This is really, really dead-on.
[Via Flavorwire]
Archive for the 'Tip of the Week' Category
Want to get promoted? Can’t while there’s another coworker standing in your way? I’d advise you to ignore advice from Neil Weiner. Weiner, a school handyman, wanted to get promoted to custodian. But he couldn’t as long as there was currently a custodian, Eddie Thompson, doing the job. So what was Weiner’s brilliant plan? To put a bunch of kiddie porn on Thompson’s computer and try to get him fired. Luckily, it didn’t work, but Thompson had to endure several weeks of suspicion and abuse from concerned citizens before his name was finally cleared.
In other news, I bet Gary Glitter is already figuring out how to use this defense in the future.
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.
[Cross-posted at TheGloss]
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.
In case you live in Antarctica and hadn’t heard, Mel Gibson is back in the news for leaving a series of expletive, threat, and racial slur-laden emails on the voicemail of his now ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. This week on The View, cohost Whoopi Goldberg rose to Gibson’s defense, saying that he isn’t racist and his real problem is that he is an alcoholic who says crazy things when he has been drinking. The comments raised so much fury that Goldberg reportedly got tons of phone calls and emails from angry viewers. On today’s show, she claimed that some people had called her home and yelled at her assistant, who was the one answering the phone.
I don’t know if this actually happened or if she’s exaggerating for effect, but let’s all take a moment to remember one of the rules of assistant karma: even if you are really mad, do not take it out on the assistant. Goldberg is the one who made the comments. Her assistant is probably overworked and underpaid, and in addition to dealing with all of his boss’ shit he now has to get yelled at by strangers because his boss said something on television and people are mad about it. I can’t tell you how many times I got yelled at by people my boss had offended, and you know what? It made me vow never to do it to someone else. Do not continue the cycle of assistant abuse. Just yell at Whoopi instead. Or stop caring about what celebrities say on TV.
Trust falls? Nah. Singing “kumbaya”? Passe. Having a talking stick? Outdated.
One boss in Italy decided that the best way to build office camaraderie and get his employees to bond was to make them walk over hot coals. Alessandro Di Priamo, who is a “motivational trainer for companies” (that’s Italian for “guy who gets paid a bunch of money to make people do stupid bonding exercises and use buzzwords”) had employees at a large Italian real estate agency walk across fire, only to – surprise! – wind up in the hospital with burned feet.
Di Priamo claims he has done this exercise with other companies dozens of times and no one’s ever been hurt before. I would like to offer this up as evidence that forced corporate bonding retreats are, in fact, painful.
In the semi-regular feature here at STA, “The Other Side of the Aisle,” bosses get a chance to talk about work from their perspective. Here, one boss (we’ll call her “Cheryl”) talks about her experiences interviewing potential assistants and gives helpful pointers about what bosses want people to say or do in interviews.
__________________
As someone who interviews 15-20 people a year, mostly for part time admin positions, I see a variety of folks come through my office: some who think they have found the perfect job, others who are just simply in need of anything that will keep them busy or pay the bills. The following are a variety of patterns I have seen over and over again – they are truly meant to help people like you who are on the search. It may sound strict, but when you get over 200 applicants for one position, it’s the little things that stick out. Here are some simple tips that anyone can use to set themselves apart.
If you read this and these things sounds super crazy obvious, all the power to you- you’re probably already getting to the top of the resume piles!
DO: Follow the instructions on the job posting.
AND: If it says no calls, please don’t call. Even if you are super-qualified and experienced, it will likely get your name on a list of people who won’t get interviews because why bother interviewing someone who can’t follow directions?
DO: Show up on time for the interview.
AND: If you get to the area early, grab a coffee nearby or take some time for yourself to transition into “interview mode.” More than 15 minutes early is overdoing it – it’s tacky and if you’re interviewing at a small office, your presence can actually be awkward for those who are about to meet with you. If the folks interviewing you don’t jump to take you early, especially if they are just finishing with someone else, don’t act disappointed. I suggest waiting patiently with a magazine in the lobby or simply reviewing your resume. Yes, excessive text messaging will give the impression that this is what you will do with all of your in between time, or when the boss isn’t looking.
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again – be careful what you post on Facebook and other social networking sites, because you never know who’s going to look at your profile. Now that the site has changed their privacy settings, it’s even easier for people to peek at your “private” photos and information. One Canadian woman recently learned this the very hard way. Nathalie Blanchard, who was on paid leave from her job for depression, lost her government benefits because the agent in charge of her case saw Facebook photos of Nathalie on vacation and partying. When her checks stopped coming, Nathalie called her insurance agent and found out why she’d lost her coverage.
For the record, Nathalie says that going on vacation was part of her treatment – after all, a nice sunny holiday can do wonders for depression, right?
Les Moonves – head of CBS and husband of Big Brother host Julie Chen – announced today that CBS was cancelling As The World Turns, the network’s last remaining soap opera, just months after industry stalwart Guiding Light went off the air for good. Besides fans of the show, Moonves managed to tick off one very important person – CNBC’s David Faber, who was interviewing him when he dropped the cancellation news. Why might Faber be upset? Probably because his mother-in-law, Marie Masters (pictured), plays a recurring role on the show. HARSH.
At the end of the (boring) interview about ad spending and stupid business things, Faber couldn’t help but ask about the show getting dropped (do you think he could go home tonight if he didn’t?). Moonves said, “The days of the soap opera have changed very much. Guiding Light left earlier this year and As the World Turns will leave later next year. They’ve had long and distinguished runs and their days are over.” Burn! The saddest thing is, he says it with a bit of a smirk.
Nothing like telling a guy his mother-in-law is a dinosaur on live TV. Faber didn’t make much of a reaction on-air, but what he told Moonves when the cameras turned off probably depends on how he feels about his mother-in-law.
I can only imagine what their next family dinner is going to be like.
