tymshft

Mail room continued – what will happen at William Morris?

I’m getting perilously close to hitting the blogging “three strikes” rule.

What is worse than an Inland Empire blogger writing about Australia and failing to mention Mildura?

A Southern California blogger writing about the mailroom and failing to mention Hollywood.

You see, it’s a pretty safe bet that more people care about Hollywood than care about Mildura – despite the fact that Hollywood Boulevard doesn’t have an impressive median.

Of course, mailrooms and Hollywood have been connected for some time:

There are plenty of stories about the Hollywood mailroom, and many of them are true. But nothing has captured the popular imagination like the story of the mailroom-clerk-turned-media-mogul — so much so that at most agencies, starting in the mailroom is now official policy. No more the fabled first stop for a scrappy immigrant with big dreams. Today’s Hollywood mailroom is an incubator for new college graduates with good pedigrees and even better connections.

But one would think that technological change would hit Hollywood just like everywhere else, and that people would start sending their scripts via e-mail. What will William Morris Endeavor, United Talent Agency, and Creative Artists Agency do when there is no mail to deliver? It turns out that mailroom staff have other duties:

Yes, clerks actually deliver mail, making the rounds of the agency’s floors at least every hour to pick up scripts, contracts and DVDs that need to be whisked away to stars’ mansions in Malibu. But former mailroom workers also tell of doing lunch runs, walking agents’ dogs, washing agents’ cars, picking out Valentine’s Day cards for their wives, or photocopying an entire book.

Now even if the mail and the books go electronic, people will still need lunch, dogs will still need to be walked (I don’t think dogs will respond to Roombas), and cars will still need to be washed (even if they drive themselves).

Of course, Hollywood will still refer to the mailroom as the “mailroom,” even when there is no mail. Because.