The band King Missile thinks that the best way to make up for being underpaid is to steal things from your office and waste time while on the clock.
Come to think of it, they make a compelling argument.
Monthly Archive for June, 2010
Lindsay Lohan’s assistant Eleanore quit her job recently. Now, she’s reportedly being offered five-figure deals to sell her story to tabloids. While Eleanore is allegedly not sure what she’s going to do, I thought we could take a nice little trip down memory lane and reflect on what happened to some of Lindsay’s other former assistants.
- Lindsay Ratowsky left LiLo to go work for Jessica Biel. LiLo was not happy.
- Back when Lindsay had two assistants, the second one (Tarin) quit. Tarin’s mom came to pick her up from Lindsay’s house and as they drove away Lindsay gave chase in her car, and … well… we all remember how that ended.
- Kate Major went on to work at Star magazine, have sex with Jon Gosselin, leave her job at Star to be with Jon Gosselin, and then got dumped. She is currently engaged to Lindsay’s dad, Michael Lohan. I think I need to gargle with Listerine after having written this.
- Jenni Muro worked for Lindsay for a long time, saved her from drowning, and is still one of her close friends. Also, she is probably qualified for sainthood now.
I don’t know if this answers the question about Eleanore, but I would not be shocked if she says yes. I think it depends on what she wants to do careerwise after this. Lindsay’s a total idiot if she didn’t make Eleanore sign an NDA, especially after all the assistant drama she’s had in the past. If Eleanore really wants to be a PA for another celebrity, talking about Lindsay in the press will not endear her to future celebrity employers. But if she’s more of an Alli Sims type who is just trying to launch her own clothing line or promote her new single, then I predict it’ll be about ten seconds before Eleanore signs on the dotted line and lands herself a photo shoot in Life & Style. Mark my words.
Not every relationship works out – whether that’s husband/wife, parent/child, or boss/employee. But when that relationship dissolves in public, it’s even messier than a regular breakup. Lately, I’ve been watching as stylist to the stars and reality show centerpiece Rachel Zoe has used the fashion media to trash her former assistant, Taylor Jacobson (pictured at left in happier days), who was fired at the end of the last season of The Rachel Zoe Project. Anyone who watched the show saw the obvious tension between Taylor, who’d worked for Zoe some time, and Brad, the second assistant who was hired just as the reality show kicked off. Taylor hoped that hiring Brad meant she’d be promoted into a more managerial position or taking on additional responsibility, but that didn’t really pan out. Naturally, Taylor was frustrated by what she saw as stasis.
Zoe told WWD that “I hired Brad, this little angel, and then Taylor just went in for the kill. And I, like, did not see that coming. I always knew what she was capable of, but who knew that was going to happen with the camera?” Not content to let the mean-bitter-Taylor-picks-on-poor-adorable-angel-Brad storyline rest, Page Six ran an item claiming that Taylor had stolen clothes from her boss. I’ll quote Zoe herself (also from the WWD interview) when she talks about what Taylor’s up to now: “I don’t care what she does.” I also don’t care what Taylor does, but I do care about the fact that Zoe, who I previously respected as an entrepreneur, is talking shit about a former employee in the press. Taylor, to her credit, has barely made a peep. In fact, I didn’t know where she was working until the WWD article mentioned her new job (it’s for a denim company called Kasil).
Is it right to steal clothes? No. It is right to pick on an employee just because you don’t like them, even if you are just taking out your own issues on them? No. And is it right for the boss, the person with the power and the influence, to publicly talk shit about a former employee? No. Rachel Zoe is not some random woman scorned – she is a well known figure in the fashion world who works with celebrities, has tremendous clout, and makes a lot of money. When she goes after Taylor, she looks like she’s kicking someone who is already down. It may be that every single thing she says about Taylor is true, but I don’t care. She’s saying these things in order to promote her reality show and get more people to watch it, and I find that tacky. It would be another thing if Taylor applied for a job somewhere and someone called Zoe to ask whether they should hire her – you’re allowed to say “No, I would not recommend hiring her because she did X and Y when she worked for me” to someone else in the industry if they call about a job reference. But to give interviews to fashion industry publications trashing a former employee, even if you’re 100 percent in the right, just comes off as gross and uneccessary. Zoe has already won: she’s the one who is famous, has a TV show, and gets paid a lot of money to help celebrities pick out clothes. Continuing to smear Taylor is the equivalent of Patti LuPone using a public platform to insult a community theater actor.
I’m sure that Zoe, as she says, is just out to “set the record straight.” The record wasn’t crooked in the first place. However, the new season of The Rachel Zoe Project starts in August. I’m certain that’s totally a coincidence.
Cross-posted at The Gloss
Flavorwire’s list of their favorite assistants from pop culture is pretty good. They have some of the usual suspects in there (Betty Suarez, Smithers, Jessica Zajicek), some up-and-comers (Andrew from Kell on Earth, who I keep meaning to do a post about), and some unconventional picks (until this list came out I thought I was the only person who preferred Emily to Andie in The Devil Wears Prada). But there’s one assistant they single out who I have sadly not ever done an ode to here on STA:
PAULA DEEN’S GAY ASSISTANT BRANDON.
That guy is so awesome. Gay Southerners are among my favorite people ever.
I love Belinda Carlisle – both her solo work and the Go-Gos. I’ve been reading her new memoir Lips Unsealed all week, and it’s great. Not only does she tell lots of good dishy stories about the LA punk scene, she used to be an office admin! Here’s the very first paragraph of her book:
At eighteen, I worked at the Hilton Hotels Corporation, photocopying papers for eight hours a day. When I wasn’t doing that, I was ordering toilet paper for hundred of hotels. I was bored out of my mind. Making matters worse, I had the world’s most hideous boss. He looked for reasons to call me into his office and chew me out. Most people would’ve quit, but I didn’t care. Besides needing the money, I knew I wasn’t going to be there long. I was going to be a rock star.
The awesome part? She was right. Heaven may be a place on earth, but that place is not the office.
A new study says that both men and women put more effort into getting dressed on Mondays than they do the rest of the week. Women reportedly spend an average of 76 minutes getting dressed and made up on Mondays, a number which declines steadily each day of the week. As for dudes? They take 28 minutes on Monday, 14 on Tuesday, and 11 each of the other days of the week. Some possible theories of mine:
- On Monday, you’re really effing tired, so it takes you twice as long to do the same things. Like, you spend 10 minutes putting on eye makeup instead of five because you’re cloudy-headed and not as focused. Throughout the week, you get sharper.
- I suspect there’s a correlation between looking better on Mondays and having more important meetings with higher-ups on Mondays. My old boss always scheduled shit at 10 AM on Mondays and then spent the rest of the week being a useless douche.
- If you went shopping over the weekend and bought something new, you want to wear it as soon as possible. That means Monday.
- During the week, you go out and get drunk. Then you might oversleep the next morning and less time to get ready.
- Mondays are a hard day because they’re when you have to get back into “work mode.” So you didn’t plan what to wear the night before or put your makeup out in a place where you could just grab it instead of digging around in your medicine cabinet.
Do you agree that you spend more time getting ready on Monday, or do you think this survey is out of whack? Tell me what you think!
