30 Before 30

by Marina Shifrin

  Step 2: Apply.

  This step seems incredibly obvious, but I found that a lot of people don’t apply for jobs they think they’re underqualified for. Imposter syndrome is alive and well within the neuroses of the working world, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t at least send in an application for a bomb-ass job. I’ve found that when companies put out an opening they describe their pie-in-the-sky ideal candidate. You can still be brought in for an interview even if you don’t meet all of the requirements and it may result in a better-suited position later down the line.

  For example, I applied to be a TV writer on @midnight with Chris Hardwick, a Comedy Central show. My résumé boasted zero prior TV experience and I’d been rejected for two lower-level positions on that same show. Either the executives were impressed with my persistence, or they took pity on me—regardless, they offered me a position as a researcher (five months after my initial failed interview). It was my very first job in Hollywood and I credit @midnight with saving me from self-destruction.

  Step 3: Read your contracts.

  Before you sign anything, whether it’s for a freelance job or a job you’ve always wanted, make sure to read your contract. Since I began writing for myself I’ve read every line of every contract. I highlight things, and ask my smart lawyer friends what the legalese means. These contracts are often intentionally complicated, and thus not easy to understand, even for young and bright minds like you. It’s very possible to sign something you don’t understand and accidentally give away 100 percent ownership of your brilliant ideas—don’t allow this to happen. Look out for “non-compete clauses”—they’re poisonous to your growth. I’ve found that many contracts have standard language that can be adjusted to fit your specific desires. It’s surprisingly simple to negotiate certain points if you’re polite and patient.

  Step 4: Adjust your expectations.

  I used to think there were actual dream jobs, but as I fall further into my career in entertainment, it is becoming clear that there are only ideal jobs. An ideal job includes work that you’re proud of, that you love, but that you also want to set on fire sometimes. It’s perfectly normal to get a job you’ve been gunning toward your whole life, only to realize that it’s less fulfilling and more stressful than you thought it would be. That’s why it’s important to adjust expectations. Don’t look for a dream job, look for an ideal job.

  If you can adjust your expectations, you’ll be happier and more pleasant to work with—which will lead to promotions and better jobs in the future.

  Step 5: Know your worth.

  “Know your worth” sounds like something that should be scrawled across a sunset on an Instagram photo, but it’s important to keep in mind when asking for a raise, working in a highly competitive job environment, or navigating the sticky power dynamics of the real world. Pursuing your ideal job turns your confidence into a pile of mush and opens you up to unexpected vulnerabilities. The slightest negative comment can derail your progress in a spectacular way. “They’re not going to hire a first-time writer on a pilot,” an executive once told me when trying to keep me on his show. This accepted wisdom scared me out of an interview for what would’ve been my first writing job. Instead, I accepted the executive’s offer to promote me into a digital producer, later finding out that I would’ve gotten the writing job because my submission was that good. Sorry to brag, but it was.

  I went straight back to that executive and asked for a 25 percent raise. I researched what other digital producers were making and told him I was grossly underpaid. He was impressed with my research, confidence, and aggressiveness and agreed to give me a 20 percent raise. Knowing your worth will help others know it too.

  Step 6: Don’t be afraid to demote yourself.

  After three years in Los Angeles, and one missed opportunity to write on a show, it became clear that I was growing in the wrong direction. Working in digital production was fun (my team even won an Emmy), but it wasn’t what I wanted to do.

  Because I hadn’t had any luck finding work as a TV writer, I quietly began looking for a job as a writers’ assistant. Eventually, a new Comedy Central show created out of the pilot I’d passed up the previous year (it takes forever for a TV show to get made) was looking for a writers’ assistant—and I was offered the job. When pursuing an ideal career, there is no room for pride, so I stepped down as a producer to take the job as an assistant. On the day of my twenty-ninth birthday, for the second time in three years, I started at the bottom again.

  Step 7: Listen and learn.

