Jimmy Fallon is the latest television host to face toxic workplace allegations
Jimmy Fallon's "erratic" behavior fostered an unhealthy environment behind the scenes of The Tonight Show, say employees
Aux News Workplace
Is it possible to run a daily television program without succumbing to workplace toxicity? In the last few years, we’ve seen exposés from the sets of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Kelly Clarkson Show, and Dr. Phil, featuring accusations of bullying leadership styles and deteriorating mental health among staffers. The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon can now be added to that number, as more than a dozen current and former staff members from that show have spoken to Rolling Stone about a culture of fear and anxiety behind the scenes that largely stems from Jimmy Fallon’s own “erratic” behavior.
The employees described the uncertainty as to whether Fallon would come to work cheerful and friendly or belligerent and mean, which would affect how everyone would behave in the office. Writers revealed degrading feedback from the host on their jokes (“Ugh, lame. What is going on with you? You’ve outdone yourself”) and some staffers recalled witnessing him scold or belittle crew members.
Tabloid rumors have long alleged Fallon has a problem with alcohol; though he has denied it, some of the employees who spoke with Rolling Stone alleged witnessing him appear inebriated or even smelling alcohol on his breath on different occasions in 2017, 2019, and 2020. Eight employees said that “Fallon’s behavior seemed to be dependent on if he appeared to be hungover from the night before.”
The show has also suffered from high turnover in upper-level staff, with nine different showrunners over the course of nine years. Employees allege that the showrunners, too, were often bullies (“We’re just eating a lot today and not caring about what we look like?” one reportedly said to staffers). These whistleblowers say they found no recourse with human resources, and one staffer was even privy to emails between HR and a showrunner where the HR representative denigrated the employee to their boss.
“They are the worst bosses I’ve ever had in my life. They use that position of power to bully and treat the staff that way, and the network is aware of how they treat people. They not only continue to enable it, but they reward it,” one ex-employee said. Many attested to their mental health deteriorating, with three claiming to have experienced suicidal ideation as a result of the job. “Mentally, I was in the lowest place of my life. I didn’t want to live anymore. I thought about taking my own life all the time,” said another ex-employee. “I knew deep down I would never actually do it, but in my head, I’m like, ‘Why do I think about this all the time?’”
Rolling Stone notes that none of the ex-showrunners contacted for the piece offered statements of support, and a statement from NBC didn’t even mention Fallon by name. “We are incredibly proud of The Tonight Show, and providing a respectful working environment is a top priority. As in any workplace, we have had employees raise issues; those have been investigated and action has been taken where appropriate,” the statement reads. “As is always the case, we encourage employees who feel they have experienced or observed behavior inconsistent with our policies to report their concerns so that we may address them accordingly.” You can read the full piece for yourself here.
284 Comments
These so called toxic workplaces just sound like workplaces from my experience.
you should try to find better work environments then.
Exactly! Did these people think they we joining summer camp or something? It’s a business! Not everyone is going to be your bestie. Not everyone is going to praise you every time do or say something you perceive as great. Not every one is going to be chipper to you in the morning. You’re going to run into different personalities. Everyone has good and bad days. The hours are always going to be long and hard; it’s not a 9-5 job. If you can’t handle even the tiniest of criticism, then clearly show business is not for you. These people whining about “toxic” workplaces need to either get a backbone or just quit.
I think my grandpa was right that my generation couldn’t have taken Iwo Jima.
Nobody is as tough as their own grandfather –
Sylvester Stallone
All those grandfathers: I hate the tortures of my life, I work hard so my children and their children can have easier lives and not spend their entire lives at work with broken backs and end up on a deathbed full of regrets.Those grandchildren: I wish I worked 18 hour days in a cannery to get tough!
Have taken Iwo Jima?? Your generation couldn’t finish boot camp. Drill Sergeant, I need a time out. Then a hug.
I think we could have. Iwo Jima made your grandpa okay with being treated like shit at work.
Seriously Gabriel Martin, could you please explain that?
The world needs generations that would never start an Iwo Jima.
I’ve never seen that show.
I love how people take “I’d like it if my bosses weren’t outright mean to me” to mean “I want everyone to be my bestie and I want everyone to praise me every time I do or say something I perceive as great.”
it’s literally professionalism.
Right I actually feel sorry for handclap that he’s been brainwashed to believe he doesn’t deserve a basic level of respect and professionalism in the workplace.
Yeah…that does kind of hit you in the face like a wet fish.
There’s a difference between being, say, unhappy with the standard of someone’s work and bringing that up in a professional way and criticising people for their eating habits for no goddamned reason. The fact that you can’t see that is deeply concerning.
Or we could hold toxic people’s feet to the fire and try to make things better for everyone. Getting shit on by higher ups isn’t a badge of honor and no one is giving you a metal for eating shit.
Hey it’s one of those people that have convinced themselves it’s okay if their boss and co-workers treat them like shit. It’s a business after all!
Yep—also, those are the kinds of people who, soon as they have any authority, are shit to anybody below them.
Yeah I just got off the “justify why we should keep you here” call. My buddy went full Office Space on the VP, “You couldn’t do my job, I’m a people person!” The Exec VP did an analogy comparing employees to her children, which fuck you literally we are two years removed from record profit, and have reduced it overhead by 60% due to optimization. The profitability targets are 15% off. Not that the company is losing money just 15% less profit than goals. Anyway fuck Jimmy Fallon.
“These so called toxic workplaces just sound like workplaces from my experience.”
That’s correct. Toxic workplaces don’t only exist in Hollywood.
I’m pretty much done of having to care about elite workplaces. And wanting to “kill themselves” is def a problem not one sided.
You don’t “have” to care about anything. And empathy isn’t a finite resource.
You are so close to getting it.
I must have misread the comment because I thought this was them getting it: shitty workplaces are the absolute norm, because capitalism rewards toxic trash behavior. I’m never surprised to hear that any workplace is toxic anymore.
