She has been in the room for exactly nine days. Her joke beat mine clean. I had to sit with that honestly rather than pretend it did not sting at all.
Our newest writers assistant, exactly nine days into her first ever job in a professional comedy writers room, pitched a joke during today’s brainstorm that was genuinely, unambiguously better than anything I had managed to produce across the entire week, a sharp, unexpected angle on a story the rest of us had been circling unsuccessfully for the better part of an hour, delivered with a confidence that made it land even harder once the room actually heard it properly, and I want to write honestly about the specific, uncomfortable moment of reckoning with my own ego that followed once I actually processed what had just happened.
I have been doing this job professionally for close to seven years now, considerably longer than the nine days our newest assistant has logged in this specific room, and I will admit, sitting there watching the whole room laugh genuinely, immediately, and considerably harder than anything I had personally pitched that same week, a specific flash of something I am not particularly proud of, a competitive, slightly wounded instinct that had almost nothing to do with genuine appreciation for a genuinely good joke and almost everything to do with my own bruised professional ego at being so cleanly, publicly outdone by someone this new to the actual craft.
I sat with that specific reaction honestly for a while afterward rather than immediately suppressing it, because I think pretending it simply did not happen would be considerably less useful than actually examining it properly. Why, exactly, did watching a colleague pitch a genuinely great joke feel, even briefly, like some kind of personal loss rather than simply the straightforward professional win it actually represented for our show and, by extension, for the entire room working collaboratively toward the same shared goal? I think the honest answer involves some fairly unflattering assumptions I apparently still carry, quietly, about seniority and craft correlating more tightly than they actually do in practice, an assumption today directly, cleanly disproved.
What helped me actually move past that initial uncomfortable reaction was talking with her properly after the brainstorm wrapped, asking, genuinely curious rather than simply performing professional graciousness, how she had actually landed on that specific angle so quickly. Her answer was genuinely illuminating, a combination of considerable natural comedic instinct and a specific, fresh outside perspective on the underlying story that none of us more experienced writers, having spent years steeped in exactly this kind of material, could easily replicate, precisely because we have all developed certain habitual ways of approaching a topical story that, however well-honed, can also become genuine blind spots over enough years of repetition.
I think there is something genuinely important in that specific realization, that experience in this job builds real, valuable craft while simultaneously, almost inevitably, narrowing the specific angles a given writer instinctively reaches for first, a narrowing that a genuinely talented newcomer, unburdened by those same accumulated habits, can sometimes see straight past without even fully realizing what she has actually accomplished. That is not a reason to devalue experience, which remains genuinely, materially valuable in this job in a hundred other ways. It is simply a reminder that genuine talent does not respect seniority, and that a room genuinely committed to producing the best possible material has to stay honestly open to exactly this kind of humbling moment, however uncomfortable it feels in the immediate aftermath.
I made a point, before leaving today, of telling her directly and specifically how good that joke actually was, not the vague, generic encouragement a senior writer sometimes offers a newcomer out of simple professional kindness, but a genuinely specific breakdown of exactly why the angle worked as well as it did, partly because I think she deserves that level of genuine, substantive feedback rather than empty praise, and partly, I will admit honestly, because articulating clearly why her joke worked helped me process my own earlier, less flattering reaction and arrive at something closer to the genuine admiration the moment actually deserved.
Seven years in this job, and a nine-day-old writers assistant reminded me today that genuine comedic instinct does not care how long you have been doing this professionally. I think that is, properly understood, one of the more genuinely exciting things about this specific craft, rather than something to feel threatened by, and I am choosing, tonight, to actually hold it that way rather than the more defensive reaction my own ego initially reached for.
I mentioned today’s whole internal reckoning to my own former mentor, a writer who gave me exactly this kind of specific, generous feedback when I was the nervous newcomer in a considerably more senior room years ago, and she laughed, telling me she remembers the exact same uncomfortable flash of ego I described feeling today, from watching a then-new writer on her own show land a joke that beat everything she had pitched that same week. She told me the discomfort never fully disappears entirely, no matter how many years you accumulate in this business, but that learning to sit with it honestly rather than letting it curdle into genuine resentment toward a talented newcomer is, in her considerable experience, one of the actual markers of a writer maturing properly within this specific industry.
I think I want to hold onto that framing going forward, treating today’s uncomfortable flash of ego not as evidence of some personal failing to be ashamed of, but as an entirely ordinary, expected part of working in a genuinely collaborative craft where talent does not respect tenure, and where the healthiest possible response to being outdone by someone new is genuine, specific credit rather than quiet resentment. I think I managed that today, eventually, even if it took me a little longer to arrive there than I would ideally like to admit in this diary.
More from this author at Carys Evans, prat.uk.