As the entire universe apparently now knows, NBC bungled it big time when it came to letting Jay Leno retire and hand the reins of The Tonight Show over to Conan O’Brien. In addition to the obvious lessons we can learn from this disaster, such as “Jay Leno sucks” and “Conan O’Brien is hilarious,” FedLine (aka the Federal Times’ blog) points out some management lessons that we can learn from the mishandling of the whole situation. Let’s hope some TV executives take these tips to heart.
Lesson #1: Career progression is crucial to retaining top talent.
In other words, if your most talented people know they’ll be stuck in their jobs a long time because there’s nowhere for them to go internally, they will leave. And it will be your fault for not providing enough incentives.
Lesson #3: If you’re going to fire someone, just do it already.
One of the most embarrassing parts of the whole late night fiasco was the way that it was handled so publicly and that it took seemingly forever to resolve. That worked out nicely for Conan’s audience, who got to enjoy weeks’ worth of him taking potshots at NBC and putting together hilarious skits about wasting the network’s money, but it only protracted the whole situation. Good for viewers, not so good for NBC.
And while we’re on the subject of the lovely Mr. O’Brien, let’s all take his incredibly classy goodbye speech advice to heart:
I’ve heard a lot of stories of weird, hyper-demanding bosses with very specific rules before. (Hell, I’ve also worked for a boss like that.) But this sweet story from author Joanna Smith Rakoff, while about working for someone with a very specific demand, is also really heartwarming. When Rakoff was starting out as an assistant in the NYC publishing world, she was given a very unusual task: keeping Catcher in the Rye author (and notorious recluse) J.D. Salinger’s home address and phone number a closely guarded secret. You see, she worked for Salinger’s literary agent, and while they had direct contact with the author, people would often call the office under all kinds of pretenses trying to get Salinger’s contact information. Young Joanna was warned never, ever, for ANY reason, to let the information get out. Previous assistants had been fired for not hewing to this rule.
In addition to the boring admin work that is de rigeur for assistants, Joanna also got to have the pretty cool task of answering Salinger’s fan mail. I highly recommend checking out the whole article, which is as much a remembrance of Salinger and a celebration of his work as it is a personal reflection, here. Also, I’m biased, because I worked with Joanna on a coupleof pieces for the website where I used to work and found her to be lovely, smart, and a great writer. I wonder who would answer it if I sent her fan mail.
I really love this “Hitler freaks out about something” video meme that’s been going around YouTube for awhile. The footage, taken from the movie Downfall and starring Bruno Ganz as Der Fuhrer (a role he also played brilliantly in Inglorious Basterds), is in German and different people have added unrelated English subtitles in order to make Hitler mad about everything from the Nintento Wii to the Conan O’Brien/Jay Leno fiasco. In this one, Hitler plays his greatest role yet: a teaching assistant.
Have you ever flipped through a magazine and felt like they were missing your perspective on something? One girl, Ashley Falcon, felt like she and other plus-size women weren’t getting enough advice and support from fashion magazines. Rather than just complain, Ashley got going - she joined Marie Claire magazine as an intern, and soon she was penning her very own column for the publication. How did she make the leap from unpaid intern to full-time writer? One day, Ashley was sharing a cab with a Marie Claire editor. She mentioned that she had to work much harder than her more slender coworkers to find cute, appropriate work attire. The editor thought Ashley made a great point, and before long she was winning a huge following with her honest yet funny takes on plus-size shopping. The column, “Big Girl in a Skinny World,” is a hit.
Her first column addressed the gruelling quest for the perfect pair of jeans. She included three of her favourites that work for up to a size 24. That’s probably the first time those digits have appeared on one of the magazine’s fashion spreads unless it mentioned the model’s age.
The article is surprisingly and admirably frank. Ashley doesn’t just claim to be an expert, she offers her testimonial as an unashamed size 18: “I go through at least a few pairs of jeans every year, routinely wearing holes in the area where my thighs rub together.”
Ashley wrote that “It’s not easy being chic, but it’s an epic struggle when you’re a big girl.”
Are you infuriated by the fact that rich bankers get Washington bailouts and six-figure bonuses while you’re still scraping by? You are far from alone. Tim Hunkin, an English man who runs an arcade in Southwold, Suffolk realized there was a market for people who wanted to take out their frustration on capitalist pigs - so he created “Whack a Banker,” a game based on the popular “Whack a Mole,” where little heads of men in business suits pop out of holes, and you beat the hell out of them with a mallet. Hunkin, who charges a mere 40 pence per turn, is already raking in the cash.
”It’s proving very popular. I keep having to replace worn-out mallets.”
”And, of course, the bankers never really lose. If you win the game a banker’s voice says: ‘You win. We retire. Thank you very much to the taxpayer for paying our pensions’.”
