Man Up! by Ross Mathews Read Free Book Online Page B

only to walk in and find that the woman who was interviewing me was a high-powered, no-nonsense entertainment executive wearing sweat pants! Yes, sweat pants! Ugh! I never thought that I’d feel overdressed in my fashionably flammable second-hand suit, but I’d underestimated the power of Casual Friday.
    About thirty minutes into the interview, I think the casually elastic-waisted NBC executive could sense my unabashed eagerness to work in the entertainment industry and warned me, “This is a hard job. It’s not all about Hollywood and show business glamor. In fact, this job is not about that at all. It’s about getting the work done behind the scenes, and that’s not always fun or pretty.”
    I thought for a second. She might have been right, but I wasn’t scared. I leaned in closer, lowered my voice and, in almost a whisper, asked her, “Do you know those garbage cans at McDonald’s? The ones with the flaps where you dump your tray? Well, when I worked at the Micky D’s in Mount Vernon, Washington, I had to crawl inside those cans and scrub off the dried Big Mac secret sauce every day for $4.50 an hour. It wasn’t fun or pretty, either. But I would do that here, for free, just to be a part of things. That’s how badly I want this.”
    She reached out to shake my hand. “Can you start on Monday?”
    When I got home that night, I just couldn’t shut up about my great news. I told my friends, “I can’t believe it. I’m going to be an intern at the freakin’ Tonight Show  ! I know it’s totally unpaid and I’m at the very bottom of the showbiz totem pole, but I just feel like it’s the start of something big.”
    It had finally happened. Even though I wasn’t technically earning a living, my television career was officially underway. And little did anyone know, it was the beginning of the most outrageous story involving an intern since Monica Lewinsky.

Chapter Five
Ross the Intern 2:
He Works Hard for No Money
    I couldn’t sleep the night before my first day as an intern at The Tonight Show With Jay Leno . I tossed and turned for hours in my dorm room bunk bed, letting my imagination run wild. Would I get to meet Jay Leno himself ? Would I make a whole new group of fancy Hollywood friends? Who will be my secret Santa at the Tonight Show Christmas party?
    In reality, my first day in show business was decidedly unglamorous and utterly exhausting, just as promised at my interview. My job didn’t require merciless manual labor, but the sheer amount of tedious tasks was overwhelming.
    Day one of my internship included running around the NBC studio all day making copies, sending faxes, and bringing tapes to this person, who needed me to bring something to that person, who needed me to fill their printer with ink and then pick up the lunch orders. But, uh-oh! Wait, a minute! The lady in accounting forgot to mention that she doesn’t like mustard, so I’ve got to go get her a new tuna sandwich even though she has perfectly good legs and could totally get her own damn sandwich, but I’m gonna do it because I’m just an intern who isn’t getting paid anything . But I’d better thank my lucky stars because there are like 5 billion other people who would take my unpaid, thankless job in a heartbeat, so don’t screw it up, sweetheart!
    I loved it. It was high energy and high pressure, and most important, we were making television, people. After a lifetime of being a viewer, I had crossed over and, even though my contribution was minuscule, I was a part of it nonetheless. I felt both exhilarated and validated.
    Without question, the very best moment of my first day was when Jay Leno approached me to introduce himself. I was hurrying down a hallway between errands when I glanced up and saw someone who looked eerily like Jay Leno walking toward me. It took about a millisecond for me to realize that it was, in fact, Jay Leno himself. It’s weird, but my first thought was, Wow. In person, he really does look