Your experience sounds shitty. I’ve never had one like that. That’s not normal.
I have had a few like that. I find it interesting that when people make a comment like OPs here, more people tend to agree with them than not. So, yeah, it actually does sound kind of normal. The difference with these situations in the article, with Ellen and the like, is in how the workplace culture revolves around a singular person. Plenty of people have had a boss that is an asshole but we know that asshole has assholes above him as well and they are on their own kind of leash so we don’t have to always take them seriously. You let them talk. It goes in one ear and out the other and you get back to work. Here, everything revolves around these personalities and their needs and wants and without people keeping them in check along with their supposed necessity, it can get out of hand. what is needed of you or expected from you can change on a day-by-day basis. Couple that with these being jobs people actually want to be a part of, not just a thing you do to make money, People will allow themselves to get shit more than they can handle.
I’ve had a few experiences like that.I quit those jobs after having had enough.
Sounds like you’ve exclusively worked for shitty employers.
Innit.
I once had a boss who you could tell within about ten seconds of coming in in the morning if it was going to be a good day or a bad day.
I’m sorry you’ve worked in so many toxic workplaces.But your tolerance/bad decisions aren’t a good reason for everyone else to put up with toxicity.
I work at a place that is so kind now (and a little bit too calm), but most of my previous jobs sound just like the environments that Ellen, Jimmy, Lizzo, etc. foster(ed). I rarely took it personally and when I did, I considered it to be paying my dues.
I empathize, to an extent, with these employees. At the same time, I’ve dealt with actual abuse, outside of the work environment, and maybe some (not all) of these people need to let it roll off their backs. I don’t know the whole Lizzo story but it sounds like there was nudity and stuff, so that one seems a bit different.
No kidding. I feel like I could go back in time and sue my boss at my first job in a grocery store decades ago because she once told me to get back to work after taking a few minutes too long on my break. Or my second summer job in a hot warehouse because it was hot.
Oppressed workers class: No, we’re not oppressed! We love capital when they scream at us and so should you!Its incredible how many people accept not only their surplus labor stolen from them but also accept being abused as part of the “deal.”
Then you’ve worked in some fucked up places.
Didn’t there used to be a commenter on this site who went by that name? 9Showrunners9Years? They seemed okay.
Sounds familiar.
the fallon staffers sound like a bunch of babies
Jimmy goddamn Fallon is making fun of OTHER people for not being funny?
I mean, Jimmy Fallon is laughing at Jimmy Fallon’s jokes so…
Didn’t Tracy Morgan warn Jimmy Fallon once that if he pulled any shit during his performance thst he’d fuck him up so he didn’t? Which means all that fucking around with other people was him deliberately being a self-aggrandising asshole?
Just look at his time on SNL, he was constantly laughing throughout sketches, taking attention away from the rest of the cast.
“Didn’t Tracy Morgan warn Jimmy Fallon once that if he pulled any shit during his performance thst he’d fuck him up so he didn’t?”
Considering that Morgan broke almost as much as Fallon and Horatio Sanz did, I fucking doubt it.
It’s definitely mostly an act. He thinks breaking gives him a sort of “aw, shucks” vibe that’s charming. Really it just ruins whatever he’s in and is annoying as hell.
That’s the rumor. Specifically, Morgan called out Fallon for his corpsing (aka breaking) and calling attention to himself in skits by laughing even when Fallon was just in the background and not delivering lines. Here’s the quote from Morgan that’s usually cited: “laughing and all that dumb shit he used to do. He wouldn’t mess with me because I didn’t fucking play that shit. That’s taking all the attention off of everybody else and putting it on you, like, ‘Oh, look at me, I’m the cute one.’ I told him not to do that shit in my sketches, so he never did.”
You can see the contrast in *every* incarnation of that insipid Christmas Song: Tracy knows the humor lies in how seriously you play it, while Fallon cracks up like a cute widdle naughty boy.
It’s been long suspected, yes. Lending credence to that is that he’s utterly fake in his TV show and has incredibly exaggerated reactions to every single joke. One of the weirdest things is him getting unreasonably upset about Rami Malek grabbing his hand on the Tonight Show during a bit, he doesn’t say it but he looks just fucking pissed off and after seeing that it’s impossible for me to imagine what Real Fallon even is like.
Seriously! I can’t think of another SNL alumnus who is less funny than Jimmy Fallon. Now, we find out he is an asshole as well. What a tool.
Jimmy Fallon calling you unfunny is like Hitler calling you racist. Though in total I believe Hitler may be a little more self-aware than Fallon.
Well, yeah. He doesn’t want them stealing his bit.
Hey yoh?
Behind the scenes? I feel a measure of trauma every time I try to youtube a sequence from his show. No thanks.
If a hungover Jimmy Fallon calling your joke “lame” is enough to make you contemplate suicide, maybe give it some serious consideration.
Hey, maybe you can give some serious consideration of fucking yourself.
Sadly, not even he would fuck him.
I’ll bet you furiously typed that with tears streaming down your face into a puddle of misery at your feet. Life is tough.
I’ll fuck myself if you apply for MAiD
Hey, man, I’m just a big proponent of MAID. All I’m sayin’ is that someone driven to the precipice by a mild criticism from the least funny TV host in recent memory is in for a life of suffering. I just want to remind people there is another option.
(this comment was brought to you by the government of Canada)
“MAID”?You just sound like a small-time bully to me.And as an American who had to live four years with a BIG-time bully? You’re not worth the effort to do more than mildly insult….
No no no! We must now pander to and coddle the weak.
If you just shut up, how are you coddling or pandering to anyone?
Nah instead we’re going to coddle and pander to toxic assholes who make work environments miserable bc shitheads like you think one day you’ll be the top asshole.