Meetings are weird things, and often they’re a breeding ground for embarrassing workplace behavior. Because of the sheer amount of boredom in the room, there’s always someone chewing on a pen, doodling, spilling coffee down the front of their shirt, or forgetting to turn their cell phone off. Well, Us Weekly has decided to share one of the most embarrassing meeting stories ever - for some reason, they deem a story about Jessica Simpson farting in a meeting to be worthy of attention on their website. I almost didn’t post about it, but I decided that it’s worth pointing out that Us Weekly is really grasping for straws. I love celebrity gossip as much as the next girl, but come on. It’s not like she pulled a Paula Abdul and answered her cell phone during a meeting. Sometimes people fart. It’s involuntary and they can’t help it. I mean, for fuck’s sake, leave the woman alone. If she says or does something, we can judge her behavior, but what’s next - an article about how she sneezed while someone was trying to ask for an autograph?
Singer Susan Boyle recently found herself in hot water when she had an outburst at a restaurant in London. Reportedly, Susan snapped and shouted at one of the employees of the restaurant. However, it turns out Susan had someone else as the target of her ire - her assistant, who apparently told Susan that she needed to go on a diet and lose some weight. Um, not cool, assistant. I’m struggling to find a reason why anyone would tell their boss to go on a diet - even if you think that, why would you ever say it to the person who has the authority to fire you? Most celebrity assistant jobs involve being a bit of a yes man or yes woman, and I find it incredibly surprising that an assistant would ever tell their celebrity boss “you need to lose weight.” Entertainment Lawyer, as usual, has a pretty good theory - that the assistant was passing along a message from a manager or agent or someone else who wanted to pressure Susan about her looks. Sadly, it’s not at all uncommon for the people responsible for managing a famous person’s career to give the celebrity unsolicited ‘advice’ about how to dress/look, even to the point where they encourage them to diet.
That said, Susan apologized for her outburst, and let’s hope this is the last we hear of it.
Oh, fashion interns. Not only does wanting to break into such a competitive industry usually mean you have to accept several unpaid or low-paid gigs in order to build up your resume, one fashion website is now pushing their free help even further. Fashionista.com, who (like many other fashion and beauty companies) relies on unpaid interns to help them cover the bases during Fashion Week, has asked their staff to go above and beyond the normal call of duty. Check out this section from a recent intern job ad they posted:
“We’ll need you at least two days a week until Fashion Week starts February 9th, during which we’ll need you more. How much more depends on your schedule, but you should be eager to skip class in favor of MILK. Our intern hours are officially 11 to 4, but again, once the week starts there’s no on/off.”
You heard that right, everybody: your unpaid job is WAY more important than your education! School is for losers! I’ll see you guys at fashion week.
As any regular STA reader knows, I’m a big Conan O’Brien fan. Even though I wish he would still go back and write episodes for “The Simpsons,” I’ve been totally grossed out by the way Jay Leno and NBC have treated Conan during his stint on “The Tonight Show.” One of the upsides of the whole late night war, though, is all the awesome television coming out of it. Conan has not pulled any punches, making fun of NBC and Leno as much as he can before leaving the network. This clip, though, was one of the best yet: a crossover with fellow NBC star Jack McBrayer in character as 30 Rock’s Kenneth the Page. And what was Kenneth doing at the Tonight Show? Giving a studio tour, of course.
I’ve heard a lot of stories of weird, hyper-demanding bosses with very specific rules before. (Hell, I’ve also worked for a boss like that.) But this sweet story from author Joanna Smith Rakoff, while about working for someone with a very specific demand, is also really heartwarming. When Rakoff was starting out as an assistant in the NYC publishing world, she was given a very unusual task: keeping Catcher in the Rye author (and notorious recluse) J.D. Salinger’s home address and phone number a closely guarded secret. You see, she worked for Salinger’s literary agent, and while they had direct contact with the author, people would often call the office under all kinds of pretenses trying to get Salinger’s contact information. Young Joanna was warned never, ever, for ANY reason, to let the information get out. Previous assistants had been fired for not hewing to this rule.
Are you infuriated by the fact that rich bankers get Washington bailouts and six-figure bonuses while you’re still scraping by? You are far from alone. Tim Hunkin, an English man who runs an arcade in Southwold, Suffolk realized there was a market for people who wanted to take out their frustration on capitalist pigs - 
Singer Susan Boyle recently found herself in hot water when she had an outburst at a restaurant in London. Reportedly, Susan snapped and shouted at one of the employees of the restaurant. However, it turns out Susan had someone else as the target of her ire - her assistant, who apparently told Susan that she needed to go on a diet and lose some weight. Um, not cool, assistant. I’m struggling to find a reason why anyone would tell their boss to go on a diet - even if you think that, why would you ever say it to the person who has the authority to fire you? Most celebrity assistant jobs involve being a bit of a yes man or yes woman, and I find it incredibly surprising that an assistant would ever tell their celebrity boss “you need to lose weight.” Entertainment Lawyer, as usual,