Sure, if you want to be unpopular at the office you can leave your limburger cheese sandwich in the fridge for a month, refuse to speak in any tone but “high pitched scream,” or play the radio at your desk all day. But why go above and beyond when there are so many quick, simple ways to make your coworkers hate you? The best and fastest way is, of course, via email. ABC News polled employees about what their most-loathed email habits were, and the results should not in any way surprise you. They include typing in all caps, flagging every single email as urgent, forwarding around chain letters or pictures of kittens, and people who have not learned the difference between “reply” and “reply all.”
What’s the most annoying way your coworkers have used email to annoy you? In my case, it’s when someone forwards the most recent email in an extended conversation without remembering to delete the previous emails. Invariably in one of the previous emails you said something mean about the person the thing just gor forwarded to.
Josephine Miller, better known as Jo, seems to have had a pretty cool life. Born in South Africa, she worked as a model and then scored a gig as David Bowie’s personal assistant. Later, she settled down in England, where she married an American banker named Ed Miller. The couple had two daughters, actress Sienna and fashion designer Savannah, before divorcing. Josephine also spent time running Lee Strasberg’s (creator of the Method technique) acting school in London.
It must be hard to have a world-famous multimillionaire singer as your sister…I mean, look how little Jamie Lynn turned out. Some celebrity siblings handle it better than others. Until recently, it seemed like Material Brother Christopher Ciccone was one of those well adjusted celebrity siblings who skated that line between “normal person who stayed out of the spotlight despite well-known relative” and “total famewhore attempting to capitalize on sibling’s fame.” But not anymore. Although his career is entirely due to Madonna (he has worked as her interior designer, an artistic director for some of her tours, and her personal assistant), he’s now stabbing her in the back by publishing a memoir about–what else?–Madonna. It’s hard to ignore the fact that even now, as a ‘writer,’ the only thing people want to read about is not Christopher Ciccone, but the sister who has always overshadowed him.
Continue reading ‘madonna’s brother/ex-assistant writes tell-all’
I don’t drive anymore, but when I did I could definitely see why people got road rage. Now, living in New York, I get subway rage–sometimes it’s all I can do not to punch the woman who “accidentally” stepped on my foot three times. But considering how most people spend way more time at work than they do in a car or other mode of transportation, there’s been an uptick in reports of “desk rage.” Whether you’re the one on the giving end or the receiving end of yelling, hitting, name-calling, stapler-throwing, and the like, you have definitely witnessed some desk rage moments in your office.
So why are we turning into a nation of Naomi Campbells?
Continue reading ‘buzzword: desk rage’
Peter Nowalk and Hillary Stamm, authors of The Hollywood Assistants’ Handbook, have a great gallery in Marie Claire. They provide some tips for aspiring power players that, while specifically aimed at assistants in the entertainment industry, can pretty easily be applied to assistants in any field. Watch and see how it’s done:
TIP FROM PETER AND HILLARY:
You are young and have a lot to learn. Maybe you think you can win an Oscar next year because ‘like I really believe in this script.’ Or maybe you don’t think you have to worry about a little thing like a movie’s commercial viability…Oh, you little egomaniac, you!
MORE GENERALIZED TRANSLATION:
You are young and have a lot to learn. Maybe you think you can be nominated for a Pulitzer/get promoted to VP/score a huge raise next year because ‘like I really believe in this book/am good at my job/am just so darn cute I deserve it. Or maybe you don’t think you have to worry about a little thing like whether publishers agree with you/why they would promote you over your own boss/how well your company is doing financially…Oh, you little egomaniac, you!
See? Piece of cake.
I love Margaret Cho. I once got to interview her when she spoke at my university. She complimented my boots. (I still have them, because obviously when Margaret Cho compliments your boots, you have to keep them forever.) Now, she’s back on TV with The Cho Show, a reality show in the vein of Kathy Griffin’s My Life on the D-List. And just like “Team Griffin” (Kathy’s assistants Jessica and Tiffany) plays a major part on her show, The Cho Show features Margaret’s assistant, Selene Luna.
If Selene is half as funny and cool as Margaret, she’ll make a great sidekick. However, one identifying detail stuck out to me: Selene is a little person, just like Chelsea Handler’s assistant Chuy. If InStyle thinks two celebrities doing something is enough to count as a trend, well, then, damn it, I hereby announce that it is a trend for female comics to have little people as their assistants. I wonder if Selene will get a book deal next…
“Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for that. It’s called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.”
-The Drew Carey Show
Ah, another week of assistant life over. Have a margarita, leave the windows open, and let me sum it up for you.
I have a general rule of thumb that the more awesome an assistant, the more awesome a boss. Sometimes a great assistant helps a boss to chill the fuck out and be more cool. But sometimes a rad boss chooses an assistant based on confidence, humor, and other “not a doormat” traits. (Just ask Neil Gaiman.)
In a recent interview with the Financial Times, architect Frank Gehry (the mastermind behind the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, pictured at left) commented on how a British critic once referred to him as a “one-trick pony.” Then his personal assistant butts in to correct Gehry: “No, Frank, He called you a one-trick pony’s one-trick pony.” Gehry seems to take the comment in stride, unlike interviewer Edwin Heathcote, who doesn’t bother mentioning the assistant’s name or gender. Sadly, Google wasn’t able to turn up anything on this mysterious PA. Can any of you give us a name, gender, or other information about this amusing but nameless soul?
Ah, I love the scent of a good sex scandal in the morning. It smells like hypocrisy.
Alabama’s Republican Attorney General Troy King, who has tried to outlaw sex toys and homosexuality, was apparently caught in bed with his gay male assistant. By his wife. Total burn.
Wonkette, of course, has the whole story. Rumors are swirling that King has been kicked out of his house and that he will be resigning from his position by early next week.