The weak people seem to be the ones that have decided it’s okay for the people they work with to treat them poorly
What are you, a boomer trump lover talking about how great your generation was? It takes more courage to speak up against a toxic workplace then go with the flow What was your first job? A lion tamer by the sound of you? Give me a break. Go drink it off.
Wow, I sure feel the power of your Swollen Chest Manliness now ::snicker!:: “Vici-” ::snort!:: “Vicious R-” ::gigglesnort!:: “Vic ::snort!:: ious Rea-” ::bursts into uncontrollable laughter::I swear, I haven’t laughed so much since Ben Garrison tried convincing people Donald Trump didn’t look like a bright-orange spoiled manbaby…!
Cool, do you often tell depressed people maybe they should kill themselves?Eat shit and die pal, any person with a normal level of intelligence understands that someone doesn’t become suicidal just by one single nasty comment. So fuck you for either being deliberately obtuse, or just fucking stupid as all hell.
Are you deliberately obtuse or just like feigning outrage at the drop of a hat? Did you even read the actual Rolling Stone article ? The person being interviewed said that they weren’t suicidal. “I knew deep down I would never actually do it, but in my head, I’m like, ‘Why do I think about this all the time?’”
You’re the one who sounds obtuse. Ever heard of sarcasm or saying things in jest?
I know it’s hard for sociopaths to understand these things, but sarcastically saying someone should kill themselves = just being an asshole, at best.“Jestingly” saying someone should kill themselves = not a joke. Where’s the fucking punchline? Jokes are meant to be funny, there’s zero funny here. You just end up bullying that person and again, being an asshole.This marks the end of your basic human relations lesson.
“Eat shit and die pal”“So fuck you for either being deliberately obtuse, or just fucking stupid as all hell.”“Being an asshole”
When do you get into advanced human relations lessons?
You think there’s some sort of equivalency going on here but there’s really not, because you see, I’m not the one suggesting a person who they merely consider vaguely annoying should commit friggin suicide.Sheesh, you socially maladjusted people are really coming out of the woodworks today aren’t you.
No, no sort of equivalency going on. The op just said something really dumb. You’re a punk and an internet tough guy. Unless I’m way wrong and you regularly tell people to their faces to eat shit and die. And routinely tell strangers to their faces- fuck you. In that case I apologize. But no equivalency
I’ve never ever had someone I’ve talked to in real life casually suggest that someone who hasn’t done anything outrageous whatsoever should consider killing themselves, so I’ve never had the chance to tell them to eat shit and die. This just isn’t a thing normal people say, especially (as some here have claimed) “as a joke”.So no, screw you, I’m not a punk.
Look at you and your virtue signaling. You really fixed the internet comments today, didn’t you?
It has been my observation that the only people who use the expression “virtue signalling” in a serious fashion are complete and utter douchebags.Also, don’t appear to actually have any themselves….Incidentally you seem to fit both patterns.
Okay buddy, time to go back to your Safe Space. The world is a little to real out there for you. Back to Imagination Land.
Your troll-fu is weak, pimples. Try to outgrow your Batman underwear first before trying to play with the big boys.
I’ve been trolling since before you were born, son. You’ll KNOW when I’m trolling.
I’d say you were joking, but your jokes aren’t good either… You’re just not good at anything are you. That’s why you’re wasting your time writing mediocre crap like the above. REAL trolling isn’t repeating bullshit far right culture war talking points, you’d know this if you were worth your salt. Which you clearly aren’t.Just give up and go home. You’re not cut out for this.
Okay Internet Daddy, I’ll go home. I was trying to get you to quit the internet, I only managed to get you really upset and angry. Maybe next time!
lol You only ever managed to get me mildly amused, failtroll.
You just keep digging that hole deeper, Trumper Mean Sam Ang!I’m sure you’ll eventually get to the prison cell your God and Master has waiting for him eventually….
Aww, it’s the chickenshit Bully Trainee!It’s almost…adorable how you stand up for abusers—Sorry, did I say “adorable”? I meant contemptible—just like Trump stains stans.
Huh. I thought it was funny.
Yeah, I mean, there’s people who piss themselves laughing at fart jokes too.
You have an unhealthy sense of humor, there all.
THEY ARE A VICTIM AND YOU WILL DO YOUR BEST TO CODDLE THEM
Shut the fuck up you useless cunt.
2/10 would not bag
I’ve heard of “punching down”, DTM.It’s a common tactic of bullies and bigots.So…which one are you…?
Criticize someone of (clearly jokingly) telling someone to kill themselves followed immediately by you telling that same person to “eat shit and die”. Hilarious irony!Eat shit and die (eventually of unrelated natural causes).
shut up, pussy, nobody cares about the stupid ass opinion of a crazy person
How cruel!
Go literally fuck yourself.
Remember when people used to be able to sense humor?I like your comment.
seems pretty tame
I’m still amazed, all these years later, that this vaguely funny man got this gig in the first place.
Wow, it’s almost as if these high-stress environments expose people who don’t respond well to stress.
Perhaps a milquetoast late-night show should not even BE a high-stress environment
Honestly, it’s not even that deep. The easiest way to relieve the pressure in that kind of work environment is to hire more people. But that cuts into profits, so instead we pretend that running that business is not for the weak, which is detrimental to everyone involved.
“a milquetoast late-night show” isn’t a contextually germane description“a product which makes a lot of money” is
A product that is making lots of money is only high stress for those with lots of money to lose, and those peopke aren’t the ones being treated like shit.
Creative people do not make good bosses.
Creative….? That word and Fallon do not belong together.
“Creative people”
We’re talking about Jimmy Fallon.
I’ve heard that Michael Schur is a great boss and is certainly a creative person.
Alcoholic bosses are normal!
Producing a tv show that makes ‘have you heard about this…’ jokes shouldn’t be that high stress. It ain’t that serious.