  I pride myself on being quick-witted and funny, but after entering an industry of literal comedians, it became clear that it’s not the most useful trait in a room. A lot of people who start a new job are hungry to show off their goods, which often comes off as obnoxious. “He’s too thirsty,” a coworker once said about a researcher who was excellent at his job, but quick to speak up in the room. New-to-job people are always trying to prove themselves, whether it’s with a fresh and interesting perspective or with their fresh and interesting personality. I quickly learned that it’s much better to learn the personalities of those around you before injecting your own.

  Step 8: Don’t let them see you sweat.

  At the last show I worked on, I became close friends with the host, comedian and all-around sweetie Guy Branum. Early on in my tenure as the writers’ assistant, I forgot the boundaries of our relationship—he was my boss after all—and complained about a relatively minor work-related annoyance. Guy fanned out his palm, as he is known to do, and told me, “Oh, Marina, you’re never supposed to let me see you sweat.” It was one of the most useful things I’ve heard on a job.

  No one likes working with a complain-y person.2 In fact, I’d say it’s probably the number-one killer of promising careers. When you feel frazzled or annoyed, take a deep breath and remember to never let them see you sweat.

  Step 9: Enjoy the game of the pursuit.

  Because you’re stuck with it.

  These steps are what have worked for me so far, but I’m no expert—just a gal who’s happy with her current job. Everyone’s success story is different, and mine is still in the development process.

  The happiest ending to this chapter would be that I eventually moved up from writers’ assistant to TV writer. My advice would hold more weight and I’d have a concrete response for the emails asking how to get to where I am. We could maybe all celebrate my long and winding journey at a hip party thrown by me, because I’d finally have more money than “just enough.” But unfortunately, the entertainment industry doesn’t let real life neatly fold inside a beautiful story box. It’s messy and scary, never-ending and disappointing, but I’m okay with that because, thanks to Step 9, I’ve learned to enjoy the game of the pursuit.

  27

  FLY FIRST CLASS

  “I wish I was that man,” my father longingly told me over Skype. He was referencing a viral news story about a Vietnamese-American doctor who was roughed up by airport police after refusing to give up his seat on an overbooked flight. Law enforcement officers broke his nose, knocked out his two front teeth, and gave him a concussion during the kerfuffle.

  “Dad, he got hurt,” I said.

  “He only lost a few teeth,” my father responded. Leave it to a Soviet to be jealous of someone who was “lightly” beaten by police. “He doesn’t need the front ones to chew. Now he’ll get free flights for life!”

  My dad was right, the doctor won an unspecified financial settlement from United Airlines. My guess is that it’s enough for him to have free flights for life, on his own airplane, to and from a small island that he also owns—plus a new set of teeth.

  If he was really being honest with himself, I don’t think my father would’ve given up two of his front teeth to fly for free. He is, after all, afraid of flying. Whenever we fly together, he shuts his eyes, grabs my hand, and doesn’t let go until we’ve stopped ascending. “It’s not natural,” he tells me with his eyes still closed, “to be in
the air this way.”

  I have a perfectly healthy relationship with flying. We’re friends. As you know by now, the romanticism of airports is really what I’m after, but if I get to cap my trip to my favorite place with a flight, then throw that in too. Why not?

  I treasured my flights to Asia. Long-ass flights allow me to act in a way that’d never be appropriate on the ground. I once watched five movies back to back. Five. Anywhere else, that’d be a warning sign of depression, but in the air there is nothing to do, which means you can do anything.

  All the flight attendants on my flights to Taiwan had beautifully slender necks; their heads looked like they were balanced there, in midair. I especially loved when they dimmed the lights for “bedtime.” It’s like a big adult sleepover—except instead of listening to spooky stories told before bed, I just imagine all the ways my body could get sucked out of the cabin.

  Some people are plane sleepers. I am not. My mother once handed me a tin of Altoids. “Here, try these,” she said with a knowing look. Inside the tin was a variety of pills. “Don’t take the blue ones and the white ones together,” she instructed, “and don’t drink if you take the ones that look like mints.” I meant to write it down. I took two blue pills and washed them down with a couple glasses of wine. Nothing happened. A white one didn’t do it for me either. I was wired for the whole flight. My first afternoon in Taiwan, though, was spent looking for a duck under my bed. Not sure if the pills and hallucinating a duck are related.

