This office screw-up went viral because it’s very funny with a heartwarming twist
We’re grateful to someone called Quinn Cummings, a one-time actor and now a writer who shared this brilliant story about the time she worked as a talent agent.
It’s a very funny story but what happened after she shared it is even more amazing. Over to Quinn on Twitter…
Gather round, Gentle Readers. It is time I tell the story of the worst decision I ever made in an office. Some of you have heard this. Some have not. Whatever you do in your office today, this week, the rest of this year, you can console yourself by recalling this tale.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) November 7, 2018
1.
A long time ago, I was a talent agent. I worked for a woman named Susan Smith, who had her own small boutique agency. She was known for three things:
1. She had fantastic taste in clients. If there is someone you admire, odds are good that at some point, she was their agent,
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) November 7, 2018
2.
2. She could negotiate a deal like few who have ever trod the earth. Casting would give her all the money they had budgeted for that part, plus a little more, plus promising to get her dog Barnaby groomed. She was magnificent to watch.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) November 7, 2018
3.
3. She was insane.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) November 7, 2018
4.
I’m sure you’re thinking, “Quinn, it’s the entertainment industry, they are all insane.” Yes, many are. So consider this; if you told someone you worked for Susan, people who worked for insane people would look and you and whisper, “I hear she’s insane.”
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) November 7, 2018
5.
Volatile, capable off toggling between rage-screaming and whispered tears in 90 seconds. An unerring instinct at knowing exactly what you doubted about yourself and musing aloud about it. A level of vitriol to subordinates that was outlawed by the 13th Amendment.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) November 7, 2018
6.
She went through assistants with comical speed. One young man – who had endured the rigors of law school – went to “move his car” after ninety minutes on her desk and never came back.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) November 7, 2018
7.
I was her assistant for six months. If I hear a phone that sounds like the one we had in the office, I still get nauseated.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) November 7, 2018
8.
But oh, did she love her clients. She had no husband, no children; her clients were everything. Specifically, Kathy Bates and Brian Dennehy. She had discovered both of them when they were doing off-off-off-Near Hackensack-Broadway. She adored them. One could argue she made them.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) November 7, 2018
9.
For years, Brian had wanted to do DEATH OF A SALESMAN on the stage, in Chicago. For years, for a number of reasons, it hadn’t happened. Finally, with superhuman strength and negotiating prowess on Susan’s part, DEATH, with the perfect director on the stage Brian wanted, went up.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) November 7, 2018
10.
Brian got the kinds of reviews he deserved. The play was a huge hit. So huge, in fact, that it went to Broadway. Again, Susan hammered out the seemingly endless details of moving a production to a Broadway theater. She went to the opening. The reviews were love letters to Brian.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) November 7, 2018
11.
Susan was ecstatic. But the real joy came when Brian won the Tony for his performance. I watched it at home and I was 99% thrilled for Brian and 1% thrilled for us at the office. Susan had a tendency to walk in the door screaming instructions and grievances.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) November 7, 2018
12.
I was now an agent, not her assistant, but Susan didn’t hold with such distinctions. We all got screamed at, we all became miserable, we all started whatever self-soothing behavior allowed us to not cry in the hallway. At the very least, Brian’s win would delight her.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) November 7, 2018
13.
And then Brian forgot to thank her.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) November 7, 2018
14.
The next morning, we walked around with the resigned despair of a tank of sentient lobsters. We were all to be boiled alive, it was just a matter of when. Susan flew in the door, raced to her office, slammed the door shut. The quiet was actually worse.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) November 7, 2018