They’re not curing cancer. They’re producing content aimed at a populace that think angels are real. It should be the most enjoyable job imaginable.
Could anyone have predicted that Jimmy Fucking Fallon would somehow host the Tonight Show for [check notes] almost ten years!? He’s such an insufferable hack, who is watching him?
He’s the poster child for failing upwards.
NASA is investigating how to use his upward failure as a renewable solid rocket fuel. They say they’ve never seen anything propel anything so far, so fast, from virtually nothing
He shares that poster with Carson Daly, IMHO.
I thought that was Elon Musk or, *shudder*, the last US president?
Peter Principle. IN ACTION.
Every Millennial working at Starbucks and Sephora should aspire to his standard.
Oh god. You’ve just made me realize he’s the Tom Wambsgans of late night TV, with a healthy dose of Cousin Greg sprinkled over the top for good measure.
Indeed. Of course, there is an army of staff supporting him. And they are having to be twice as effective as otherwise, just to limp the show to its very modest goals.
I feel like networks are petrified of taking chances on late-night hosts, so they go for the most bland, milquetoast people they can find so grandma won’t be offended and will continue to repost clips on Facebook. It’s a completely dead genre, unfortunately.
We need another Craig Ferguson. <3 <3 <3
I was a huge ‘Colbert Report’ fan so I was excited when Colbert went to CBS. But even he’s become bland and boring.
It really is. I don’t like later-day David Letterman but his morning show was bizarre and hilarious and I was surprised that he graduated so quickly. O’Brien’s show will probably be the last great late night show. A shit-talking dog muppet, a masterbating bear (bear-baiting?)? Fallon surely was not meant to be the logical extension of such work.
Yet another mediocre man cheered on by other mediocre men.
…who is watching him?That is the real question.This former cultural touchstone is just a shadow of its former self and nobody cares.Most viewers are just people who fell asleep during the local news.
“He’s such an insufferable hack, who is watching him?”I mean…the same people who watched Jay Leno and didn’t watch Conan O’Brien. Not surprising that Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon share a fanbase.
Nope. Leno wan not a woke asshole democrat like the no talent fallon.
Really, how many asses did he kiss to get that role. They had Conan that is actually funny, but they said na, lets get the guy that can’t even finish a line on SNL.
Just one, Lorne Michaels.
he went for the main starfish
Boomers still watch network TV, and there are still a lot of them.
Roots fans?
Absolutely not.
I’ll be honest. I can’t stand him as the host of The Tonight Show, but I do love his sketches with Justin Timberlake (also Andy Samberg’s) from SNL.
Despite not caring about late night shows at all (with the one notable exception of Craig Ferguson’s Late Late Show, which I still like to watch), I’ve been listening to the Strike Force Five podcast, and Fallon is EASILY the weakest link.
As opposed to [check notes] Jay Fucking Leno?
The same people who watched Leno.
Having finished eating world, Jimmy is now fucking Fallon.
Thank you, I thought I was the only one who could not stand this fucking annoying imbecile manchild. Just watching his imbecile mug makes me puke.
I’ve worked in live television for 21 years and I can say this type of behavior and other bullying behaviors are very common at all levels. Especially during a broadcast or taping. Live TV is a high stress environment and producers or directors will just let whatever fly from their mouths in the heat of the moment and the crew is expected to just absorb it and act like nothing happened after the show is over. It’s almost understood coming out of school that those things are going to happen and if you don’t know that, you’re going to find out very quickly. You need an incredibly thick skin in TV or you’re not going to last long.
Another clown who got popular off of other peoples’ writing accused of being a POS. I’m shocked.
“We were very concerned about cancel culture at NBC due to Jimmy’s erratic behavior…in other words, Jimmy was so seldom funny we were constantly worried about the show being cancelled…he’d make Taxi 2 with Iggy Azalea but what would happen to us?” It’s likely that his drinking and berating comes as a result of well-deserved insecurity, it’s amazing they gave The Tonight Show to this fatuous asshat. They are probably going to keep him on the air until it’s clear if Trump will get elected because he’s the only one who would bow to the regime.
I think this contradicts that idea:https://www.avclub.com/trans-comic-patti-harrison-had-some-sick-burns-for-trum-1798264494
This is what happens when you give a humorless dweeb a little bit of power
Aww, poor baby got their feelings hurt.
Yet more reason we should be praising Seth Meyers and almost everything he’s involved in. (Except for his stint as Weekend Update host.) I fucking love his show; I’m currently missing it so hard. He does the ONLY funny Trump parody, and basically made the “tears running down his face” joke.
Fallon’s “funniness” is grating, no matter how congenial and guileless he seems. It couldn’t have happened to a less funny guy!
In general ‘Workplace’ = ‘toxic’. No one really wants to be in a workplace, but they HAVE to, you know, to make some money.
This has been an open secret for years. I know multiple people who worked at that place, and boy does it sound like it sucks.
Never forget that Lorne Michaels’ entire strategy for taking over the Tonight show for NBC was to hire a host so talentless that they would never take over the show (like Carson, O’Brien or even Leno) and be able to bilk NBC out of a huge amounts of money. Fallon is there for one reason, he is utterly replaceable. Not a single viewer or member of staff would care for one minute. And everyone there (including Fallon) knows it.
Doesn’t that assume Jimmy Fallon has enough self-awareness to “know” anything…?I don’t think he even knows how utterly talentless he is.
It seems that “toxic workplace” is now merely a catch all term for places, people and industries that are both high stress and trying to maintain “high standards” (yes, that last term is subjective, clearly).Maybe for some of these folks, “showbiz” just isn’t for them. Not new that this industry is high stress and high turnover.
“Maybe for some of these folks, “showbiz” just isn’t for them.”
I agree, Jimmy Fallon *should* find another line of work.
