There’s an assistant whose job is to carry around sanitary wipes to dispense to Mariah anytime she touches anything or shakes hands with anyone.
Several staffers were put in charge of decorating Mariah’s hotel room in Cannes with Hello Kitty decor (to “help her feel at home”) and to make sure the refrigerator contained only the items she’s allowed to eat on her very strict diet (olives, nuts, and white wine, in case you’re curious).
One of the assistants is tasked with telling Mariah “You are looking beautiful today” every day as soon as she wakes up and then several times after.
Also, this has nothing to do with assistants, but Mariah wears Bambi pajamas to bed. While the author of this article clearly finds Mariah’s divaness both excessive and tacky he admits that her assistants seem to genuinely like her. I find it hard to believe anyone could like a person whose cleavage they are required to tape up, but hey, to each his or her own.
It usually isn’t up for debate whether abused assistants are bitter – the question is more likely to be about how bitter they are. But last week, at the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting, the members discussed a new phenomenon they’ve named Post-Traumatic Bitterness Disorder. Similar to its cousin, PTSD, the newly named ailment is described as “angry plus helpless.” It’s becoming increasingly common as already-beleaguered workers cope with the results of a suffering economy, thus compounding their emotions. In addition to being disgruntled, they’re being laid off, forced into a combo job, or hanging on for dear life. Here’s what German Dr. Michael Linden, who coined the PTBD term, had to say:
Embittered people are typically good people who have worked hard at something important, such as a job, relationship or activity, Linden says. When something unexpectedly awful happens — they don’t get the promotion, their spouse files for divorce or they fail to make the Olympic team — a profound sense of injustice overtakes them. Instead of dealing with the loss with the help of family and friends, they cannot let go of the feeling of being victimized. Almost immediately after the traumatic event, they become angry, pessimistic, aggressive, hopeless haters.
Wow, so did he come and spy on me in order to come up with this diagnosis? And believe me, “failing to make the Olympic team” is something so unlikely to happen to me that I am not worried about how I might react when it happens. Trust.
Political assistants have very tough jobs – I mean, I just rewatched that episode of The West Wing where the documentary crew follows CJ around for the day and you see her interact with one aide (played by the awesome Wilson Cruz of My So-Called Life) and it’s definitely stressful. However, one aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton might have gotten canned for a major gaffe last month. What happened? Well, the assistant was charged with setting up a conference call – a pretty common assistant task – but instead of sending out the 1-800 number for the call, accidentally sent out the number for a phone sex hotline. Luckily, the assistant sent out a followup email with the correct information, but several of the participants had already dialed the wrong number and were none too pleased about it.
I hope for the assistant’s sake Hillary and co realized it was a simple (and kind of funny) excuse, and not a matter of national security. Good luck, intrepid assistant!
Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld may be one of the most admired fashion designers in the world, but it sounds like he isn’t terribly nice to the little people. Arnaud Maillard, who worked as Lagerfeld’s assistant, has a new book coming out – Merci Karl! is a dishy expose that, so far, is only available in France and Germany. [US publishers, this is a potential gold mine!] BlackBook spoke with Maillard about the tome:
He dumps people at the drop of a dime,” [Maillard] adds (though this doesn’t come as much of a surprise for those who have seen Lagerfeld Confidential, where Lagerfeld himself readily admits to his fickle nature with regard to friends and associates). While Lagerfeld “can be very generous … he can also be merciless. I’ve seen him simply stop talking to people, stop acknowledging their existence,” Maillard continues. Of Lagerfeld’s collaboration with H&M, which Maillard says his assistants worked on non-stop for three months, the Kaiser spent “two half-days … on the drafts. Then he got millions from the Swedes.” As for his assistants: nada.
Hello all. Forgive me for the lack of posts this week – my computer, Charlie, had a massive virus in his hard drive. Luckily, I picked him up from the computer hospital today, and this means I can get back to blogging. While I was computerless, I got in some quality TV-watching time, including the premiere of a show I’d been meaning to watch, Southern Belles: Louisville. The show, which airs on SoapNet, is sort of like a Real Housewives show, but they focus on younger, single women who – obviously – live in the South. Already, my favorite Belle is Hadley, whose edit so far is “the one who didn’t come from money.” She dropped out of graduate school to pursue a job as – what else? – an assistant. While we didn’t get to see much of Hadley’s job yet, we learned that she works as a PA for a film producer based in the Louisville area, and there are plenty of “cute” shots of her carrying crazy amounts of dry cleaning and coffee. I really hope they show more scenes of her working. Til then, here’s a webisode of Hadley talking more about herself and her background:
Save the Assistants isn’t really a blog about kids (I mean, unless your kid is your assistant, which happens sometimes), but every rule needs a chance to be broken. Actor Chad Lowe and his girlfriend Kim Painter (formerly the personal assistant to Carrie Fisher) welcomed their first child last weekend. The little one was named Mabel Painter Lowe. The couple has been together since 2007. Congrats!
Perhaps this is what comes of having been a beleaguered assistant, but I think we should judge people by how they treat their inferiors – in the cases of celebrities, we should judge them by how they treat their employees. And while this story is about a maid instead of a personal assistant, I think it is safe to say that actress Victoria Principal sucks as a person.
