When VICE didn’t match the other offer, I gave my two weeks’ notice. Eventually an exec who I had worked with for years tried to woo me back with a counteroffer that was $25,000 less than what I would be making at my new gig.
“I don’t think that is going to work.”
“I would think about that,” he said.
I stared back at him, silent but waiting for whatever came next. I expected him to tell me we were a family, and if I stayed, my growth at the company would continue. Instead, he chose a different route, a classic tactic.
“Just so you know, you are nothing without VICE. My guess is you’ll fall flat on your face.”
Jesus Christ. Every single part of me wanted to say Fuck you, but I heard my dad’s voice, and I knew, without hesitation, that was not the way to end it.
I smiled and said, “I’ll get back to you about your counter,” and left the room. I went to an empty edit bay. Did he really just say that to me? Could it be true?
A week later I showed up at my new company, filled with optimism. I had earned my place there on my own. I had a clean slate, and I was going to take full advantage of it. I introduced myself at reception and was met with a puzzled look. I asked if the editor of the site, the guy who’d hired me, was there. “Not yet; let’s see who you can talk with.” I had no desk, no boss, and I was pretty sure no one knew why I was there or who I was. Not a great sign.
It got worse a couple of days later, when I was told that my first project would be to produce video for a Web series branded by a car company. Even as a fairly green producer, I knew that this was not good news. I’d traded a gig full of artistic and personal freedom at VICE to now make “branded content”—two words that should make anyone shudder.
I felt trapped and acted accordingly. All of the good advice my dad had given me fell by the wayside in my rush to find a place to stand. Things like “Don’t be the first to speak; listen to the room” no longer applied. I thought I knew better. I thought it was my job to change up the video priorities at the company. Turns out, it wasn’t.
VICE had a “Work hard, play hard” ethos that gleefully went to extremes. That was likely what Yunna was smartly referring to when she said it wasn’t the right environment for me and my drinking. Party as hard as you want—no one will notice or remember your antics because they are all equally blasted. That wasn’t true of my new surroundings, where they definitely noticed.
A couple of months into my new gig, I was in St. Louis on an all-day shoot. After we wrapped I went out with the crew and proceeded to get wine drunk, which led to my slowly but surely blacking out. I woke up the next day with little memory of what had happened the night before. I called Matt, a co-worker, and asked him what our start time was that day. He asked to meet me downstairs. I splashed cold water on my face and headed downstairs.
Matt met me with coffee and asked me to sit down. “Are you okay?” My painted-on smile faltered. “Yeah, a little too much to drink last night, but I’m ready to get back into action and get started shooting today.”
He visibly cringed and said, “Oh, Erin.”
“What?”
“You broke the camera last night. Don’t you remember?”
In that instant it all came rushing back to me. The wine at dinner, the loud car ride home, ordering more wine at the hotel. The camera falling off the table. I had gotten too far out of pocket. No one else had been drunk.
I scrambled out of the lobby in a fit of embarrassment, telling Matt I had to make a phone call. The other producer on the shoot texted me and asked if I could run and get a hard drive, as I had a rental car. I replied, “Yes, of course.” I was on the edge, but I knew if I could just finish a task I would feel better. But where the fuck was the car? I don’t drink and drive as a rule, but I was out of it just enough to not remember where the car had been parked by someone else. I couldn’t ask Matt and look like even more of a mess. I got down on my knees in that godforsaken parking lot and asked the universe for help. But the universe didn’t answer, so I chose the next best thing.
“Hey, Dad.”
“What’s up, Dolly? You sounded blue in your voicemail.”
I cut the bullshit and dove headfirst into the situation.
“I…it just isn’t going well here. I can’t control my drinking on shoots and it got out of hand last night.” I explained the sequence of events, as much as I could remember. I felt panic rising in my chest even as a wave of relief crashed over me. I had put words to the secrets I had been keeping within me.
He listened carefully and then responded: “Listen, I’m really sorry you are going through this. It sucks and I have been there but you need to establish firm boundaries. No drinking on shoots, and honestly you should probably take a break from it altogether. Ask your co-worker where the car is, get the drive, and drink a fuck-ton of water. And then remember you don’t have to live like this.”
I knew he was right, but it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Who gives up booze at twenty-five? I felt like there had to be another way.
At the end of the day I sat in my hotel room and wrote down a list of promises.
I will not drink on shoots.
I will stop crushing on my co-worker and putting him in an uncomfortable position.
I will listen and watch how they do business here and determine a way to insert myself into their organization.
I know how to make great videos and I will show them as such.
I will turn this around.
I returned to New York and headed into work with a new resolve. Each day I flip-flopped between this place of new determination to get the job done well and responsibly, and thinking about what a fuck-up I was. I could not get that moment when I was reminded about the broken camera out of my mind. I would fight to shake it off and boot up version 2.0 of my working self. I showed up early, responded to work emails at all hours of the night, and constantly focused on developing fresh ideas. Slowly, I felt a shift taking place as a result of cutting back on my drinking.
