a blog for the beleaguered
Hey guys,
Garrett here. While Lilit is away I’m going to be helping Ashley with the upkeep of STA. I’m an assistant out in Los Angeles, working for the exec producer of a brand new hit show (shameless plug). I’ve contributed some content before (some links and, just maybe, a horror story about an old boss), but never actually written any posts, so bear with me. I’ll be filling in on Mondays and Wednesdays, bringing y’all some entertainment themed (and hopefully entertaining) items. Enjoy!
–Garr
Friday’s post about WME cutting assistant wages got me thinking. Nine dollars and fifty cents an hour is really low – like, really, really low. Even Lilit and I were paid more at our former crappy assistant jobs.
So I did a little digging to find some better-paying jobs. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t difficult to find them.
As promised, here’s a reader submission regarding the portrayal of Louise (Jennifer Hudson), Carrie’s assistant in Sex and the City. The writer is Lisa-Marie from Glasgow, who writes a blog called Last Year’s Girl. NOTE: This post contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, read at your discretion.
I never saw any more than a couple of episodes of Sex and the City during its oh-so-fabulous, early noughties heyday; but perhaps the one defining image it seared into the pop cultural receptor at the front of my brain is of Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw, perched in front of a MacBook as she files that week’s column late into the evening. And so I feel a little bit cheated after watching the big budget continuation of Ms Bradshaw’s tramps and travails through Manhattan – it turns out that, while she has the money to pay for a top of the range laptop and sparkly pink mobile phone, she doesn’t even know how to send a text message. What’s a girl to do but hire an assistant?
STA sends a hearty welcome to sometime guest blogger John Brooks. This week, he weighs in on Scott McClellan, author of a new memoir about his time as press secretary, a job which may or may not be an assistant position. You decide.
The President’s Press Secretary is perhaps the highest-profile, highest-ranking lackey job on the face of the planet. The job description? Explain to the world all the crazy, unpopular, and often illegal things that your boss is doing, and explain it in such a way that makes it seem such things are not crazy, unpopular, or illegal. Oh, and have fun out there, buck-o! You’re here to learn.
It warms our collective hearts to see Scott McClellan, who used to do said job for everybody’s least-favorite bosses, the Bush administration, come out with his new book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception”, which goes into detail about something we kinda knew all along: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Condoleeza Rice are all assholes. Oh, and they lie to everybody. Including each other. And the American public.
These lies may or may not have yielded the Iraq War. (Okay…they did)
So while McClellan’s book is a front-runner for both the annual “Too Little, Too Late” and “Gee, Thanks For Not Writing This 6 Years Ago…” awards, we nonetheless salute Scotty for at least having the audacity to stand up to his awful, awful former employers.
Press Secretaries: They’re just like us!*
*except Dana Perino
[Editor's note: Doesn't "McClellan" look stupid in all lowercase?]
Many thanks to STA friend John of My Reviews for giving me a heads up about a recent episode of The Simpsons where Lisa becomes Krusty’s assistant. Since Lisa was a feminist hero to my eight-year-old self, it makes me happy to hear she’s still kicking butt despite the fact I haven’t seen a new episode of the show in years. John gives us his synopsis:
We wouldn’t blame you if you stopped watching “The Simpsons” 8 years ago, when it had passed its “Planet of the Apes: The Musical” prime and began its decline into 5 minutes of vaguely funny non sequiturs and random Lenny jokes stretched out into 22 minutes of preposterous and tenuous storylines.
Which is to say, you probably missed this week’s episode “All About Lisa”, where, through a series of unlikely events, Krusty hires Lisa to be his (unpaid) assistant, after Lisa informs crusty that The Discovery Channel is run entirely by interns and doesn’t have a single paid employee. [Editor's Note: I'm pretty sure this is true.]
Krusty, true to form, instantly turns into the boss from hell, requiring her assistance when he gets pastrami stuck in her teeth, instructing her to pay attention when he tells Nelson “I’ll trash you in my memoirs” (since she’ll be writing his memoirs), and making loud, ambiguously-phrased, demands that she do all his errands (“Now go get me my dry-cleaning, which is my code word for ‘Scotch’. And get me my Scotch, which is my code word for ‘my bookie’. And also, go get my dry cleaning!”)
The good news is that Lisa eventually works her way to the top, rendering her abusive boss obsolete in the process.
My favorite line: “What are you standing around for? I wish I was paying you so I could dock your salary!”
STA friend John Brooks of My ReViews is a huge superhero fan, so we asked him to report back to us on how Gwyneth Paltrow did playing an assistant in Iron Man. Paltrow plays Virginia “Pepper” Potts, the redheaded Girl Friday to Robert Downey Jr.’s boss Tony Stark.
