I’ve linked a few times to The Angry Office Manager, but for those of you unfamiliar with the blog, it chronicled the adventures of a real, live, pissed off office manager who worked at a company in Manhattan. The blog, which was funny, sad, and did a great job of depicting the daily life of an office and the people who work in it, has ended. The blogger (who uses the nom de plume “Angry Mandy” and has asked us not to reveal her name–yet) was laid off last week.
Angry Mandy’s last post talks about how she feels about being let go, and I think we can all identify with the feelings of loss, sadness, and weirdly peaceful bliss that she’s feeling right now. After all, we all hate our jobs, but do we really want to lose them before we have a chance to quit? Til then, goodbye Angry Office Manager, and I look forward to revealing your identity someday when you end up with a much cooler gig.
Today’s New York Times covers the real news–workplace etiquette. Hey, there’s a war going on and some kind of election thing going on, but I will always flip to the style section of the paper first, and they know it. And besides, if anyone knows how gross, rude, and inconsiderate coworkers can be, it’s an STA reader. From the boss who scratched his balls incessantly to the CEO who stole his employees’ Tupperware to the coworker who didn’t grasp the art of cell phone etiquette, this site has varieties of bad job behavior pretty much covered. However, I’d like to share this excerpt from the article, where I basically agree with every single thing the writer says:
Continue reading ‘new york times reports on tacky coworkers’
We don’t know much about Autumn Kelly, but we like her already. The 30-year-old Canadian got married yesterday to Peter Phillips, oldest son of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips. He is a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II and 11th in line to the British throne. However, it doesn’t seem like Autumn’s new status has changed her much. The McGill University alumna has worked as both a bartender and a model; currently, she is the personal assistant to British TV personality Michael Parkinson. She has reportedly said that she will not quit her job when she gets married “because we need both incomes.”
[Pictured: the happy couple.]
Wow…sensible, feminist, and not a famewhore? It sounds like we need to be friends with Autumn Kelly. Is she an influence on Princess Beatrice’s decision to spend some of her gap year working as an assistant?
Gallup (the same people who do the Gallup poll) apparently gives out annual awards for great workplaces. And this year’s big winner is… Country Inns and Suites.
Since we hadn’t heard of them either, we did some searching around on their site. Here’s what we learned about them: their website is phenomenally boring. If you want to look into career opportunities, click here. Regardless, boring website or not, kudos on being crowned America’s Best Workplace.
If you haven’t seen the video of several high school girls attacking and beating one of their classmates, well, you’re luckier than I am. (Note: I am not providing a YouTube link. You can find it yourself.)
Well, that bastion of pseudo-journalism and human representation of the death of our culture, “Dr.” Phil, paid to get one of the girls bailed out of jail. The bail for Mercades Nichols, 17, was $3,300, and her family apparently couldn’t afford to bail her out. “Dr.” Phil, who never misses an opportunity to get his name in the press, is believed to have made a deal where Mercades would appear on his show if he paid her bail. Luckily, the plan was foiled by the person sent with the bail money: a production assistant. TMZ.com refers to the PA, Boston University student Michael Wynne, as “an intern with a paycheck” (we’d like to add “and a college degree,” but whatever) and note that the PA’s disgust with his task and willingness to talk about it in the press are what exposed “Dr.” Phil’s plan.
For that, Michael Wynne, we salute you. Way to stand up for what you believe in and make it clear that you had been unfairly asked to do something way outside the boundaries of your job.
We came across an article today that floored us so much we barely had anything to say. It wasn’t about Naomi Campbell beating an assistant to death. It was about a boss who was actually awesome, and who showed respect to his assistant. Barry Dixon of Syracuse, NY-based Cadaret Grant & Co. Inc. actually wrote an open letter praising his assistant. He acknowledges all of the areas in which he’s lacking, which happen to be the same ones where his assistant, Pat Fowler, excels. We’ve excerpted some of this remarkable letter below:
Pat tracks dates that clients are due for a quarterly review, schedules the meetings and contacts them about forms they should bring to the meeting.
Clients trust her, too, and most often ask to speak with her, not me, about everyday account questions. They trust that she will find the answers they need.
Pat is driven. If she doesn’t understand a procedure or an investment vehicle, she educates herself about it, calling fund companies or researching the product online.
I have subscriptions to many industry publications, but they hit my desk a few weeks late, dog-eared and covered with Pat’s highlighter marks. Believe me, she can hold her own in any room filled with advisers.
For the full text, click here.
There are plenty of everyday dangers associated with being an assistant. Ducking whatever blunt object your boss throws at you, for example, or scalding yourself on hot coffee when you’re running to get the cup to your boss’ desk in the quickest time possible.
Lately, though, it seems like assistants have had even more to worry about. First, footballer Joey Barton’s assistant got attacked by a crazed fan who mistook the assistant for Barton. Now, STA reader Avia sends us this story from Israel. The assistant to Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter was injured by bullets shot by Palestinian sniper who was aiming for Dichter. Matii Gil, 30, was injured but is expected to make a full recovery. He also seems to be pretty badass. Gil was quoted at the hospital as saying, “There is no doubt that my life was saved. Whatever happens, I will overcome. I’m suffering from pain, but it will pass.”
I’m starting to think all assistants should demand hazard pay.
We hadn’t heard of Australian “music guru” Molly Meldrum (below), but we’re all ready to declare him an awesome boss. Molly’s longtime personal assistant, Yael Cohn, recently gave birth to a son, Jacob. Not only is Molly totally cool with Yael bringing her baby to work, Molly joins in and helps care for the infant so Yael can get work done. Very few working mothers get opportunities even close to that one, and even fewer assistants. Kudos to Molly, Yael, and little Jacob for their role in reconfiguring the modern workplace.
I spent a large part of this weekend reading Joshua Kendall’s The Man Who Made Lists, a biography of Peter Mark Roget. He’s the man who first wrote the eponymous Roget’s Thesaurus and thus helped generations of writers, college students, and crossword puzzle fanatics (Sylvia Plath even referred to herself once as “Roget’s strumpet”). And, because I am able to find a connection to assistantdom in just about everything, one interesting fact from the book stood out to me: Roget didn’t have an assistant. That’s right…all the initial work for the thesaurus was his and his alone. Compare that to dictionary-maker Samuel Johnson, who had no fewer than six assistants. You could make the argument that a dictionary is a much more intensive undertaking than a thesaurus, but I think the coolness (hipness, awesomeness, chicness, badassitude) of Roget is without question.
While all’s been pretty quiet on the Naomi Campbell front, fellow cranky supermodel Liz Hurley has made some nasty headlines for her treatment of one of her employees.Apparently Liz and new husband – both multi-millionaires – are too cheap to pay one of their employees livable wages. What the hell? We here at STA have a zero-tolerance attitude towards stingy millionaires. That school of thought should have been buried with Leona Helmsley. Fortunately, the employee, 31-year old Violet d’Souza, knew her rights and brought a lawsuit against her employers for “breach of contract, failure to supply a written statement of terms, race discrimination and unfair dismissal.” Now that’s the kind of empowered assistant we like to hear about. To read more, click here.
