Maybe Meghan McCain should move to Japan and work for Hime and Company – she thinks that it’s totally acceptable to miss work if you’re dealing with a breakup. Although she was scheduled to make a speaking engagement, she reportedly blew it off to go to Vegas with her girlfriends following a big breakup. She wrote about it on The Daily Beast:
Last September, my boyfriend broke up with me over a five-line email. I had a speaking engagement at Juniata College, but that would have to wait. I cancelled the speech and fled to Vegas for a girl’s weekend. I was at the blackjack table at the Bellagio when one of my girlfriends told me the Internet was going crazy. What now? “Meghan McCain Blows Off Book Tour to Party in Vegas,” declared Gawker. The Chronicle of Higher Education weighed in with, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas—unless you’re arrogant enough to post it to your Twitter feed.” It wasn’t so much that I had cancelled a speaking engagement. It was that I was in Vegas instead.
Now, if only the rest of us could get away with that at work.
I’m obsessed with Hoarders on A&E – every episode ends with me frantically scrubbing the floor in my bathroom, convinced that if I don’t I am going to die alone under a pile of decade-old magazines. Matt Paxton is the star of the show – a cleaner, organizer, and amateur therapist, he deals with many of the show’s most outrageous and unmanageable hoarders. In an interview with Bloomberg, Paxton says that not only does every family have a hoarder, every office does too. Think about it: do you know which employee always has a stash of pens? Who has a secret candy jar? These small collections might be evidence of a bigger hoard. I know I’m guilty of keeping extra stuff at my office – a sweater or change of clothes in case I need to go out after work and am not dressed properly, clear nail polish in case I get a run in my tights, and maybe whatever leftovers I’m going to warm up in the fridge today and eat for lunch. But does that make me a hoarder? I’m not sure, but I think this is an excellent time to break into the office Lysol stash.
Jillian Michaels has left The Biggest Loser and moving to the next chapter in her life. She recently gave an interview to the New York Times magazine about her new book and becoming a mother. But the part that most interested me – of course – was about her assistant, who is overweight. Here’s an excerpt (parts in bold are the interviewer):
I would be reluctant to sit down and have dinner with you, because I imagine you would look at my spare tire and see unresolved issues.
I actually have quite a few people in my life that are heavy. One of my assistants is heavy. We don’t ever talk about it. It’s not my place.
Is she going to learn from reading this article that she’s heavy?
She says it to me all the time. The one thing I don’t like her to do is eat McDonald’s, not because it makes her heavy, but because I know it will kill her, because it’s poison. We have a deal. She can buy whatever groceries she wants, but no high-fructose corn syrup, no trans fats, no artificial sweeteners, no MSG. Other than that, I’ll leave her alone.
Anna Wintour recently spoke at an event called “Fashion U,” where high school and college students can learn about the fashion industry. Among other things, she spoke about being fired from a job and advised everyone to follow suit:
I worked for American Harper’s Bazaar . . . they fired me. I recommend that you all get fired, it’s a great learning experience.
Is this why she fires so many people from Vogue? Because she’s hoping to enrich their lives?
Danny McBride, aka Kenny Powers on Eastbound and Down (the show every dude in my life is obsessed with) talked to Nerve.com to give sex advice to some of their erstwhile readers. Among his deep thoughts:
I hooked up with my coworker while drunk at an office party, but I’m not interested in dating her. What should I do now?
Kind of too late. You already took a shit where you eat, homeboy. That’s not a good thing. Just ride out the awkwardness. See how weird it’ll get, and maybe she’ll quit. Make things weirder. Push it a little. Maybe send flowers to her from an anonymous person. Just start coming off like a stalker.
It’s nice to know that he and I agree on something.
Birds of a feather stick together – especially when both feathers are bosses with a reputation for assistant abuse. This week is Fashion Week, and Vogue editor Anna “The Devil Wears Prada” Wintour has nothing but nice things to say about Naomi “Cell Phone Tosser” Campbell. In response to claims that Campbell was a diva (shock!) during prep for Fashion Week, Wintour said, “Naomi was on time, professional and a joy to work with.”
Yeah, you two have no incentive to protect each other. Nope.
In a new interview, Devil Wears Prada author Lauren Weisberger talks a bit about her assistant days and how she mined them for material. This quote in particular is really good:
The reality starting as an assistant would have been the same if I’d started anywhere – they’re not asking you to write the cover feature. When you’re 22 and first out of college and told by your parents and teachers you’re brilliant and you start as an assistant making coffee there’s a disconnect. I wanted to capture that in the book. You’re primed to join the workforce but you’re not prepared to do menial tasks and work your way up, although everyone has to go through it.
This is basically the reason I started this blog and the reason I wrote my book. That disconnect is an incredibly hard thing to deal with and work through, and once you do there’s no telling how much ass you can kick.
