Labor Day is more than just an excuse for a long weekend or the last day you can wear white shoes. It’s a day that honors all workers in America–and, by the way, that includes you. Hopefully, you are far away from the office right now. But in case you’re not, here’s some reading you can do–and forward to your boss–about this very important date.
Archive for August, 2008
From Sean Penn’s assistant to Mrs. John C. Reilly to a career as a film producer, Alison Dickey has more than earned her place in our hall of Former Assistants Done Good. Considering that Dickey was Penn’s assistant in the late 80s and early 90s (aka The Madonna Years), I don’t doubt for a second that she can handle just about any crazy situation she might find herself in. She and Reilly have been married since 1992, which is a lifeftime by Hollywood standards. They met when Penn and Reilly costarred in the Brian de Palma-directed Vietnam movie Casualties of War. They have two sons, ages 9 and 7. Considering that a very thorough Google search did not turn up the boys’ names, I’m going to guess Reilly and Dickey are giving their kids somewhat normal lives.
I haven’t heard of most of the films Dickey has produced, which include Piggie and Beautiful View, but one thing on her IMDB profile really made me sit up and take notice: she gets a “special thanks” in the credits for Miranda July’s film Me and You and Everyone We Know. Just the idea of Miranda July hanging out with Alison Dickey and John C. Reilly makes me kind of nerd out a little.
Also: John C. Reilly was one of our inagural “people who are too cool to have assistants.” Is this another case of a relative of an ex-assistant understanding the true nature of an assistant job and therefore not hiring anyone to run errands for them? An interesting theory.
Sienna Miller, the daughter of a former celebrity assistant, recently had this to say:
I don’t have assistants, bodyguards or even a driver because I try to pretend in my own head that this isn’t happening. I think a lot of actresses live in this cotton-wool world but I’m very free-spirited and I want to be able to live the life I do. I don’t court attention. I don’t go to other people’s premieres. I haven’t been out to a club in London for years.
Perhaps being raised by an ex-assistant makes you value the work they do? Interesting thought.
Ed Park is the Editor of The Believer and the author of the highly-recommended workplace novel Personal Days, which I’ve blogged about recently. He graciously agreed to talk to me about his book, as well as the world of email culture, where he’d rather be working, and why people read corny business-advice books.
STA: Why a workplace book?
EP: I think the immediate reason is that I was going through a workplace situation that was–well, it wasn’t bad, but it was falling apart. I found a way to step outside of my own situation through fiction. It is fiction–the characters aren’t based on specific people. Before then, my fiction was disconnected from my life, so it [the book] was a real surprise for me. I wrote it very quickly.
STA: Do you think Americans appreciate this book differently because of how much time we spend at work and how invested we are in it?
EP: I don’t know if it’s just the US. It’s interesting, because I was thinking ‘why aren’t there more books about work?’ I think we have an image of ourselves that we separate from our 9-to-5 life–there’s something of a barrier there, artists don’t want to appear mundane, but it actually provides a lot of material. Even awful stuff makes good art.
Not long ago I posted some of my time-tested tips for calling in sick to work. STA reader Katie left the following comment, which was so funny and useful I’m posting it here:
I like the “token hour” strategy myself - its not an office avoidal tool altogether, and it involves some playacting: you have to Blackberry in late (woke up feeling under the weather) bravely try to fight (but I’m going to head in for a few hours and see if I feel better) stay the course (shoulders slouched, frequent dramatic swallowing) and then accept the concern of others (you’re right, I should go home and get some rest.) If you do it right, you can be in and out by 10am.
This technique really works if you’re trying to take off two “sick” days in a row. Once your boss and coworkers have actually witnessed the level of your sickness, no one will so much as question your decision to stay home another day and recuperate.
Fremantle Media, the production company responsible for TV behemoth American Idol, is being sued by several former employees who claim they worked under unfair conditions, similar to another suit going on against fellow reality show The Hills. From Variety:
FremantleMedia had no comment Tuesday, but its execs have said the allegations, which include denial of overtime pay and meal breaks, are without merit. The execs have also said the WGA’s jurisdiction demand is unreasonable because Fremantle doesn’t use writers on all shows — an assertion disputed by the guild.
Justin Buckles, a former “Idol” production assistant, told the crowd at the rally that he had been told when he was hired to expect to work 12-hour days but subsequently found he was working 15- to 20-hour days and many times worked seven days a week — for a flat weekly rate of $550. Buckles, who estimated he was paid an hourly rate of less than $4.50, was one of eight ex-Fremantle employees who filed more than $250,000 in wage and hour claims with the state of California in April.
This may shock those three people who haven’t read or watched The Devil Wears Prada, but it turns out that Anna “Nuclear” Wintour, Editor in Chief of Vogue magazine, treats her underlings like shit. An informant recently told Gawker that Wintour ordered a makeover for a new assistant:
We hear from a salon gossip that the razorlike Wintour recently made a new 22-year-old assistant cut her Rapunzel-like long hair.
It flowed all the way down her back, and Wintour requested directly that the girl chop it to below her shoulders. The assistant, who is probably making her age in yearly salary, ran immediatey to Bumble & Bumble. Despite the bitchiness of the request, the word is that Anna was right—the assistant looks much better this way.
Before I could even weigh on the layers of fucked up in this story, a commenter calling himself TheHonJudgeSmails did it for me: “The story isn’t Anna Wintour or her behavior; it’s the fact that some people are willing to let her get away with it.”
Continue reading ‘this just in: anna wintour still a bitch to assistants’
Who ever would have thought that there could be even more downsides to being an assistant? According to a recent ABC News story, some employees have been busted for lying or exaggerating how difficult something was in order to make themselves look like “heroes.” Although STA friend Josie Jobless might tell you that playing up your beleagueredness is a great way to get people to do things for you, is it wrong to make your job sound worse than it is in order to make yourself look better than you are?
While lying outright about your job isn’t a great idea, I don’t have a huge problem with assistants playing up all the drama they have to deal with to get shit done. To be honest, most of us don’t even need to exaggerate–we really do have to spend hours on hold only to be told that every single flight to Chicago is sold out, then manage to get one going to Chicago via Denver (which he will ONLY do if he can sit in an aisle seat in business class if they’re serving something with turkey in the in-flight meal on BOTH flights), and make sure that your boss’ briefcase is FedExed overnight to the hotel in Chicago so it’ll be there when he checks in. When you work for crazy, busy divas/divos, far-out assistant stories are the norm. And if someone hearing you tell the story thinks you’re a hero for saving the day, well, it’s about time someone acknowledged the badass work you do on a regular basis. Because you probably are a hero.
Remember how Vanity Fair whored out one of their editorial assistants? Well, said assistant, Bill Bradley, went out on a date to glamorous restaurant Waverly Inn with a lucky reader named Julia–and documented the whole thing for VF readers.
So, how did it go?
Julia says:
Upon seeing the menu, I was a little nervous about what I could order—was it just the mac & cheese, or could I drink too?—but Bill quickly assured me that the magazine was sparing no expense. We then proceeded to squeeze the most out of the V.F. dollar, ordering cocktails, a bottle of wine, mussels, tuna tartare, risotto with truffles, steak, and bananas foster and a nice liqueur for desert. By the time Emil Varda, the restaurant’s owner/manager, came over to check on us, I felt like a million bucks.
And as for our intrepid assistant Bill: