met, I made the rule work if either of the criteria were met, effectively targeting Every Single Message. At least I know the app works.
Luckily for me, I was able to get most of them back, but decided I'd take the opportunity to sort through and get rid of that which I did not need. Out went the newsletters from a bargain site I've never purchased anything through. Out went the weekly tech tips newsletters. Out went the almost-endless string of notification e-mails from Facebook telling me exactly what it would tell me when I logged on next.
I was left with a huge amount of e-correspondence with the wife (I've saved every last one, honey) and a great many e-mail addresses I hadn't seen in a long time. In sorting through these, I found a few responses to a callout here two years ago for legal advice. I'd been discussing optioning a script to a producer so that he could in turn shop several projects to some investors he needed to pitch in a hurry before they left the country a few days later. Yes, it sounds like just as solid a plan as it did back then. I might as well have gotten that excited about buying a lottery ticket. I didn't know the whole story then, however, all I knew was what the producer was telling our mutual contact: The investors had $25 million to spend and wanted genre projects set mostly in one location.
I have a script that fit that bill, a genre story (sci-fi/horror) set mostly in one location (a hospital), so at the urging of our mutual contact, I sent the producer the script. He let me know later of his intent to sell the investors several projects that were already packaged. He wasn't going to produce, he wanted to secure the deal for 10% of the investment. I was supposed to be the producer. After adjusting myself to this development, I took the leap and let him know I was fine with the change in roles, but the deal would have to be for 5 percent. He responded that he'd try to just sell the script for that five percent, which he didn't seem to realize was a different deal to try to make entirely. It will come as no surprise that the whole thing evaporated in the space of a few days.
I revisited the chain of events while reading through these e-mails, and one of the messages came from someone with a market research group, a very encouraging and insightful e-mail reinforcing my suspicion that the figures the finder was floating were way over the norm. Something about the message caught my eye this time around.
The sender's address was the very building where I am now working two years later.
About eight months ago I moved downtown in a new position as an onsite tech for the advertising/PR corporation I work for. The work is at the same time more tiring and less mind-numbingly boring than my previous position. My days are usually very busy, but there are also stretches where I can work at my own pace and there is something new on a daily basis. I like it, mainly because I can gain experience that will keep me employable. The job services three large companies based in the building, but there are other smaller companies in the building I don't serve, this market research group must be one of them. How could I not have noticed this before, I thought to myself, I'd been in the building a few times over two years before I moved here and had been giving phone support to the users here. Hell, I've even been on the floor the sender worked on when the e-mail had been sent.
Seeing this link between my present job and the blog made me think seriously about Three Chainsaws for the first time in months. I opened up the blog, read through a bunch of entries, tried to remember what I was thinking back then. It will come as little surprise that screenwriting has not been a priority lately. That chainsaw was placed down gently and occasionally started to make sure it still turned over. I've still been working very slowly on a couple of things I'd mentioned here:
- I hammered out a rough outline and revised a treatment for the animated movie idea I mentioned here in anticipation of meeting people last year at a videogame press event for a major animation studio. I met the studio's story supervisor and he politely shot me down before I could even bring up the idea of making them a pitch, but he was otherwise encouraging and made me incredibly jealous of the creative culture they've developed in-house.
- I've been revisiting two ideas I had years ago, one for a western about a gold rush town's dying days, the other a romantic comedy that I only started looking at again because I figure it can't be any worse than the releases that have been ripped apart by critics over the last year or so.
- I edited the trailers for two independent films that have been well received on the festival circuit in the past few months.
So even though I haven't pursued producing at all, I figured since I've got this one response from someone who may have advice if I get a package together, maybe I can see if their company is still in this building...
Hey, wait a minute. I work on Park Avenue South. This reader works on Park Avenue. Same building number, totally different neighborhood. It doesn't mean I can't make contact, but makes it a lot more unlikely that we've met in the elevator.
At least now I've got the blog back on my mind, and I think I have things to say.
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