adobe photoshop plug in filters Cheap Software Downloads for Mac & Win consumer reports on adobe flash adobe photoshop cs keygen serial Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 MAC adobe photoshop 8.0 cs trial crack downloading adobe photoshop cs2 Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended adobe photoshop elements 3.0 for windows record adobe flash videos free Adobe After Effects CS4 MAC disable adobe flash player 2 adobe premiere pro review Adobe After Effects CS4 creating cartoons with adobe illustrator adobe photoshop cs2 9.0.2 crack Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Standard adobe photoshop 7 0 adobe indesign macromedia microsoft training training Adobe Creative Suite 4 Master Collection for Mac adobe photoshop 4 0 updates adobe photoshop cs3 extended april install Adobe Creative Suite 4 Master Collection adobe photoshop elements 4.0 reviews adobe photoshop elements version 2.0 updates Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium adobe flash player coponets adobe photoshop al v2.0 Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Standard arc radius in adobe illustrator free download adobe photoshop software Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 learning management systems using adobe flash adobe illustrator cs for dummies Adobe Fireworks CS4 serial number adobe photoshop elements 4.0 adobe illustrator automated web drawings Adobe Flash CS4 Professional adobe photoshop lightroom evaluation

Archive

celebrity assistant wants to play ball

Lots of people who work as celebrity assistants are doing their jobs because they’re trying to break into the entertainment industry. That makes sense, since working for a celebrity is a great way to make contacts and learn about how the industry works from the inside. However, one celebrity assistant is hoping to make the jump into a slightly less related career - he participated in the Arizona Diamondbacks’ annual “Fantasy Camp.” While most of the guys who participate in the program are trying to meet famous baseball players, there was one camp participant who had a little star power of his own:

“I was doing some scouting last night for today’s draft and I was looking over everybody’s occupation,” the former D-backs All-Star outfielder said. “I saw that one guy is list as an assistant to an actor or actress and I was wondering if he would be willing to share just who that is.”

Gregg Simon slowly stood up and said, “I’m the personal assistant to Carmen Electra.”

Not surprisingly, everybody asked if Electra might make an appearance during the week to support her PA, but it didn’t happen. MLB.com blogger Steve Gilbert, who was chronicling his experiences at Fantasy Camp, asked Simon if meeting his baseball idols was as exciting as meeting Electra’s famous friends.

“Are you kidding?” he said. “No way. This is much cooler. Meeting these guys is a much bigger deal. The only thing from ‘Hollywood’ that compares to this for me was meeting Bruce Springsteen and Howard Stern. No one else is close.”

awesome blog alert: please fire me

I’m really digging the new blog Please Fire Me. It’s a simple enough premise: users submit reasons why they’d like to be fired. However, the reasons are about how much their companies/bosses suck, not about something the employee did. And, as any savvy assistant knows, being fired is way better than quitting, because then you get unemployment benefits! Here are a couple of my faves below:

Please fire me. I have to share my workspace with the mistress of the boss. So she thinks she’s the queen of the company and she definitely can’t do anything wrong in the boss’s eyes. And that leaves the rest of us in the office treated like dirt. So please fire me!

Please fire me. I had no idea I’d have to spend hours every day photocopying entire textbooks because you are too cheap to buy extra copies.

Please fire me. I just spent 20 minutes on the phone with your OBGYN picking a birth control that is “better suited” to your body.

Please fire me. I think I just helped my boss cover up a drunk driving hit and run with a mailbox.

And there’s more where that came from.

STA’s year in review

2009 has been an interesting year in assistantland. Here are some facts and figures:

The most popular post of 2009 was actually a post from 2008 - the post where I announced that Kathy Griffin’s first assistant, Jessica Zacijek, was leaving her job. The #2 and #3 posts were from this year, and they were also about the Jessica/Kathy situation.

The most popular tag of 2009 was “Office Politics.”

The most popular category of 2009 was, as it has been every other year since the site launched, “Horror Stories.” Refresh your memory with the story of the office Halloween grinch and a boss who earned the nickname Miranda Priestly 2.0.

The most popular celebrity of 2009, after Kathy Griffin of course, was Christian Bale. His former assistant Harrison Cheung’s tell-all to the Mirror and the story about Bale’s wife being the former assistant to Winona Ryder made him a popular guy on STA. The gratuitous hot photos probably didn’t hurt his ranking, either.

The most controversial post of 2009, by a landslide, was a post about Susan Boyle getting her very own assistant. Some really militant Susan Boyle fans - some of whom had the same IP address - thought it was impertinent of me to suggest that Susan should be nice to her assistant.

As for my own personal favorites, my new favorite tag is “Post Ideas from My Mom.” My mom is a regular reader of the site and occasionally sends me links to things she thinks I should write about here. Lots of them end up on the site, such as this story about a secretary who got fired for eating the boss’ sandwich and this post about a Texas office who adopted a cat as their mascot.