There are a lot of reasons we love Iron Man (which grossed over a jillion dollars this past weekend): Robert Downey Jr. as millionaire industrialist womanizing player-turned superhero Tony Stark; the amazing effects; the fact that it contains actual, three-dimensional human characters; that awesome superhero suit; Robert Downey Jr.
Continue reading ‘guest post: reviewing gwyneth paltrow in ‘iron man’’
You may have noticed several posts tagged as “Guest Post” last week. While Lilit was on vacation, a guest blogger named Becky stepped in to contribute to STA. However, the introduction post that she wrote got eaten in the Great Porn Invasion of ‘08. So, let us belatedly thank Becky, who blogs about her life as an L.A. movie industry assistant over at The Cat’s Meow. If you missed any of her posts, here’s a handy list of our favorites:
January 30, 2007. As a choir of angels heralded in a joyous New Year, something vile lurked quietly beneath the surface and, when the moment was right, descended upon the unsuspecting public… No, not Cloverfield, but Windows Vista.
I don’t like to talk trash about something which I haven’t used experienced myself (i.e. intergalactic space travel, spelunking, BDSM), but I have heard nothing but negative reviews, from the professional computer world and from friend of friends. My company decided soon after not to upgrade our computers because we felt that there would be too many troubles with running it. And then reputable sources CNet and PCWorld each declared it the “Worst Product of 2007″. That’s about enough for me.
The real question: Does anyone know if the infamously loveable and-at-the-same-time despised PaperClip Assistant survived the grand Reformation?
You know the fella I mean.
Helpful yet annoying. Always there when you don’t need him, and hard to find when you do? I remember using him during typing tests in middle school, way back when those gosh darn computers were just invented. It was a huge thrill for lil 12-year-old me to change the feature options so that he appeared as a cute wagging-tail doggie, a purring kitteh or a Gandalf instead of the googly eyed paperclip. Scandalous…
Just wanted to give a bit of glory to another hardworking assistant of note. I hope, for his sake, that he endured the storm and is still with us. At the very least, he shall always remain in our hearts.
*American flag waves*
Here’s a query for all the fab STA readers out there, maybe we can start a discussion on this matter. It’s a topic to which I have no real conclusion… Over the years, I’ve come to notice a certain practice in offices: male boss with female assistant, and female boss with male assistant. To clarify, I have only my own experience as an intern and assistant in a number of rather small offices, ranging probably from between 1-10 coworkers, so this may not carry to the rest of the world’s many 100, 1,000, or 10,000-plus-employee offices. Is it the industry I’m in? My instinct is no. And as there are currently only two sexes of the human race, it’s really a flip of the coin as to the pairing of boss / assistant. Do the math, kids – there are only four combinations:
Male boss / female assistant; Male boss / male assistant; Female boss / female assistant; Female boss / male assistant.So, because of the very limited possibilities, my amateur theory on this may be entirely bull. But I’m gonna run with it just a bit.There are so many dangerous, Indiana-Jones-esque social traps and etiquette pitfalls in the corporate world. You can be friends with you boss / co-workers, but not too close friends or drama and possible blackmail can ensure when you least expect / need it. (Ed. note: See “frenemy” for more details.) You can also hate your bosses / co-workers, but it’s always nice if you can simply put up with them for the 8-12 (hopefully not more) hours it takes you to get through the day and not go home and flog yourself. Everything in moderation, right?So, when it comes to that very special boss/assistant relationship, what’s the optimal pairing? As a boss, do you want to be best friends, equals, aloof, or tyrannical with your assistant? As an assistant, do you want to respect, tolerate or fear your boss? There’s a lot of grey area here that I’m overshadowing, but you get the drift.I mention these fragile social issues in order to follow my odd thesis, no doubt expanded upon ever-more-brilliantly by someone other than myself, but bear with me. How exactly do the sexes work together? No two scenarios are alike, that’s one thing we can count on, with an infinite number of variables. But let’s lay it down straight – is it easier, in a hierarchical relationship like that of a boss and assistant, to work with someone of the opposite sex or someone of the same sex? Would love some thoughts on the topic.
Ever want a laugh? Surf Craigslist for a few minutes. You’ll be sure to find something worthy of note. Especially for the over abused assistant with a wandering eye (who hasn’t been there?) who might be looking to hand in their badge and gun and mosey on out of Dodge.Here’s some gems under the assistant category, for Los Angeles at least:
Oh, and don’t forget you can go international. Want to travel? You can use your assisting skills to aid the masses.
You are currently browsing the save the assistants weblog archives for the Guest Post category.