There is a really interesting interview with Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz over at Fast Company today. In it, she admits to having been a bad manager in the past and talks about some of the mistakes she’s made and what she learned from them. Here are a couple of choice quotes:
- “I think managing is a real job, something you should always work at and try to be better. I’m constantly questioning how people react to what I’m saying, if I should change something or if I should approach something differently. You have to take it as a craft.”
- “The first thing I did was just set up 45 min sessions with as many people as I could and just listened. I said, “Okay, what do you think needs to be changed here? What’s good? What’s bad? What would you do if you were sitting in my seat?” And then I’d always ask, “Who else should I talk to?” If you sit quiet long enough, you find out what people really think. I filled a whole notebook up in those first few weeks, just gently asking and listening.”
- “I didn’t have my first child until I was 40. I actually learned about motherhood from management. When you bring your first baby home you don’t know even how to pick it up. Jeez, is this thing going to break? I remember in the middle of the night right before I was going home from the hospital, I asked the nurse, ‘Would you give me a demo on how to change a diaper?’ She said, ‘What’s a demo?’”
- “I tell people all the time that you learn so much more from a bad boss than from a good boss. When things are going well, you don’t think that much or analyze why this person is a good manager. When you work for a bad boss, you say, “I am never going to treat people the way I was just treated. I’m never going to throw a hissy fit.” I’m sure a lot of my managers say, “I’m never going to swear.” That’s fine. That’s how you form yourself.”
As for the last quote, it’s the one I spent the most time thinking about. To be honest, I did learn a lot from having terrible bosses. And it wasn’t only examples of how I didn’t want to behave. My first assistant job was the best lesson I ever got in flexibility and how to think on my feet. When you work for someone who is super inconsistent and changes his mind every five seconds, you’ll have to be able to come up with solutions really quickly. I also learned how to stand up for myself. Even though I’m by nature a pretty nonconfrontational person, being accused of shit I didn’t do (seriously, the guy once accused me of having changed all the fonts on his computer) made me learn when it was important to defend myself. That is a skill that has come in handy not only at work but in my personal life.
That said, I’ve learned a lot from good bosses. When I was the assistant to the editor in chief of a website, he taught me a lot about reporting. I wouldn’t have learned that from a boss who was standoffish or preferred I only do admin work for him. He was compassionate, understanding, and cared about my life outside of work, and those are all things I aim for now that I’m a manager myself. Ultimately, the important thing is to view every workplace situation – good, bad, neutral, boring, or whatever – as a learning opportunity. I haven’t only learned from bosses. I had a coworker who taught me how to craft professional work emails that didn’t sound like they were written by a corporate robot. There was a client whose constant diva fits reminded me to only get into arguments about stuff that was really important instead of becoming a constant overstresser who got ignored. It’s all there for the taking, if you choose to take it. And learning from a good boss has the added benefit of making you not hate your life in the process.
Supermodel Elle “The Body” Macpherson is so beautiful that, apparently, everyone is mesmerized into wanting to be her personal assistant. Sara Paxton, one of Macpherson’s costars on the new series The Beautiful Life, said in an interview:
“I become Elle’s personal assistant – when she’s around, she’s so beautiful, I’m like ‘Elle, would you like the fruit platter?’ ‘Elle, cheese plate?’ and they’re like, ‘Sara, you’re in this scene, calm down’.”
“I forget sometimes what I’m doing,” she continued.
Man, supermodels must save so much money by not hiring assistants and instead just letting people be transfixed by their beauty and thus desire to wait on them. I should try that technique.
It’s certainly an odd movie to claim taught me something about the workplace, but Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, the great ’90s movie starring Christina Applegate when she was still best known for being Kelly Bundy, actually gave me a really useful piece of work advice. When Applegate’s character, Sue Ellen, fakes a resume and gets a job as an assistant at a fashion company, her boss, Rose, teaches her an incredibly useful phrase: I’m right on top of that, Rose. Sue Ellen learns to use that phrase anytime it needs to look like she’s working on something or a higher-up wants to know how a project is going. Sue Ellen may not even know what the hell they’re asking about, but she sure as hell will claim to be “on top of it.”
While the movie is completely unrealistic, that notion of saying you’re doing something when you don’t have any plans to do so is a pretty common office phenomenon. At my first assistant job, I used “I’m right on top of that, [Evil Boss' Name],” all the time. My boss, who was in his 70s and had no idea that I was quoting a movie to him, would always seem satisfied with my answer.
This line is also incredibly useful with your parents, your neat freak roommate, your professor, or anyone else who is trying to make you behave like an adult when you don’t want to. Are you done with that term paper? I’m right on top of that, Professor Rose. Are you planning to come home for Christmas? I’m right on top of that, Mama Rose. See? It really is perfect. Thanks for that, Christina Applegate.