I started working on a film about a topic I knew very little about but which fascinated and horrified me. Having been fed a cultural diet of All the President’s Men, I felt a growing sense of excitement to do work that felt meaningful. Evidence showed that numerous Iraq and Afghanistan vets were coming back from tours with mysterious illnesses, so we traveled across the United States, interviewing soldiers, lawyers, state representatives, and finally a rep from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
I brought the tape back to the edit suite and started combing through the footage. I got pushback from Tim, an editor at the site, about my outline, and I asked him for a meeting. He moved up the time and said we needed to talk right away. I had met Tim before. He was handsome in a bookish way, but also a John Hughes–style jerk—the kind of guy who did push-ups while reading The New Yorker and bragged about it offhand. A real caricature but someone who was above me in the pecking order. We didn’t exactly get along.
I walked in and took a seat on the couch. He stood, stared at me, and said, “I don’t think you should go on the next shoot. I think you should focus on what is in front of you.”
“I can do both.”
“Yeah, well, this is not a suggestion. I am unsure about your ability to manage your time and basically your work ethic overall.” He started to check emails on his phone as he added that he was unsure how long I would be staying at this job.
I was shocked. Sure, you could question my intelligence or storytelling ability, but my work ethic? No way. It was as if he had pinpointed the thing that would throw me the most off-balance. “I am sorry you feel that way. But I’ll be fine.” I turned and left the room, narrowly escaping before the tears arrived.
I sent an email to my dad.
To: David Carr
From: Erin Lee Carr
&nb
sp; Date: 09/10/2013
Subject: Ran into some serious trouble at work
I drafted an outline of the soldier doc and I kept feeling intense and harsh criticism of the draft from the features editor (written editor) of the site. He called a meeting today to discuss and get it out in the open and see how I could fix the problem.
He told me he is worried about the piece and ultimately my work at the site and that if past videos are any indication of what my work looks like i wont last long. he is not my boss and is only one person. I spoke with Stephen and he said we had to call a meeting. that i was brought in to do my version of video and this guy is actively causing me to not be able to do that.
How to proceed?
My dad told me to call him at his desk and he talked me down off the ledge. The next day I received this email:
My money, smart money at that, is on you, this week and always.
Making great content is hard. Making change is harder still
Dad
I didn’t go out on any shoots and instead stayed in New York and worked on the documentary. I knew this one needed to be strong for me to hold on to my job. We finished the piece. My gut told me it was good. I slept for what felt like the first time in a week, crawling into bed after sending the link to the powers that be with the finished film and crashing for nine hours. When I woke up there was a text on my phone from Tim, asking to meet to discuss the piece.
I went into the meeting feeling confident. Tim sat across from me at the conference table and looked down at his notes with his Weezer-style glasses: “One note. It lacks depth.” The piece would need to be overhauled. I disagreed vehemently with his review but could see that the writing was already on the wall. My future looked even more uncertain a few days later when the head honcho requested a one-on-one meeting with me. I once again sent my dad a flare. He told me to meet him at the Times and to bring a notebook.
I saw him from a block away, smoking a cig and pacing back and forth.
“Hi, Dolly, how are you?”
“Not good.”
“Listen, they are not going to ax you; it’s far too early for that, but if they do this is what you say.”
I took a deep breath, realizing that what he was about to tell me was going to come from his firmly established middle-aged perspective and not that of a twenty-five-year-old fuck-up. But I knew he had been a fuck-up himself, so I didn’t interrupt him.
“You better think about what you are about to do before it is too late. You brought me here from a competing organization, a job where I was doing well, and you took me out of there. You put me in an organization that had no room for me, one that didn’t even know I was coming. You set me up to fail. You need to give me a second chance, and we can work from there.”
I looked up at him, his eyes so serious and filled with intent. I wondered if I could deliver such a speech and believe it.
“I’m scared.”
“Yep, that’s normal. Do not let them fuck you here, though. And above all else, do not cry. The criers get nothing.”
I nodded while scribbling it all down.
“I am on deadline right now, but I feel certain that it’ll be okay. Call me the second you get out of that meeting.” He kissed me on top of my head, like he used to do when I was little, and said, “Go. Get ’em.”
I walked back to the building with my head held high, propped up by my new plan. Tim smiled at me as I entered what I would later learn was my firing meeting. It took them an hour and a half to let me go. At the end I repeated my dad’s words and added some of my own. Fifteen minutes later, the editor of the site turned to his number two and asked if they could keep me. Number two shook his head incredulously. “No, this is her firing meeting.” We shook hands as I headed out of the conference room. I knew it had to end politely if severance was going to factor in.
I picked up the five blazers I had piled at my desk along with the rest of my shit, put it in a box, and headed to nearby Bryant Park. I called my dad. This time I was sobbing. He told me to come to Jersey, but I told him I needed to go back to my apartment to have access to my computer to strategize next steps. I called him once I got home and we talked for hours that night, drafting an email to my now-former boss with a plea for severance.