One of the first rules of being funny is “know the room.” Yes, we all know people (and sometimes co-workers) who can handle these kinds of jokes and attitudes, but it doesn’t mean that everyone should be subjected to them.
“Not new that this industry is high stress and high turnover.”That doesn’t make it not toxic just because it isn’t new. Look at the history of the industry. Just riddled—RIDDLED—with drug and alcohol abuse, sex abuse, suicide, institutionalization, and so on. Any industry that produces all that at such high numbers I think can fairly be called “toxic.”
It’d be just as easy to look at the same history and decide that the entertainment industry is particularly attractive to people with mental health issues. I imagine that, like many things, the truth is somewhere in the middle.
I mean, maybe, except even if that’s true, if you are one of the few who don’t have mental health issues, or even if you do, and you’re surrounded by people who do have mental health issues treating people like shit either because of their mental health issues or because they are just assholes, it’s still toxic. The mental health issues, if that’s a major culprit here, could be both the cause and the effect.
I like riddles.
The fact that high-stress workplaces are often toxic does not mean that they HAVE to be.
saying someone’s joke is lame isn’t toxic abuse
Your boss comes in with a hangover every day?
other industries have procedures and investigations in place to deal with toxic workplaces, it seems you have to go to the media in entertainment to actually have things heard.
Idk. Its left out here but apparently he started berating an employee in front of Seinfeld during an interview and Seinfeld made him apologize to the employee in front of him. If you have someone else in the industry so offended by your behavior that they do that, you are probably doing too much.
If Seinfeld calls you out for being an asshole…then you are as SERIOUS FUCKING ASSHOLE.
And that someone else is Seinfeld.
I work in a high stress environment. It’s a detox centre that deals with highly volatile clients, lots of time-sensitive issues, and confidential information that we have to be very careful about managing. But the people I work with are still able to treat each other with professionalism and compassion. No workplace needs to be toxic.
I live in a place where the majority of the population works for the government and, I must say, that’s quite remarkable. It is quietly volatile and unconfidential af so, of course, everyone is paranoid. HIPAA is virtually non-existant too. Most of the people working in our hospitals and clinics know everyone’s business and they’ll give out info to nearly anyone who calls asking after a patient (presumabley a relative). It’s every kind of toxic and always has been.
I’m in Australia. It’s not perfect but our healthcare system is pretty good, and at one point my state’s in particular was world class.
I’m quite sure of that. If I were 18 again, I’d emigrate so fast. Personally I wouldn’t be in such a bad situation if it were not for our sh*t healthcare system and I know a good portion of the populace feel the same. I had hoped there would be a shake up during the pandemic, but no. I’m dealing with Long Covid but I know folks who have been entirely disabled by it and the gov doesn’t GAF.
“Ugh, lame. What is going on with you? You’ve outdone yourself”Oooohh wow.. what blistering criticism. How is this person going to make it home without crying? He should really go with “Oh my god, that was great but we can’t use it. Yeah, really good effort. I love your energy. It’s so great but -just- not great enough. You ok, though? I mean this is gold it’s just you know we want even more gold! GOOD WORK giving us that less than perfect gold though. I know you’ll get a good one in next time. Hey, let’s all go out for ice cream!”
Look honestly Toxic bosses are awful. But if 👆 is the worst that the guy has said…. and this is a professional environment with creatives who are in the business of pitching ideas, 90% of which are going to get ripped apart during the writers room process….. I mean sorry for not immediately thinking this has merit. Again, if guy is showing up to work and being belligerent and abusive, lambast the guy, but if calling a joke lame is the new low bar for critique…. i mean…. ooookay. IF he’s doing this day in and day out to the same person and not just laying them off, and if he’s targeting people, hey I’m with you in wanting him gone. But seriously, at most this quote is mildly crappy.
“Ugh, lame. What is going on with you? You’ve outdone yourself” “Oh my god, that was great but we can’t use it. Yeah, really good effort. I love your energy. It’s so great but -just- not great enough. You ok, though? I mean this is gold it’s just you know we want even more gold! GOOD WORK giving us that less than perfect gold though. I know you’ll get a good one in next time. Hey, let’s all go out for ice cream!” Great point. There’s simply NOTHING in between two options. There’s no way there’s any kind of reasonable response that ISN’T cuddling them or openly shitting on their work.
Jesus, the kind of people defending this shit who don’t realize THEY should leave THEIR job is it’s worse than this. For fuck’s sake, you sad sacks of shit, get a fucking life and stop defending assholes.
Imagine your boss saying that to you. Seriously, think about being at work and hearing that, especially if it happened in front of co-workers. Now imagine both not respecting your boss AND also being aware that they could have you fired on a whim, meaning that even reacting negatively to being mocked could mean losing your job. Now imagine going into work every day, wondering if you were going to have to deal with that. There’s a difference, a BIG difference between blunt criticism from a supervisor that you respect (and behaves consistently) and one that you don’t.
What you just described is every job I have ever had and yet somehow I survived.
So what you’re saying is that you are a weak little bitch who never stands up for himself and takes all the shit his bosses shovel their way.
Ow!
Ow!
Ow!I don’t know about Mr. Tough-Guy Jigg72, but I need ice for that sick burn, Sgt-Makak!
Congratulations. That means nothing.
You’re not stronger or better than anyone because you’ve decided it’s okay for people to treat you like shit
I’m not even implying that. I’m just saying bluntly that this isn’t some crazy awful language. It’s mildly rude.
Do you want a medal or a chest to pin it on, Jiggs72…?
Not for nothing, but Seth Meyers has an entire segment where he trots out bad joke attempts from his staff and makes fun of the writers by name to the audience. However, it seems this type of exposure is getting his writers known positively, and that they’re usually much, much better, and that it’s more of a “can you believe a reliable comedy writer wrote this?!” kind of vibe.
