The Offscript Podcast

Maryann Bates is a Pulitzer Prize nominated photographer and photojournalist with a career story that would make one helluva good movie. At the height of her career, she locked her cameras in a closet (literally) before eventually finding her way back behind the lens. She's photographed former presidents, athletes, and cultural icons, and she's had a front-row seat to some seriously impressive modern history over the course of her 40 year career. This is her story!

In this special episode, I'm reading an excerpt from "Lawless: An Autobiographical Guide to Professional Rule-breaking," which is a project I've been working on that for reasons unknown even to myself I've decided to share here. "Burn it to the ground" is from the opening chapters and tells the tale of the two ways you can go about getting the job you want. Spoiler: one involves a bit of fire.

Jamie Hill is a communications strategist, public affairs analyst, and community activist with an outrageously impressive work history and a positive attitude that just won't quit. She started her career in government before spending nearly ten years at Google, which she left in 2021. Since then, she's worked in start-ups with BIG missions, like redesigning the way mental health care is provided in America. She's currently a Principal at Shallot Communications in NYC, where she's busy building brands, creating communities, and redefining her approach to work/life balance (a term she thinks it's time to retire).

After arriving from the US to the UK on the first day of the first national COVID lockdown, I spent almost an entire year applying to hundreds (if not thousands) of jobs, with only one callback. In early 2021 I finally made a connection that helped me land a gig as a content writer, and exactly one year later I was hired as the Head of Brand & Content for a business with 175 people. 19 months, 3 clients, and one (very well-timed) lay off later, I decided it was time to go all-in on myself. This is Part 2 of my journey from lawyer to launching Offscript.

Buckle up and take a journey with me back to 2016, when I got fired from legal practice for asking to take a day off. Little did I know that when I left my office and walked the five blocks home with my diplomas in a cardboard box (no, literally) that I would never work as an attorney again. After such a shocking departure from the job I'd spent my entire life preparing to have, I spent almost five years trying to break into a new career, collecting a few thousand rejection emails along the way, before finally picking up some traction in early 2021. This is Part 1 of that journey.

Welcome to the VERY FIRST episode of the Offscript Podcast! In this intro episode, we'll briefly cover how this podcast came to be (margaritas are involved) and what you can expect from future episodes (conversations with the most brilliant, hilarious, and talented women I know).