  Because of my sleeplessness on flights, I often have to occupy myself with the passengers around me. I can spend hours imagining their lives. Coach is really the best place to do it—the people are so vibrant and they have loud, open conversations, as if everyone around them is hard of hearing.

  “Hey, Facebook,” a woman on Spirit Airlines once spontaneously yelled at her phone. “I’m just here sitting pretty in the air. Facebook, what’s your favorite airline?” I leaned in to see if Facebook had an answer. It didn’t.

  Another time I sat next to a couple who spent the first half of the flight kissing each other’s palms, and the second half in a very complicated breakup. I hadn’t started out in that seat: a very tall woman with dyed black hair politely asked to switch so that she could sit next to her teenage daughter. Switching seats with people inflates my ego. “Of course, no problem,” I always say, unclasping my usually too-tight seatbelt. I refuse to loosen airplane seatbelts. I’m just as small as whoever sat here last, I tell myself. If the seatbelt is too tight, then I just sit there, not breathing.

  Another time, on a four-hour flight to Chicago, a flight attendant had to explain to two teenage girls that they couldn’t watch Snapchat without headphones. It was clear that someone had complained about them, and the flight attendant was trying to be civil. “Ugh, sor-ry, I didn’t read that in the airplane rules,” the girl next to me muttered. I blatantly rolled my eyes, hoping that maybe if I did it hard enough, the flight attendant wouldn’t associate me with them. “Excuse me, ma’am,” the other girl said before the flight attendant could escape, “can we get two pillows and blankets?”

  “I’m sorry,” she responded, keeping her cheery disposition, “we don’t offer that in coach.”

  “But the people up front got them.”

  I could’ve grabbed her pretty teenage head and twisted it off her body. Don’t you know, I wanted to say, those people get pillows and blankets because they’re better than us.

  The closest thing America has to a caste system can be seen on commercial airliners. Sure, there are societal injustices with invisible barriers, but commercial airplanes have unapologetic organizational systems which value the rich and punish the poor via nonexistent legroom, sobriety, and individuals with no volume control.

  I’d never be a “First Class” person, due to my inability to make/spend1 money, but goddammit did I want people to look at me the way I looked at the people sitting in first class, just to know what it felt like to be envied by strangers.

  My cousin Polina got bumped up to first class once. “Bumped up,” that’s how she said it. Casually. She made it sound so easy, like when a table at your favorite restaurant opens up earlier than expected. But she’s not even married! I thought. Only newlyweds, famous people, and white men get unexpected “bump ups.”

  It turns out that young ladies interviewing for impressive companies also get offers to fly first class. I learned this when a tech startup in Seattle was looking to fill a head writing position and offered to fly me out to “meet with the team.”

  I wasn’t planning on accepting the offer, because I’d just gotten my first job in Los Angeles—which came with a self-promise not to move as soon as the mirage of a better life appeared. A-few-years-ago Marina would’ve been riddled with guilt about accepting a free trip for a job offer she wasn’t going to take, but the Marina of today has been burned by so many powerful men at tech startups that she had no problem taking advantage of the opportunity.

  I flew to Seattle and met the staff; a young, diverse set of creatives who liked to work almost as much as they liked to drink. The office had a lot of open space and difficult-to-understand communal couches. You know the ones where you’re not sure where to sit because they are shaped like amoebas? Those.

  On my last night in Seattle, I called Sam’s cousins to come out and destroy the city with me. We started with drinks at my hotel, then went to an alcoholic slushy spot, a pirate bar, and a speakeasy—the night became a blur after that. Which made my early morning flight slightly inconvenient considering I wanted to die when I woke up. My hangover was so bad that I considered accepting the job offer to avoid getting on an airplane.

