You know Ari Gold from Entourage? Yea. well I worked for him.
Not the real Ari Gold, not even Jeremy Piven… or someone who looked like him- just someone who was a complete asshole like him.
When I was first hired, I was ecstatic. I had met Ari on my second interview and he seemed the perfect balance of seasoned and funny. He talked fast- and highly sarcastic- but nonetheless seemed like a ‘likable’ guy… I mean come on- Ari Gold cracks you up doesn’t he?
The first few weeks he spent telling me all about his wedding planning (that poor woman) and ‘inside scoop’ on some of Hollywood’s A-listers that he knew because of previous work ‘in the industry’…
Like for instance, did you know that its rumored that Travolta is gay? According to Ari he is… or that there may (or may not) have been something that went down between Tom Cruise and Rob Thomas (of Matchbox 20)? … I mean Rob freakin’ Thomas? … Who knew their circles would ever run together? … Talk about random.
These tales of being a Hollywood insider could have been my 1st clue, but I was young, impressionable and he was the ‘cool’ , experienced boss. Looking back however, the 1st real red flag should have been thrown up when I accidentally found out he changed his last name…. like recently…like – right-before-he-started-this-job-recently.
“Who is Ari Bubblestein?”
“Me. I had a bad relationship with my father- it was a real mental trauma carrying his last name- anyway- we don’t use it -EVER… ok?”
I know. How did this not seem odd to me that a man would change his name at 30-something? I don’t know.
Ari had a trend of NEVER arriving before 11:30 A.M., he seemed “important” so I figured it was just one of the perks and then with a 9am phone call one morning, I somehow turned into his straight-female version of Lloyd.
“Listen ask one of the women in Accounting if you can sit at their desk til’ I get in”
“What?”
“You need to be in front of my office in case {CEO} walks by and asks where I am”
“uh?”
“Just do it- and if anyone asks — Ari’s on his way back from a meeting. ANY-TIME anyone ever asks for me this is what you say”
“umm”
“Great. See you at noon”
{{ WTF ? }}
Oh! I went over to accounting alright… to talk about how bat-sh*t crazy this man was. I learned that apparently, I was the only one clued-out to this man’s insanity.
He was the director of “New Business”, of which he brought in none. And these “Ari-isms” just grew more and more wacky.
He would schedule meetings, everyone including the company SVPs would carve out time and show up… well except Ari. When we would get in touch with him his reply would be something like:
“Ok, … I told them what the meeting needed to be about, I scheduled a time for them to discuss it…. Do I need to hold their hands too?”
Yes, it was insanity at its finest.
He would take trips all over the place on the company’s dime for “meetings”… to which it was always my job to do the follow up with some RANDOM Tchotchke that held some sort of significance (in his mind anyway) to the conversation HE had with the person.
Seriously. Random.
“One-black-sock-and-a-guide-to-NYC-only sold-at-a-small-cafe-in-Canada-circa-1967”-kind of random.
When I finally told him how certifiable he was- he started screaming at me. I hung up. Walked into HR and gave my 2wks notice. The HR woman felt terrible and told me she wanted to place me in another division of the firm.
He got word of my notice & the possible move and …. ready for this??…..
INSTANT MESSAGED ME AT HOME to TELLING me to go to HR in the morning and say I didn’t want to stay for my last 2 wks. or be placed else where in the company … because “lets be honest, its not comfortable for us to be in the same office” … amongst many other harassing, crazy things- on Instant Messenger.
So in the morning, I walked into HR- and handed them the print out of the conversation. The last 2 wks in New Business were actually a breeze because Ari just refused to speak to me- which was LOVELY.
Then when my 2wks was up. I moved to the other division— where my team answered directly to…
Do we see a trend here with Adrien Grenier?
who would fall asleep in meetings, but that’s a blog post in itself.
Oh! and yes, Ari eventually got fired… though I can’t imagine why?
(This post was written participating in Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop)