I’ve seen the segment multiple times and he does it very good-naturedly in the way that you said. It really helps give character to the writers you don’t usually see, and it never seems like he’s using it as a gratuitous punching bag.
i would just tell my boss he was being an asshole, because i am not a bitch
I don’t have to imagine this. It’s happened, for sure.
I mean, it’s completely useless criticism. It might not be the most blistering dressing down anyone has ever received, but it’s immature, negative and totally unconstructive. If that’s the general tenor of feedback, yeah, I’d call it a bad work environment.
How about just “I don’t think that joke’s quite there yet because [reason], take another pass at it”? Like, something that is actually constructive and useful rather than acting like a fucking five year old? No one’s saying people need to be wrapped in cotton wool, but if a boss of mine had a problem with my work, I’d expect an explanation of what was missing and what they expected me to fix.
Yeah like the key in doing any kind of entertainment stuff is, don’t make it personal. It’s enough to say “That’s not working for me” or if you have more specific critiques, vocalize those.
At this point I would love an article about a talk show that was a great place to work and didn’t’ make people want to kill themselves.
I hear the Betty White show was pretty close to an ideal place to work back in the day.
We never heard a bad word about Betty.
betty white told my grandma she was a fat cunt and needed to lose ten pounds by next week
lolol
Your Grandmother was Doris Day?
If I ever hear anything bad about working for Seth Meyers, I don’t know what I’ll do. He seems like a genuinely good person and boss (and I think it’s telling that in the Rolling Stone piece on Fallon, they note that Fallon’s Late Night showrunner—Mikey the Shoe!—chose to stay there and work with Meyers rather than make the jump to the bigtime with Fallon). I like how Meyers’ show lets the writers step out from behind the curtain, and his writer’s room is more diverse than most. I imagine it’s a high pressure job, but Meyers seems at least outwardly, to be handling it well and creating an atmosphere that proves that these workplaces don’t have to be toxic cesspools.
“If I ever hear anything bad about working for Seth Meyers, I don’t know what I’ll do.”Seth Meyers keeps a list of his writers’ worst joke pitches and then reads them on air so the viewing audience can point and laugh at the writer.
Do you really think that the writers aren’t in on the joke re: Surprise Inspection? That bit is not in the least bit mean spirited.
Of course not. I’m just trying to start an outlandish online rumor for Meyers to respond to when/if he ever does a new episode of Corrections. Just gotta get a Xwitter Xdiot to read that comment and run with it.
Touche. I applaud your efforts (and miss corrections).
Ditto for Colbert. It’ll be a bummer if he’s a dick and has been cheating on Evie all along.
Conan seems pretty pleasant to work for. Unless you’re Jordan Schlansky. But lets be real, that dude deserves it.
“We’re just eating a lot today and not caring about what we look like?”
“Ugh, lame. What is going on with you? You’ve outdone yourself.”
These are the comments that demonstrate a “toxic” environment? THESE comments?
My goodness, these are the kinds of lines these writers would write for a catty gay character to sling on some C level one-season sitcom.
It took me a long time, but eventually I learned that talking like “the funny one” on a sitcom is not an appropriate way to behave in real life, and especially not in the workplace.
Buuuutttt….this “workplace” is LITERALLY a comedy show. We are talking about comedy writers!
It’s not about whether you’re trying to be funny. It’s about whether you’re being an asshole while trying to be funny.
Quoting John Scalzi: “the failure state of clever is asshole”.
This is why the Game of Thrones writers were allowed to rape and behead each other on a daily basis.
It’s not LITERALLY a comedy show. It’s NOMINALLY (at most) a comedy show.
It’s almost like humans can generate “tone” when speaking that changes the dynamic of what’s being said!
Explain why an employer needs to comment about anyone’s eating habits or their body, ever. Be specific. Show your work.
Boo + fucking hoo = you
I can see why you didn’t last long writing comedy.
Some localities have laws that prohibit discrimination/harassment on the basis of appearance, so being that kind of douche can have consequences.
Really? Cite the law please. I worked for many years in a nonprofit legal organization and never encountered any appearance-based discrimination laws.
Your not-for-profit legal organization must have been for protecting bigots and sexual predators, then….https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/insight-you-look-mahvelous-avoiding-appearance-based-discrimination-at-work
No. 13. https://ohr.dc.gov/protectedtraitsMind you, it can also intersect with the ADA, Title VII, ADEA, and other types of discrimination.
This is a Washington, D.C. municipal ordinance. Not applicable outside the beltway – unless there are states that have enacted similar protections. AFAIK, there are none.
That’s effectively state law in a jurisdiction that is home to many national nonprofits, major law firms, and other organizations. Due to all of the people who commute into DC, it’s going to apply a lot of people, probably in excess of a million. But it doesn’t apply to Jimmy Fallon. You can have that.
Wow…by your estimate, about 0.3% of the entire country.
Slow clap.
Are people still slow clapping?
For you, yes.
Fitting since your knowledge of trends in the law also seems stuck in 1997.
You’re leaning pretty hard on the one, non-state, legislation on this topic. Let us know when say, any of the of the actual 50 states, create protections from discrimination based on “personal appearance.”
Regardless, you can be discriminated against for any reason, or no reason – as long as it’s not an illegal reason. Hurt feelings are not illegal.
You’re hung up on this state thing. It doesn’t matter if it’s a federal or state law, and what goes on in the jurisdiction of the District of Columbia is more important and of more interest economically and culturally than a long list of states. There are a handful of other cities, including San Francisco, that have similar laws. A couple of states have laws relating to hair-based discrimination. If it’s a law and a person or business violates it, it still costs them. If you’re a business operating in multiple states or cities it’s not enough only to worry about state and federal law. Moreover, as I said somewhere along the way, physical appearance can implicate other protected classes, such as age, sex, or disability. There was a case decided in favor of female flight attendants and weight limits at one point. That was under federal law. And at the end of the day, while a judge may rule in favor of an employer who discriminates in a way that doesn’t implicate a protected class, it would be pretty cavalier for any lawyer worth their salt to advise a client to be unnecessarily shitty to their employees. An unsatisfied employee may quit if they don’t like their job. An angry one is more likely to sue.