The former Dallas star is being sued by her former housekeeper Maribel Banegas. Banegas claims that she suffered lots of abuse while working for Principal. She claims that when she asked her boss for outstanding wages that were owed to her, Principal pulled a gun on her. She says that when she came back from walking the dog, Principal thought she had taken too long and began screaming at her.
For what it’s worth, Principal is countersuing, claiming that Banegas was abusing the dog, and that she’d been hired from a temp agency and had only worked three days, thus meaning she hadn’t had time to accumulate back wages. Also for what it’s worth, I almost never believe the celebrity in cases like this, but I admit again to being biased. Usually they have enough money and influence to get people to shut up and go away, but luckily this one is going to trial instead of being hushed up.
Patrick Lencioni, a consultant and business writer, is the author of several bestselling career advice books. I have to admit, though, that I find the overwhelming majority of business books boring as dirt. Sometimes I come across one I like and want to feature on the site, but so often they’re written in this weird stilted business-speak and are full of MBA lingo. Plus, as a young woman, the least cool thing I could possibly be seen reading on the subway is a career advice book or self-help book – that’s why Megan Hustad wrote How to Be Useful about the stigma of ’success literature.’ That said, Lencioni found a great way to keep the ideas and concepts of his business books relevant and interesting – he teamed up with illustrator Kensuke Okabayashi to turn one of his tomes – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team – into a manga.
The result? Pretty darn awesome. Instead of relying on graphs, charts, lists, or just endless pages of dense prose, the manga uses not only illustration but a narrative to explain its concepts. The executives in the story are characters – they have facial expressions, outfits that give hints to their personalities, and relatable emotions. Even though they’re throwing around buzzwords and having arguments about strategy, I found the book interesting because of its use of actual people, as opposed to boring “types” or generic descriptions. In fact, quite a few of the characters reminded me of people I’ve worked with in the past.
If you want to read a career advice book and not get totally made fun of on the morning commute, I can’t recommend The Five Dysfunctions of a Team highly enough.
Remember when the economy first started to tank and all these big companies were getting bailouts? There was a fun buzzword – buyout sex – for employees of companies that were about to go under and figured protocol didn’t matter anymore. Now, there’s the more broad recession sex, which is when people have lost their jobs and are thus poor and have a lot of free time, so they start boning more often.
AdAge, of all places, has an article about this trend. The news hook for them is that sales of personal lubricants and “sexual enhancement devices” are way up.
“When the economy goes down, sex goes up,” said a Johnson & Johnson [who makes K&Y Jelly] spokesman by way of explanation, but he and the brand team declined to elaborate on why their products seem to be booming when the economy isn’t.
“These seem to be products people are actually gravitating toward in a recession,” Mr. Daniels said. “I’m not a psychologist, so I don’t know why that is. We are seeing people spending more time at home. We’re seeing people’s relationships being stressed. We’re seeing people looking for means to reconnect with their partner and invest in relationships. In some cases, people may have more time on their hands if they’re not working.”
Isn’t this the same reason why there’s always a mini baby boom nine months after a hurricane or blackout – people are stuck at home with no TV or internet and need something to keep them occupied? Regardless, if you can’t afford to go out and buy things, you might as well stay home and get it on.
I already knew that Mariah Carey had a whole gaggle of assistants, but I feel like I learn something new about them all the time. For example, I already knew that she had assistants whose duties were to 
It usually isn’t up for debate whether abused assistants are bitter – the question is more likely to be about how bitter they are. But last week, at the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting, the members discussed a new phenomenon they’ve named 
Political assistants have very tough jobs – I mean, I just rewatched that episode of The West Wing where the documentary crew follows CJ around for the day and you see her interact with one aide (played by the awesome Wilson Cruz of My So-Called Life) and it’s definitely stressful. However, one aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton might have gotten canned for a major gaffe last month. What happened? Well, the assistant was charged with setting up a conference call – a pretty common assistant task – but instead of sending out the 1-800 number for the call, accidentally sent out 
Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld may be one of the most admired fashion designers in the world, but it sounds like he isn’t terribly nice to the little people. Arnaud Maillard, who worked as Lagerfeld’s assistant, has a new book coming out – Merci Karl! is a dishy expose that, so far, is only available in France and Germany. [US publishers, this is a potential gold mine!] 
Perhaps this is what comes of having been a beleaguered assistant, but I think we should judge people by how they treat their inferiors – in the cases of celebrities, we should judge them by how they treat their employees. And while this story is about a maid instead of a personal assistant, I think it is safe to say that actress Victoria Principal sucks as a person.
Patrick Lencioni, a consultant and business writer, is the author of several bestselling career advice books. I have to admit, though, that I find the overwhelming majority of business books boring as dirt. Sometimes I come across one I like and want to feature on the site, but so often they’re written in this weird stilted business-speak and are full of MBA lingo. Plus, as a young woman, the least cool thing I could possibly be seen reading on the subway is a career advice book or self-help book – that’s why Megan Hustad wrote How to Be Useful about the stigma of ’success literature.’ That said, Lencioni found a great way to keep the ideas and concepts of his business books relevant and interesting – he teamed up with illustrator Kensuke Okabayashi to turn one of his tomes – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team – into a manga.
