Most of the time, STA’s scorn is directed at evil bosses. However, sometimes it’s not your boss who makes you crazy all day–it’s your coworkers. Here are four types of coworkers who aren’t as well documented as, say, The Sidler from Seinfeld, but manage to annoy the hell out of you regardless.
The Popcorn Burner: Every office has this person. He or she has not mastered the simple art of making popcorn in a microwave. At least once this person has caused the fire alarm to go off and the fire department to show up. This person is a moron.
The Loud Talker: When you work in a cube farm, it’s a given that everyone can hear each others’ phone calls. More discreet employees take personal calls in private offices or take their cell phones into a secluded part of the office. Not the Loud Talker, though. That followup call with the specialist? The fight with their mom? The rehashing of last night’s drunken hilarity? All there for your listening (dis)pleasure.
The Prom Committee Co-Chair: Is it someone’s birthday? Did somebody have get engaged? You can bet that this perky, permasmiling coworker has taken it upon him or herself to pick out an expensive flower arrangement and go around the office making everyone chip in and sign a card. My friend Peter needs a special mention in this category: when a male coworker’s wife had a baby, Peter signed the card “Good job knocking up your wife.” This is why we are friends.
The Aspiring Ebert: In the immortal words of Salt-N-Pepa, “opinions are like assholes, and everybody’s got one.” Yes, people are entitled to their opinions, and you are entitled to not give a fuck about them. If someone’s weighing in on a work-related matter, that’s one thing. But when the super chatty coworker the next cube over thinks you really want to know their opinion of that movie that just came out, or how kids today totally don’t appreciate Zeppelin, or what they would do if they were running for president, just put your headphones on.
When this macho heavy metal musician hit it big with his band, he partied to the max and indulged in all kinds of self destructive behavior. Eventually he cleaned up his act, got married and started a family. But one nasty habit he still struggles with is his sex addiction. Now he has an assistant who reads newspapers and magazines before he does, and cuts out all the pictures of sexy women in underwear ads or wearing bikinis.
–Via Janet Charlton
For all the shit you have to go through to become Diddy’s assistant–and then for all the shit you have to go through being Diddy’s assistant–you better get something out of it. Some people become celebrity PAs for the awesome paychecks, and some people do it for the fame. Tiesha LeShore evidently falls into the latter category. An aspiring singer, she has a blog on the site NS4Life. At one point, Tiesha’s first post was an endorsement of her by her ex-boss, but it seems to have been taken down. Has Diddy withdrawn his endorsement in favor of his new protegee, Cassie? Was it a forgery? Or did it just get eaten by Google cache?
I don’t know the answer to that, but when you’re an aspiring singer who hasn’t updated your blog since December ‘07, that doesn’t bode terribly well for your career. Sure, maybe Tiesha is off being famous somewhere and thus is way too busy to blog, but it’s unlikely. I could be wrong, but this post isn’t going in the “Former Assistants Done Good” category just yet.
Here on STA our horror stories tend to be of the office-slave variety, but we are all too aware of the horror stories happening in other industries. MSN collected some of their readers’ worst customer service tales of woe. They’re available for your perusal here, and let us share some advice that we learned from the article: Sprint sucks. That is all.
Since it’s June, weddings are a pretty popular topic of conversation. Either you’re in one, going to one, or having to hear about one. But should weddings remain an off-limits topic at work, like your sex life? One office where I worked had a girl whose entire purpose in life was to get married, so when she got engaged we all had to hear about it constantly. I’d be like, “Hey, so and so, can you move that meeting to 3:00?” and she’d be like “3:00 is fine, because it’s the exact time my dad is going to start walking me down the aisle!” In case you were wondering, I hated her.
That said, it is possible to talk about what’s up in your life–your wedding, your kids, your trip to Las Vegas, whatever–as long as you do so with discretion. Maybe you want to limit your personal-life talk to the coworkers you actually hang out with in real life. Or, if you’re just so happy you could burst, try to keep it to no more than five minutes per coworker unless they ask followup questions. Regardless, other people will give you cues, and then you should follow them accordingly.
To weigh in on either side of the debate, you can go here.
Beloved fantasy writer Neil Gaiman (who inspires almost cultlike devotion from his fans) has a pretty amusing blog. While browsing his archives, I came across this post, where he answers the popular reader question “So what does your assistant do?”
Rather than put words in her mouth, Neil let his assistant Lorraine answer the question herself. Turns out Lorraine’s quite funny. Here’s some of what she had to say:
Wake up. Drive to Boss’s House. Think to myself “way way too early”. Make tea. Get ready to wake Boss for an early morning conference call with foreign editor. Attempt to wake Boss. Find what looks like a corpse. Remember Boss promised to have an “Early Night” and wake upon the dawn like a lark, refreshed and ready for the day. Realize Boss has only been asleep for an hour or so.
Shake corpse. Corpse attempts speech. Corpse fails. Tea, I say, over and over, in conversational tones. Boss makes it to tea, which is beside the bed, not a far leap for many, but a large one for Boss. Asks me to find the Last Big Contract for the Last Big Project but I am too smart for that trick. Wait until Boss is actually working thru morning e-mail until I leave the room.
For the full rundown (we’re only at, like, 11 AM now), click here.
Ashley here. I recently came back from my first vacation in, um, three years. Surprise, surprise, but I’m having a really hard time actually getting back into this whole work thing. Checking email gives me a headache, sitting in on meetings gives me rigormortis of the ass, and trying to work on “deliverables” doesn’t get beyond staring at an empty Word doc, eventually wiping drool from the corner of my mouth and deciding to go get my umpteenth coffee of the day.
At first I figured I just wasn’t into the job, but – and I do realize the blog I’m writing this on – I actually like my job. I like vacation more, of course, but my job definitely does not suck. So what gives? Why am I not well-rested and able to concentrate?
I blame Post-Vacation Depression Disorder (or PVDD), an anti-email, anti-meeting, anti-cubicle malaise that most of us pick up after a really excellent vacation. While there is no immediate cure, PVDD is definitely grounds for a mental health day, so feel free to use it to prolong that vacation one… more… day.
It’s really hard to escape buzzwords at work–after all, that’s why STA even has a “buzzword” category in the first place. The BBC asked readers from around the world to submit their least-loved office terms. Here are a couple of the standouts:
- My employers recently informed staff that we are no longer allowed to use the phrase brain storm because it might have negative connotations associated with fits. We must now take idea showers. I think that says it all really.
- In my work environment it’s all cascading at the moment. What they really mean is to communicate or disseminate information, usually downwards. What they don’t seem to appreciate is that it sounds like we’re being wee’d on. Which we usually are.
- I work in one of those humble call centres for a bank. Apparently, what we’re doing at the moment is sprinkling our magic along the way. It’s a call centre, not Hogwarts.
- The business-speak that I abhor is pre-prepare and forward planning. Is there any other kind of preparedness or planning?
- The latest that’s stuck in my head is we are still optimistic things will feed through the sales and delivery pipeline (ie: we actually haven’t sold anything to anyone yet but maybe we will one day).
I always thought napping was pretty straightforward: grab a pillow and blanket, curl up in a ball, close eyes.
However, this incredibly complex/thorough chart from Boston.com brings the science–and the art–to napping. You’ll now learn valuable information like how long a sleep cycle lasts and whether you’re a lark or an owl.
Two weeks ago my company had a huge party for their 20th anniversary. As the senior exec assistant, I had to do most of the planning. My boss wanted it at this fancy hotel that has a big dining room. I got everything reserved and taken care of. Then the day before the party my boss told me there was one last thing to take care of. He got out the floor plan of the dining room and asked me to make a seating chart–for the execs. Turns out he wanted all the execs at one table in a very specific arrangement (with him at the head of the table, obviously). I asked where the assistants were going to sit. He basically wanted them at this smaller table way in the back of the room, just far enough so they couldn’t hear any of the execs talking. Oh, and he didn’t give a shit if they had seat assignments. After all, they’re just assistants, not human beings, right?
–Submitted by Caroline, Chicago