It’s not “the state thing” it’s a “who is actually covered” thing. A few very liberal enclaves will expand protections beyond federal ones, and/or their own state’s in the case of SF/CA. DC is not terribly relevant to this conversation as these show biz allegations are likely either happening in NYC or LA.
Anyone can sue anyone else, for any reason. Whether they’re likely to prevail is the question. DC’s ban on appearance-based discrimination – as it pertains to the case of a rude show runner in LA or NYC – is irrelevant.
These whistleblowers say they found no recourse with human resources, and one staffer was even privy to emails between HR and a showrunner where the HR representative denigrated the employee to their boss.Yeah, that sounds like HR.
HR is there to protect the company, not the employees. No matter what they say.
You’d think someone in HR would be well aware of rule #1 of workplace survival – Never Put It in Writing
Someone please tell me there’s no similar strife at Late Night with Seth Meyers.
…or Colbert. please please please I need these two decent-presenting people to be actual good humans.
The showrunner for Colbert’s Late Show for six years was Chris Licht, the guy who then went on to run CNN for a while with a strategy to have it skew more conservative, before he was fired after that disastrous Trump townhall.(He was supposedly good at the showrunner job, and I know practically nothing about his personal relationship with Colbert—he was apparently appointed by the network—but it’s a connection that raises some red flags, in my view.)
What kind of red flags?
The Rolling Stone piece mentions that when Fallon jumped from Late Night to The Tonight Show, showrunner Mike Shoemaker (Mikey the Shoe!) declined to join him and instead stayed with Meyers. I think that tells you a lot about the dynamics of working for Fallon vs. Meyers.
I hope Conan is enjoying monumental levels of schadenfreude.
Who’s actually being toxic, though, most of the time? Show hosts don’t do grunt work at that stage in their careers, so they’re not present in the “muck” for much of the day — they’re in offices next to writers’ rooms, of which those are ostensibly closed doors to the crew and support staff.Regardless, why do WE need to get involved or know? What are we going to do — stage a protest on behalf of a specific subgroup of the proletariat because a bunch of others (including perhaps their own bosses) have moody personalities? Let them handle their problems: complain formally to a labour board or petition some politician or some such, if necessary. Sue. Seek counselling. Since the place IS ALREADY toxic, why NOT force the wrongdoers out with your “bare hands” (proverbially, though I’ve actually done the literal in that type of “bully back the bully” solution at work)? Ten years of these conversations and we’ve learnt nothing here in the grandstands and have barely progressed in average policy-making.
Late Night needs a reset anyhow. across the board.just a batch of identical old white guys with the exact same opinions telling the exact same jokes. it’s a hellscape of boredom and mediocrity and pasty white vapidity. they should all be replaced immediately by literally anyone else on their writing staff. the staffs are full of affable, charismatic, young, diverse women and men and minorities. but old WASP at the desk needs to go. they all need to go.
I don’t want to dismiss abusive behaviors from individuals but Rolling Stone seems far more interested in taking down celebrities than it does actually exploring the root of the problem which is pressure and unrealistic expectations from networks. These exposes are just starting to sound like clickbait where the writer just does a find and replace of the show’s title.
They may wanna read what working for Jan Wenner was like, back in the day …
Does it, squishysquashy, or are you projecting…?
So it’s starting to sound like talk shows are as bad as nonprofits when it comes to guaranteed workplace toxicity.
The bar for what is considered “toxic” seems to be getting lower every week. Can we not expect some resilience from workers? It would be great if Fallon could manage the huge amount of stress he is constantly under and be in a constantly happy mood but everything I’ve read here hardly rises to what I would call toxic. The new definition seems to be “it made me feel bad” as if ensuring all employees never ever feel bad about anything is the duty of management?
Can we not expect some resilience from workers? Can we not expect some level of empathy even from obvious Right Wing Trumptards like you, Jiggs72?Here’s my parting gift to you, Snowflake….
Say what you want about Adam Sandler, but Jimmy Fallon is a poor man’s Adam Sandler. He was nothing but a copycat, albeit with a better singing voice.Never was a fan. He’s a fraud.
Jimmy Fallon? A piece of shit? Say it isn’t so!Who could have guessed?/s
He’s the male version of Ellen, not just because of the toxic work environment, but because he likes to play games, as in gameshows on his show and yes that later become spinoff gameshows that flop. Yeah, he’s one of those.
Speaking to the open secret involving his drinking, it was reported that after the WGA strike began, Fallon failed to show up to a staff meeting to address if/when they would be furlowed and what their employment situation would. The rumor is he didn’t show because he was nursing a hangover from the night before.
Fallon has the same problem that Ellen did; when your whole brand is built around being friendly and likable, it makes the moments where you don’t do that stand out in sharper relief. And when you’re relentlessly positive, it comes off as insincere.
Letterman and Conan could be very affable, but they could also not give a fuck when the occasion called for it.
Interesting how it’s usually the supposed “nice TV hosts” who seem to run the shittiest work environments. Almost like they are complete phonies or something!
Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers are good people, right? Right? RIGHT?
Pour one out for the staff member who reported suffering from weakened nail beds as a result of working on the show.
Pour one out for the staff member who reported suffering from weakened nail beds as a result of working on the show.
Aren’t most of the people who work for a show like The Tonight Show unionized? Other than collective bargaining what is the point of having a union if they aren’t going to back you up when you have issues like this? Like if the employee got no where with HR isn’t that why you would have a union grievance process?
I think that’s one of those situations where the union expects you to go to Human Resources first, and if HR doesn’t do anything then you go to your Union rep…….says he, talking out of his ass.
