Fresh out of the Academy, top 40% of my class, and I land the Enterprise. The flagship. I cried in the turbolift. Happy tears, this was the best day of my life but god damn it it’s become a nightmare!
First day, there's a man with a boom mic in the Jefferies tube. Nobody acknowledges him. I asked Lieutenant Barclay about it and he just whispered "don't look at the lens" and backed into a bulkhead!
.
There are lighting rigs on the bridge. There is a makeup trailer on Deck 8. Commander Riker goes in there for forty minutes before every shift and comes out with the exact same beard. I've timed it. Forty minutes. Every day. Same beard, like dude! Why do you need to spend so much time in makeup?
Last Tuesday I reported for duty and caught two production guys stuffing rocks into my console. Actual rocks. When I asked why, they said "for when it explodes." WHEN. Not if. I've since learned this is why every console on this ship detonates like a piñata full of gravel the second we take a hit. They said it adds dramatic effect! Is this a working starship or some trash reality Tv show!
Then there's the retakes. I tried to hand Commander Data my end-of-shift report and had to do it four times because the director felt Data's reaction was "too robotic." He's an android. That's the whole thing. That's his entire deal. By take four Data had been told to "find the humanity in the moment" and he just stared at me for eleven seconds and said "Fascinating." Director loved it. I missed dinner.
But the worst? Crises. You all remember last month's Borg incident. The captain gets abducted, the Federation is facing extinction, and the director's first question is "can we get a crew on the cube?" Do you know what it's like negotiating a filming release with the Collective? They don't have a legal department. They ARE the legal department. All of them. At once. We eventually got sign-off on the condition that they approve the final cut, and now there's a Borg drone with an editing credit.
The captain doesn't even remember that part. He does remember the lighting being "unflattering."
Anyway, I hear they're building a new ship, the Intrepid class. Small crew, short-range missions, close to home. That's my exit. A quiet life, far from cameras, where nothing interesting ever happens.