Thanks for a great 2009, and I look forward to an even better 2010.

evil boss alert: tyra banks

Tyra Banks announced yesterday that her self-titled talk show would be ending this season. That announcement was reportedly news to the show’s crew, whom she neglected to inform separately. Many of the show’s crew were from L.A., where the show had originally been based before Tyra worked out a deal to get more money for herself if the show was in New York. [In case you're wondering, she did not offer additional pay or moving expenses for the crew who opted to move cross-country with the show.] Now, several former employees have dished to the New York Daily News about Tyra’s reign of terror:

“There had been high turnover of employees for years,” a past crew member says, insisting that many people quit after just a few months because it was “pretty difficult to work for Tyra.”

“She and the higher-ups on the production staff could be extremely brutal,” the source says. “She really is a diva.”

“When the show moved from L.A. to New York, several staffers weren’t even directly told about the change - they heard through the grapevine that it was going to move locations. Even so, a lot of those people gave up their lives on the West Coast so they could continue working for the show. Now they’re out of luck.”

I thought in spirit of today’s post I’d pull some old Tyra-related stories, including the one about the truth behind her “apartment makeovers” and this one about a former assistant suing her. Enjoy!

elisabeth moss, assistant once more

Elisabeth Moss may be a brilliant actress, but it seems like her success as Mad Men’s secretary-cum-copywriter Peggy Olson could be backfiring for her. Since the show has started, she’s been part of two other high profile projects - and she played an assistant in both of them. First, she costarred with Raul Esparza and Jeremy Piven in a Broadway production of David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow, which concluded with Piven’s hilarious fake “mercury poisoning” incident. Now, she’s in the new Sarah Jessica Parker/Hugh Grant vehicle Did You Hear About the Morgans?, where the two actors play a couple who accidentally witness a murder and are placed in the Witness Protection Program. Elisabeth plays SJP’s character’s assistant. First Jennifer Hudson and now this - how does Sarah Jessica Parker keep getting such high-caliber actors to want to play her second banana?

Anyway, Elisabeth is pretty awesome playing non-assistants too. I loved her as Zoey Bartlet on The West Wing (minus that whole terrible storyline with the gross French boyfriend and the kidnapping), and recently she did this great Funny Or Die video with now-husband Fred Armisen:

advice from the person interviewing you

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.

Continue reading ‘advice from the person interviewing you’

horror stories from AOL users

My mom sent me this post from AOL that collects user-submitted workplace horror stories. Here are a couple of particularly horrible ones:

On Administrative Professionals’ Day (formerly Secretarys Day) all of the support staff got taken out to lunch by their bosses. My boss told me to make sure to save my lunch hour for her because she needed my help with something. I thought maybe just maybe she was going to surprise me by taking me to lunch to celebrate the occasion and thank me for all of my hard work. Even when we pulled up in front of her house I thought she may have fixed a nice lunch at her place. Nope, she just needed me to help her put flea collars on all six of her cats. - Submitted by Nancy

My worst boss owned a printing company. He was trying to attract a new client. The client was a catholic seminary. The day before the client visit, my boss hung up crosses all over the company from the front door to the bathrooms. - Submitted by Karen C

The worst Boss we have installed microphones (bugs) in our cubicles so he could listen in, when we figure out the hidden microphones we started talking in codes or tune in a small radio and tune it to all talk station this drove him nut’s, he took the radio away but we still talk in codes till he got fired for being drunk on the job. (Yeah) - Submitted by Jimi

intern commits cardinal sin

Internships at fashion magazines are among the most competitive and sought-after internships in the world. However, one fashion intern might be in trouble after this story made rounds online:

Outrage at Grazia magazine after an intern sent out regularly to buy skinny lattes for the beauty desk announced at the end of her stint on the mag that she had in fact been buying them all full-fat ones. [Gawker via Media Monkey]

Or maybe she’s trying to subvert the paradigm and defeat the system from within? That would actually be awesome. If that’s true, she can be my intern anytime she wants.

good news for your job search

Looking for a new job in 2010? Well, here’s some good news - one of the ten best professions for job prospects next year is Executive Assistant. In other words - you!

Here’s what Careerbuilder (via Robert Half International) has to say:

Companies with leaner teams are looking for employees to take on a wider range of duties. Executive assistants who can wear many hats, support multiple managers and adapt readily to change are in particular demand. These individuals are likely to see starting salaries of $35,000 to $47,000.

In case you didn’t catch that, it’s a fancy description for “Combo Job.” But hey, at least it’s a job. If you’re thinking of switching careers, this list seems to indicate that you should probably check out IT or financial services.

rachel mcadams dating assistant?

Normally, when a famous person dates a celebrity assistant it’s a male celebrity and a female assistant (cases in point: Christian Bale and Sibi Blazic, Alejandro Sanz and Raquel Pereda, etc), which is a power differential I’ve never been entirely comfortable with. However, according to the New York Daily News, actress Rachel McAdams might be doing her part to buck the patriarchal trend. She’s reportedly dating Ben Jackson, a former model and the personal assistant to her Sherlock Holmes costar Jude Law. Sadly, the paper does not have any photos of said former model, but if I can get my hands on some I will definitely be posting them later.