What Are You Doing Here?

For the past couple of weeks, I have been working on-site for a company and assisting with their customer-facing websites. The only people there that know what I really do—develop and produce projects for film, television, and new media—are the two that hired me because I was honest about it during my interview. Aside from that, I've been quiet with it and kept it to myself. After all, that's the professional thing to do.

I guess that it doesn't take much for people in Los Angeles to catch on, though. You would think that my fedora would give me away as an artist, but it wasn't until a cubicle neighbor, Michael, overheard my phone conversations that he approached me.

"You, sir, are an international man of mystery." he chimed after I finished a round of calls to resolve problems Tania was having with her visa in registering with Central Casting and registering for a Social Security number. I'll blog about that adventure later.

Anyway, Michael goes on to tell me that he used to work for Warner Brothers and that he ran into people like me there all of the time, but wasn't expecting it at a medical device manufacturer. Then he paused, looked at me and asked, "what are you doing here?"

I just smiled awkwardly. How do I describe my situation without going into the gory details?

As the conversation continued and he kept asking questions about my other life, I went ahead and pointed him to my EPK on YouTube, which he watched twice and brought three or four people over to see as well. My attempt to not make a big deal about my producing turned into someone else doing the bragging.

Again, Michael turned to me and asked, "what are you doing here?" Again, I just smiled awkwardly.


Blogged from my iPhone 3G.