The Xmas Party

It was our Christmas party last night, and a air of merriment swept through the building. I'd packed my finest smart casual media stylings that I borrowed from my considerably more affluent, hi-flying housemate (Ramones t-shirt, pinstripe jacket, g-star jeans and a pair of rare Japanese trainers), and was looking forward to receiving a night on the company as thanks for my hard work over the past year. Plus I had my sites set on the new runner, who had acquired the nickname Stella girl, the only person in the whole building who looked at me with the slightest bit of respect. I had to strike before she realised how unimportant I am.

The day went by fast and I almost forgot I was a runner, laughing and joking with everyone as though as I was considered more important for the first time ever - it felt great. This is why I got into this industry. I was so happy. I imagined waking up the next morning with a mouth drier than a convent, my head pounding like a dirty bomb had been let off next to my frontal lobe, then being instantly cured after rolling over to see Stella girl naked and condom packets littered across the floor from the nights action.

Then the fuckers shit on me.

After running around London all week at the beck and call of the facilities manager you'd think I'd be cut some slack. But the problem with working in this industry is that the people at the bottom always have to suffer. No 'You've worked hard for this company all year, I'll stay and cover for the edit in the Attenborough suite while they work on the executives urgent changes'. It's, 'Someones decided to stay late, we've got a party to get to and you'll have to stay and wait for them to finish - someone has to man the fort and I'm afraid that someone is you'.

And if this wasn't punishment enough, some fuckwit Assistant Producer, who barely knows how to take the lens off a camera (let alone use the white balance) turns up at the door with 16 hours of digitising which 'urgently has to be done for the morning'. Four hours worth was just the camera left running in the bag, strangely the 'self shooting' AP hadn't mastered the art of cinematography with a one day training course and was still having trouble with the difference between OFF and ON buttons on his camera. Muthafucker.

So while they're all off drinking bottles of Dokter Czech and eating canopes (miniature posh versions of commoners food no doubt - think bite size cornish pasties but filled with foie gras), I'm sat on my own watching copiously tedious rushes tapes of 'The Danan Busters', the sypnosis of which I quote: 'Paul Danan leads a intrepid crew of c-list celebrities in a re-enactment of the heroic bomb skipping feats of 617 Squadron in World War II'. With only a mince pie and a bottle of Budvar for company.

Merry Fucking Christmas.