If you don’t know who Jessica Joffe is, you probably will soon enough. Last week she was the supporting player in a gushy New York Times profile of her boyfriend, alt-country troubador Ryan Adams. (He credited her for his sobriety. It was cute. We felt nauseous and had to lie down.)
However, before Jessica (she’s the one in the photo with the red hair… and, uh, the female body) was a Banana Republic model and supportive girlfriend, she was an assistant. That’s right: she was an assistant at the New York Observer. Not only that, she landed the holy grail of assistantdom: a promotion. To a real job with clips and credits and respect. So we can’t totally hate on her.
Now, get that boyfriend of yours to record another song like “Come Pick Me Up,” and we’re officially on your side, Jess.
Today on Save the Assistants we’re happy to present you with a real hero: Douglas G. Williams of Minnesota. Williams was working, washing cars, when the carwash manager asked him to pick up some litter around the area.
Williams said he had gone to work that day even though he had the flu. He said the other car washer was on vacation and there was a sale, which meant he had extra cars to wash, when he got word he was supposed to pick up cigarette butts in the parking lot.
Williams said that he was busy and that the sales manager could go “[expletive] himself,” according to court documents. The lot manager passed along the comment and the sales manager fired Williams for insubordination.
This story has a happy ending. Even though Williams was fired, the Minnesota Court of Appeals found that he was entitled to get unemployment “because his conduct was a single incident that did not have a significant adverse impact on the employer.”
If Dick Cheney couldn’t get fired for saying “go fuck yourself,” then why should this guy? Hear that, assistants of America? It is totally allowed to tell your boss to fuck off, and you can also expect benefits afterward! There’s legal precedent. We salute you, Douglas G. Williams. The next beer is on us.
You can read the complete article here.
I hate it when your boss or another person at your company asks you to do them a favor. They’re not asking you for a favor, they’re telling you to do some work. Maybe they’re being nicer about it than just bossing you around or yelling at you to do something, but it’s not a favor. Holding someone’s spot in line is a favor. Letting someone borrow a dollar is a favor. Assigning them a boring, time-wasting project when you’re not their actual boss? NOT A FAVOR.
The story is that I’m an assistant to a VP. One of the other VP’s assistants is on vacation. Rather than get a temp or, like, learn to handle shit himself, he assumes that I’m available and willing to help with whatever he needs. No one asked me about this. When I said something about it to HR, the woman told me I wasn’t being a “team player.” Are you kidding? I’m not being a “team player” because I’m not thrilled about being assigned extra work without anyone telling me about it? I’m not being a “team player” because I have to do two peoples’ jobs and don’t get extra pay or respect? Maybe I don’t even want to be on this team in the first place. –Submitted by “Disgruntled,” Texas
Not sure whether it’s kosher to doodle during important meetings? Can’t decide whether it’s ethical to hit on a coworker?
This funny policy wheel is like a Magic 8 ball of office protocol. And it reminds us of the Wheel of Morality from the late, great Animaniacs, so that’s good too.
Ah, summer. You’re wearing sandals in the office, there’s natural light coming in through the windows, and you may even get out early on Fridays so you can try to beat the crowd to the beach. And then there’s the best summer workplace benefit of all–interns!
Now you’re not at the bottom of the food chain anymore. There’s an unpaid college student with career goals and a desire to please. However, you must be careful not to abuse interns. Call it good workplace karma: try to treat interns the way you want your boss to treat you. Here’s a handy list of what tasks you should and should not ask interns to do:
Yes, ask:
- Make copies
- File all those files you’ve been letting pile up since January
- Clean the conference room after the board meeting
- Fax things
- Fill in when the receptionist goes to lunch
- Take notes at meetings
No, don’t ask:
- Get you coffee (besides, you know they’d forget how many sugars you wanted)
- Pick up your dry cleaning
- Do anything (fax, copy, etc) involving any confidential documents–interns don’t usually have to sign the same confidentiality agreements that paid employees do, so it’s best err on the side of caution here
- Lie to your boss about why you were late today
- Deal one-on-one with clients–if a relationship is valuable to the company, you don’t want to abruptly pass it off to someone else, especially a temporary employee
- Anything that requires a higher level of training or expertise than the intern has–yes, they’re at the company to learn, but they’re learning basics of the industry, not how to do specialized tasks
This is by no means a comprehensive list, so make your own additions/changes in the comments.
Comedian Chelsea Handler is either brilliantly funny or completely annoying, depending who you ask. And we had to ask, because neither of us really has any idea who she is. One of our friends says she does a skit where she straps on a pregnancy belly and goes drinking.
She may not support the pregnant masses of America, but one thing’s clear: she doesn’t have any problems with little people. In fact, she hired one as her assistant. One named Chuey, to be specific.
This is a great day for civil rights in America. Now, people of any height can be free to fetch coffee, make reservations, alert the media that you’re having lunch at The Ivy, and beg for free stuff out of swag bags. Sniff. This makes us proud to be American.
We love NYC-area weather guy Sam Champion, now on Good Morning America. He’s just the right balance of “informative” and “perky” that we like while getting dressed for work. That’s why we were worried when someone sent him an anthrax-laced letter last week.
Luckily, Sam’s OK. And who’s the potential culprit? A former temp, that’s who. We’ve always known it’s hard out there for a temp, but this is a little excessive.
Don’t try this one at home, assistants. And if you do, we’d advise not putting a return address on the envelope like this guy did. Just a suggestion.
Looking for a less corporate workplace–one where you can flaunt your tattoos and not wear a suit?
Careerbuilder lists 12 jobs that let you have weird hair. [Note: we think that by 'weird' the author means 'pink' or 'in a mohawk' or 'not hairsprayed.']
Among the jobs:
- Massage therapist
- Barista
- Copy editor (not if you’re in-office, though)
- Web designer
- Theme park mascot (yeah, not even a hint of sarcasm here)
Disappointed to find that your job’s not on the list? Yeah, us too. “Co-founder of snarky website where people bitch about their jobs” must have been #13.
Hate MS Word? So do we!
Here’s a handy list of shortcuts for MS Word. Particularly useful is the shortcut that minimizes all your windows in just seconds, so you can hide STA when your boss walks past your desk unexpectedly.
And on an unrelated note… is it just us, or does the word “keystroke” sound dirty?
I’m an assistant to my boss. His boss (we’ll call him HB–Head Boss) came in one day on tour with another higher-up. HB pulls me aside and asks me about the young gentleman working at the register. (Background: we had about $2000-3000 stolen and the gentleman at the register was the fall guy.) He says, “I thought he was fired? Yeah, I was told he was fired.” I said register guy wasn’t fired – as far as I knew, he was suspended and wasn’t allowed a promotion. That’s what my boss had told me. HB left and I didn’t think any more of it.
One day I wanted to leave and I said something out loud about it. Register Guy said “Go ahead, I’ll take care of things.” I was confused. I said, “You’re not allowed, you know that, but thank you anyway.” Totally confused, he reminds me of his title and confirms he’s qualified. Long story short, he didn’t know anything about his “suspension, de-motion or firing.” Matter of fact… he was wondering why his hours were cut. HB, the register guy, and I had all heard a different story from my boss. There’s an investigation of the stolen money going on, but so far they won’t allow me to explain why my boss thinks both Register Guy and I are “out to get him” and “lying.”–Submitted by Zoe, New York City