I didn’t swear or name-call but tried to speak honestly. I was fired for my own behavior (breaking the camera, clashing with management) but also because they couldn’t figure out how to work with me. I also knew it was a dicey start-up situation, one where newly hired employees were pitted against aggressive managers who knew little to nothing about the nature of video. I felt livid toward the company and my boss, but mostly toward myself for screwing up such an incredible opportunity so quickly. My former boss at VICE, the one who’d doubted my abilities, turned out to be right. I was a failure.
They responded and agreed to the severance. The last line of the email my now-former boss sent read, “I know you will do great things, sorry it won’t be here.”
I felt a semblance of relief, though it didn’t last long. I woke up the next day with nowhere to go. I wasn’t hungover, but I could definitely have eaten a whole pizza for breakfast. Humiliation ensued when I saw that my work email had been deactivated. There were only three emails in my personal email account, including this one.
To: Erin Lee Carr
From: David Carr
Date: 09/25/2013
Subject: honey
so, so sorry for the kick in the teeth. fucking hurts I know.
I am and have been so proud of you. you are smart, standup, tough and true.
this is ugly, but we have walked through plenty of ugly in our lives and we are still nascent, still rising.
I too, have confronted people who disregarded me, who underestimated, who wooed me and then screwed me. and they were all wrong.
there is a reason it had to be like this that won’t be clear for a long time to come.
please know that you have my support—economically and emotionally—we will row together across this lake of shit and land on firm, welcome shores. I just know it.
I so love you and so sad you are hurting. you are a good person, a hard worker and a good journalist.
david
17
Sometimes You Get Both Barrels
When I was thirteen, seeking my dad’s praise, I sat next to him each and every morning and labored to read the paper. I knew to opt for the Daily News versus The Wall Street Journal, so it wasn’t that much of a struggle. I wanted to be just like him. And he wanted his mentee to be like the mentor. This, however, became less cute when I developed his biting, judgmental side and an inclination to remark on things I knew very little about. We were at odds when my character defects—quite similar to his own, really—began to manifest themselves in small and big ways.
The defects came to a head when I lost a job for the first time. My dad was in my corner, but that didn’t stop him from being terribly disappointed at how it had all turned out. At VICE, I’d been doing work that he and I were both proud of. Now I was just another unemployed kid living in Brooklyn. But if he was nervous, he didn’t show it. I got the severance we asked for and I thought a quick sojourn to our family cabin would be just the right medicine for the gut punch I’d received. I brought my good friend and partial-kissing-bud Derek and hit the road without asking Dad or Jill for permission beforehand.
I called them from the highway to ask where to find the key and how to open the place up. My dad went completely ballistic, yelling that I was selfish and an idiot, among other unkind things. Later, his former co-workers mentioned that my dad was no stranger to fits of anger and/or screaming. I feel like he tried to be less so with his children, but every now and then this deep rage would unleash itself.
I wondered if he was upset because he knew that some of my own poor behavior had led to my firing,
and whether this cabin fight was just his displaced disappointment in me. I knew by this time that his mentorship yielded important results but his expectations of me, his kid, were far too high to be fair or even attainable. He wanted to change media, and he expected that if he put enough time into me I would be able to do the same. When I couldn’t reach those goals, he yelled at me or, worse, ignored me. It wouldn’t last for long, but it stung.
As soon as he started swearing on the phone, I told him I had to go. I couldn’t take the verbal abuse after the week I’d had.
The next day I continued to feel panicky. I couldn’t stand being in conflict with him. I needed him. I sent him an email to clear the air.
To: David Carr
From: Erin Lee Carr
Date: 10/11/2013
Subject: A couple of thoughts
Dad,
First I want to start off by saying that our relationship is deeply important to me. I care about you and am so grateful for the time, energy and knowledge you have bestowed upon me. That’s why moments like last night greatly distress me. I will own up to the fact that I fucked up. I should have emailed or called in advance, like an adult, and asked permission to use the cabin and for details on how to properly open and close it. I did not do that. And for that I am sorry. But then we started arguing, you raised your voice and swore at me. I do not believe my behavior warranted that. You said that I am a bad friend and daughter, that I have my head up my ass. Instead of talking about the issue at hand, we went on to discuss my character failings within the family. I know that I have always been the “selfish” child, a moniker that I used to deserve. The argument we had last night made me feel so small and powerless, I know that you do not love me any less, but it sincerely broke me down in a way where I am already feeling so broken and like a failure. I would hope that you remember that I am human, that I am trying and that I love the family that I am part of. Jill told me that she is “marking this down,” I hope that you guys have marked down the ways I have helped the family in addition to the ways I’ve let you down. I am sorry I couldn’t speak to you on the phone about this. I, like other members of our family am better with written words.
All That You Leave Behind Page 10
