The adorable book Careers for Your Cat by Ann Dziemianowicz is perfect for the recession. I mean, if you need extra money, tell that good-for-nothing pet of yours to stop lying around the house sunning himself all day and start contributing to the household finances. If you’re not sure what kind of job your cat would be best suited for, Dziemianowicz is here to help. Start with the “Meowers-Briggs” personality test to determine what kind of personality your cat has, and then choose a profession based on the results. Basically, I love everything about this book, including the illustrations by Ann Boyajian. As the success of lolcats has shown, cats in outfits making weird faces is always, always funny.
So what are some possible jobs for your lazy, do-nothing Garfield wannabe of a kitten?
Does your cat like to chase and collect shiny things? Maybe he should open his own art gallery!
Is she known for her sharp claws? Perhaps she’d make a good lobbyist.
If he loves to sleep on books, that could be a sign he’s destined to become a librarian.
Here’s a hint for erstwhile job applicants: if you’re going to submit a resume somewhere, try not to submit a resume to a store you regularly shoplift from. A woman in Barrie, Ontario, applied to work at a clothing store. However, when she came in to interview, employees recognized her as the woman they’d seen on a security video of a shoplifter. Because her resume contained her full name, address, and phone number, it was pretty easy to find her and arrest her.
Today I fielded some reader questions over on Crushable.com, which is the sister site to the place where I work, TheGloss.com. Here’s some of what I had to say:
Q. I feel hopeless about finding a job, especially in this economy. Should I take whatever job I can get that pays the bills or wait until I find something emotionally satisfying (while living under my parents’ roof)?
A. I’d love to tell you that you should hold out for your dream job, but you know what? For many people, me included, that wasn’t an option. My suggestion would be to find a gig that pays the bills and in the meantime while your basic needs are being met start looking for a job that you find more fulfilling. One thing I really stress on my site and in the book is that there’s a huge difference between “job” and “career.” Just because you take a short-term job to pay the bills doesn’t mean you’re destined to be at that job forever. So, unless you’re planning to live off of your savings or have some other way of supporting yourself, you can’t be snobby about what kind of job you take when you’re broke. Just remember never to lose sight of what you really want to do, and don’t stop sending out resumes and checking job boards. It’s way easier to land your dream job when you already have a job somewhere else – that gives you the ability to play coy and negotiate a better salary for yourself.
You can check out the rest of the Q&A on Crushable.
No, it’s not a fancy promotion or incriminating knowledge about your boss’ extracurricular activities… it’s a gun that shoots Post-It notes at people! Let’s all pretend Romy and Michele invented it, shall we?
This is even better than a staple gun – so subtle, so nefarious, so yellow.
Say there’s a place where you want to work. Say that you go and submit an application to work there. What should you do immediately afterward? Here’s a quiz:
a) Leave.
b) Politely say goodbye and thank the person to whom you gave your application.
c) Steal from the tip jar.
If you chose C, then you’re one of the two boys who applied to work at an ice cream shop in Indiana and then got arrested for stealing a dollar each from the tip jar. Hey guys, here’s a tip for next time: you would probably earn more than a dollar each if you got the job.
I have a search box set up for “personal assistant” on the Twitter application I use. Sometimes, that search box turns up good, usable stuff, like this post. But about 99 percent of the tweets can be divided up into one of two categories:
People complaining that they have too much work to do and asking if anyone wants to be their unpaid personal assistant/driver/cook/nanny/some combination thereof; and
People tweeting at a particular celebrity and volunteering to be his or her personal assistant.
This post concerns the latter category. I won’t get into the fact that being a celebrity personal assistant is not really a glamorous job the way that people seem to think it is, because that’s a topic for another post or five. This is a post about how completely stupid it is to think that a celebrity will hire you as their personal assistant because you asked them to via Twitter. So here’s why:
You are not the first person who has ever thought of this. Some celebrities get dozens of tweets a day from people who seriously or half-seriously would like to be their PA.
If a celebrity needs an assistant, they will probably obtain one via some more reasonable way than responding to random tweets. Most celebrity assistants are hired through private staffing agencies or by referral. If you actually want to be a celebrity assistant, you should probably move to New York or LA and reach out to one of these agencies. If you really think contacting someone via Twitter is a good idea, then maybe you should at least tweet about your credentials and experience.
Many celebrities aren’t the ones updating their own Twitter accounts. There are definitely some celebrities, like Ashton Kutcher, who love Twitter and compose their own tweets. But there are plenty more who just use Twitter for publicity purposes or to promote whatever they’re working on, and often Twitter accounts for celebrities are run by publicists – or, wait for it – assistants. Here’s a hint: a celebrity’s assistant will probably not need to hire an assistant or appreciate your offer to replace them.
The internet is unreliable. Even if someone decided they were going to hire a person who tweeted at them, who would know if said person really existed or wasn’t crazy? No celebrity with any sense would hire a personal assistant without meeting them in person or having them go through various rounds of interviews.
That said, Twitter is not the only way that people try to get jobs as celebrities’ assistants. Any time I do a post relating to a celebrity looking for an assistant, I get several emails or comments from people who seem to think that I am personally hiring for the position. Some people even send me resumes with their private phone number and home address on them. So far, I haven’t published any of them, because I feel sorry for people who can’t tell the difference between an actual job ad and a website that regularly snarks on celebrities who abuse their assistants. But let this serve as a warning – if, for some reason, you are desperate to be slave labor for a famous person, please just call an agency, and leave me – and Twitter – out of it.
As much as I disliked the movie Outsourced, I am willing to give the TV show of the same name and premise a try. The show is about a US company that makes wacky novelty items like foam fingers and whoopee cushions. They decide to save money by outsourcing their call center to India, and a hapless American employee gets sent to India to manage the office and teach the employees about American culture. Here’s a preview of the show. Will you watch it?
Is there such a thing as the “too casual” casual Friday? Sadly, the decision is not up to me. – New York Post
Crappy assistant task of the day: carrying Chace Crawford’s umbrella for him as he walks. Or maybe this is the best assistant task ever if Gossip Boys are your type. – DListed
What should you say to the coworker you’re crushing on at the office? Probably not “Hey, want to get fired for fraternizing?” – YourTango
The kickass Jen Dziura (I am biased because I’m her editor, but she really is awesome) points out that there are certain personality traits that count way more than anything on your resume. – TheGloss
Sometimes it is more stressful to get dressed for work than it is to actually work. Unless you are Miranda Priestly, obvs. – CollegeCandy
The August issue of Psychology Today magazine, out on newsstands now, features Save the Assistants as one of the books in their “What We’re Looking At This Summer” section. Here’s a pic of our blurb below, but you can also check out the full article on page 27 of the print edition.
The adorable book Careers for Your Cat by Ann Dziemianowicz is perfect for the recession. I mean, if you need extra money, tell that good-for-nothing pet of yours to stop lying around the house sunning himself all day and start contributing to the household finances. If you’re not sure what kind of job your cat would be best suited for, Dziemianowicz is here to help. Start with the “Meowers-Briggs” personality test to determine what kind of personality your cat has, and then choose a profession based on the results. Basically, I love everything about this book, including the illustrations by Ann Boyajian. As the success of lolcats has shown, cats in outfits making weird faces is always, always funny.