Here’s the thing: It’s true that this sort of toxic behaviour is par for the course in many industries. I’ve been working in one for almost two decades. And yet, I’ve always been treated respectfully when being given negative feedback.Many of my colleagues? Not so much. The difference between me and them? I’m a physically imposing man, while they tend to be women or less imposing men.If workplace bullies are able to hold back around me, they should be able to do the same around everyone else. They’re absolutely capable of it, but choose to zero in on people whom they feel can be treated like punching bags.That needs to stop. There’s no excuse for it.
It’s amazing how many people who are assholes because “that’s just how they are” manage to not be assholes to people with power over them.
This is the most refreshingly self-aware comment I’ve seen on this site in a while.As a less imposing male myself – one who has recently been targeted & physically assaulted by an insecure “tough guy” when they thought management wasn’t watching – thank you, sincerely. Please continue being you. Learning that you’re stuck in close proximity to an abusive piece of trash, at least for the time being, is a miserable experience. However irrational it may seem, it has definitely made me question my self worth.Doubting anyone else’s mental health claims is garbage behavior. I can bet most of these “get a spine” commenters would be the first to seek sympathy & redress when they find themselves in a situation they cannot (and shouldn’t have to) handle on their own. Depression & anxiety, and by extension suicidal ideation, are not any easier to deal with just because someone else explains how the thought process is illogical.
100%. I am a male in a female dominated profession (nursing) and I have literally never been yelled at by a doctor in my life. This is not true for 99% of my other female coworkers I’ve asked, and that’s not hyperbole.
No, it’s not, is it?I was a male secretary for a number of years, and I got one of three types of bosses—those that would never be abusive to me because I’m a dude, and those who would hammer me extra because I was dude in a “girl’s job”.
The third kind would not take out their anger on support staff, and for some reason they were the bosses the employees would stay late for, work extra hard for, and make sure their bosses were covered if something needed covering.
oh my god, bosses…being ever-so-slightly bossy?!? Not coming to work every day on top of the rainbow? The nerve of these jerks! What’s next, are they going to ask employees to…work?!?
You can tell a lot about people from how they treat the people who they have power over.
I’m willing to bet your coworkers absolutely despise you. Go get some help if you can’t handle your feelings without being an assh*le to people.
And you can tell a lot from people who make responses like this.
I *knew* I had a good reason for not liking Jimmy Fallon. He gives off this swarmy, “didya see how clever I am? Didya?” vibe, like a moderately witty frat boy.(For my money, I get the same vibe off Jeff Mauro on Food Network. Comes across like Fallon’s older brother or cousin, so if you don’t like Jimmy, you’re not going to like Jeff, either.)Oh, Conan. When they got rid of you, they threw away gold.
Conan? The guy who tried to make every interaction be about him? That Conan?
Seems we’re getting a lot of these-snowflakes-need-to-suck-it-up type comments. It would be nice if at some point people realized that mentality is why workplace cultures deteriorate to the point where people, often bleeding from a thousand cuts, start contemplating suicide. Yes, there is a degree to which people need to accept that you’re always trading one set of problems for another and that life is baseline hard. But you also don’t want people to hate where they work and it actually isn’t that hard to do better. Maybe go there instead of immediately blaming multiple staff members for what you assume is personal weakness?
But isn’t this article blaming Fallon’s supposed personal weakness i.e. drinking for his staff members problems?
It’s called a workplace culture bub. Tends to be influenced by people at the top.
As a recovering alcoholic myself, Captain Stubing?
I can tell you being a drunken asshole is no excuse—any more than being a drunk driver who ran over somebody then totaled his car and three others is….
How about just the simple fact that happier people do better work?
If it really was about money for people, then that would matter. But it doesn’t. It’s about the power to be an asshole and enjoy doing it.
How about just the simple fact that happier people do better work? Crazy talk! You must be some kind of socialist.
Nope. Socialists don’t want people to be happy. Your point is strong on its own.
Oh I dunno, I’m a pro-competition, pro-regulation, pro-safety net hybrid type so I wouldn’t paint socialism with that broad a brush.
All these chat shows are awful. Insufferable. Get rid of the whole lot of them. As much as I used to love SNL, nobody these days will miss it.
Cool. Can we have Conan back, then?
In the last few years, we’ve seen exposés from the sets of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Kelly Clarkson Show, and Dr. Phil, featuring accusations of bullying leadership styles and deteriorating mental health among staffers. Well, with Fallon that makes it three out of four with the dead eyes of a doll and the smile of an android so I don’t see why any of this comes off as a surprise.
I always had the distinct feeling that Jimmy Fallon is one of the biggest assholes ever, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. I never found him funny and he’s a constant buffoon. Awful! 👎
*praying feverishly to my upright-walking gods that Craig Ferguson was/is as warm and generous as he always seemed during his late night stint*
erratic means drugs, right?
i didn’t know being a douche counted as toxicity. if so, the world is unlivable.
I still stand with Coco. F you Zucker.
“ one staffer was even privy to emails between HR and a showrunner where the HR representative denigrated the employee to their boss.” HR is not your friend. It’s there to empower management.
Man, so many people leaping in to white-knight Jimmy Fallon of all people.
It’s more white-knighting the concept of being an asshole to your co-workers which is apparently mature and cool and they should just suck it up, kids these days are too thin-skinned, IN MY DAY etc.
Including, predictably, Dino Ironbody.
I was shocked when I heard about Ellen. I’m not shocked about this.
I only stream, so I don’t see much television, and I am pleased to note my opinion of Jimmy Fallon — formed through a rather limited exposure — apparently checks out.My opinion of him being that he seems like a drunk. i.e.
“Fallon’s behavior seemed to be dependent on if he appeared to be hungover from the night before.”
nine showrunners in nine years? yeesh. I still love the Roots. hip-hop on late night television!