Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

While waiting in the writer’s room to work on a script for The Office, Kaling’s mind wanders to fame and how much fame she would like to have. Growing up, she idealized Conan O’Brien and admired his job when she interned for him at 19: “Nobody cared what he wore (some kind of dark-colored suit), his hair was famously always the same, and he got to sit at the same desk every episode” (58).

Kaling structures the rest of the chapter as a detailed list of the qualities of fame she hopes she one day achieves. For example, she hopes that she will reach a level of fame that enables her to skip lines at brunch and avoid going to jail. However, she does not want to be as famous as Paris Hilton, who is accosted by paparazzi at every turn.

When Kaling and her roommates first moved to Brooklyn, they spent much of their time practicing karaoke. Kaling asserts that the most important factor in selecting a song for karaoke is considering how the song will make the audience feel. She suggests an upbeat, short song and advises men to avoid camp versions of songs traditionally sung by women.

After three months in New York with no job, Kaling was desperate to find work and health insurance. She posted neon green flyers around the city and landed a job as a babysitter for a wealthy family. She was nervous about caring for children; she had never been maternal: “I’m the one who looks at the infant, smiles nervously, and...robotically announces to the parent, ‘Your child looks healthy and well cared for’” (68). Babysitting taught Kaling the power of listening and letting people talk, a skill she used on her first network television job.

Kaling interviewed for, but did not get a job as, a page for a prestigious network, but a television show about a psychic hired her. Kaling gives the show the pseudonym Bridging the Underworld with Mac Teegarden. One of her responsibilities was fielding phone calls from former audience members. She enjoyed listening to their stories, not knowing that they would one day help fuel her work as a writer for The Office.

Both in college and New York, Kaling lived with groups of female friends. In this chapter, she outlines important features of friendships between women. For example, Kaling argues that she should be allowed to wear her friend’s clothes for as long as she wants and that she should be able to ditch plans with her friend to go on a date. Kaling also suggests that friends are responsible for taking care of one another’s children after death and for helping when a friend is sick or depressed.

While Mindy was babysitting, she began to worry that she had thrown away her dreams. She and her roommate Brenda decided to write something for themselves. Since they did not have any money, they envisioned a show that they could direct in which they would be the only two actors. Capitalizing on pop culture’s obsession with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon following the success of their film Good Will Hunting, Mindy and Brenda wrote a play loosely based on the two male actors’ experiences called Matt & Ben. By writing a part for herself, Mindy gained insight into her strengths and how best to utilize them.

In the play, Matt and Ben are writing a film adaptation of the book The Catcher in the Rye when the script for Good Will Hunting drops miraculously from the sky. Brenda and Mindy submitted their play to the New York International Fringe Festival, where it sold out every show. In 2002, Matt & Ben was named the Best Play of the festival, and The New Yorker published a highly favorable review.

Mindy and Brenda took the play to Off-Broadway and enjoyed a successful run. When the New York Times reviewed the show, Mindy accidentally broke Brenda’s nose during a staged fight scene. The review spoke glowingly of the performance and the mishap, further solidifying the success of the strange play. However, Matt & Ben was not successful at the US Comedy Arts Festival.

Mindy and Brenda worked with their manager to write a pilot for a new show about themselves, but the network decided to cast two other actors to play their parts. The pilot was never picked up, but Mindy was not ready to give up. She had a job offer as a staff writer for a new show in Los Angeles, a remake of a successful British television show called The Office.