  But a life goal is a life goal. I crawled onto the plane for my very first first-class flight2 and slumped into my seat. It was so large that my feet were dangling off the edge, little-kid style. The flight attendant greeted me with a mimosa, the most decadent of breakfast drinks—orange juice and diamonds, really. The second my mouth touched the liquid, my stomach dropped. Whoever came up with the phrase “hair of the dog” probably died of cirrhosis.

  As people loaded onto the airplane, many, many minutes after the flight attendants gently tucked me into my oversized seat, I did everything in my power to avoid eye contact with them. If they got a good look at my young, undeserving face, they’d immediately see that I was a fraud who had lied her way into first class.

  When coach class was safely seated out of our first-class view, the show began; flight attendants walked through the aisles pretending we were important people who they cared for. They treated me nicer than any stranger has ever treated me. At one point, I accidentally dropped my napkin because I was hungover as all get out. I thought that if I stared at the napkin with enough intensity, I could will it back into my hands. Suddenly, it began to move. It floated up off the ground and into my opened palm. Like magic! Of course, there was a flight attendant attached to it, but still!

  “I’m sorry, Miss Shifrin,” she said, as if it were her fault that I dropped the napkin. Or maybe she truly felt bad for me. “I’m sorry you’re in first class, Miss Shifrin—it must be difficult, the pressure of maintaining this facade.”

  “It’s okay,” I told her.

  I ordered a Bloody Mary because my Uncle Alan once said that a shot of vodka would cure even the strongest of hangovers, but it didn’t work. I was trapped in my own personal hangover hell. My tray looked like a science experiment in alcoholism. A sip of a mimosa, a sip of a black coffee, a sip of a Bloody Mary, and an untouched omelet. I looked around me. No one was talking to their Facebook, or fighting with the flight attendants, no one was breaking up or even memorable. I missed the people who would ask me to switch seats, or look over my shoulder to spoil flight magazine crossword answers, or divulge that they’re from Ohio but had decided to visit their daughter in Los Angeles as a surprise. “She’s an actress and she’s very good.” No one asked me out, or showed me pictures of their knee surgery. I wanted to go back to my coach pe
ople.

  At a certain point on the flight, the airplane hit some turbulence and a wave of nausea washed over me. I sheepishly asked for some water. “Of course, Miss Shifrin,” the flight attendant said, which made me uncomfortable. Miss Shifrin, that’s my future’s name. The water was there immediately. I brought the glass (glass!) to my lips, hoping to quell some of my queasiness, but as the rim touched my mouth, the plane lurched again and caused me to smash my front teeth on the edge of the cup.

  I unbuckled my (very loose) seatbelt and made my way to the bathroom, where I inspected my teeth in the mirror, tapping the front two to make sure they were in there securely. They were. My focus shifted to my face. My cheeks were saggy, my skin was gray, my eyes (one of which was still sporting the eyeliner from the night before) were puffy. I had no business being in first class. I splashed water on my face, pinched my cheeks, put my hair in a bun, and leaned in closer to the mirror to reinspect my teeth. Even if I only need my back teeth to chew, I was still glad to have the front ones in place.

  28

  BECOME A GOOD HOST

  Sam says he’s never seen me happier than when someone cancels on me. “Yes, because that means I can get into pajamas faster,” I tell him. I’ve become somewhat of a misanthrope in my late twenties.

  Every now and then, when I haven’t bothered to see anyone in weeks, I worry that I’m catching some of my mom’s agoraphobia. But mostly I happily sit in an oversized shirt watching old episodes of Chopped while heckling the dummy chefs in my empty apartment.

  Whenever a loved one says they’re coming to visit me, my instinctual reaction is to get angry. “Why me?” I yell at the ceiling. For someone who mapped her entire career around entertainment, I’m awful at entertaining. I haven’t had a proper birthday party since I was about thirteen years old. I’ve had more root canals than I’ve had people over to my apartment. I don’t understand those who enjoy hosting. What if you get sick? Or your visitors don’t like your food? Or your toilet breaks? Or they’re bored? It’s too stressful. I take all this worry, ball it up, and throw it in the faces of my friends who are visiting.