There are many ways to arrive at Save the Assistants. Perhaps you subscribe to our RSS feed, or read links a friend sends you, or randomly arrive here through Google. Either way, we’re always happy to welcome more beleaguered assistants into the fold. And we’re more than happy when you send us horror stories to print, or email us to say you quit your job and just wanted to share, or when you give us a heads up about some assistant-related story you think we should cover.
However, there seem to be some people who don’t get what this site is all about. In fact, quite a few of them seem to think we’re an employment agency. Many people email us asking us to help them find an assistant, or ask if we have Kimora or Diddy’s phone number so they can call and apply to be their assistant.
After the jump, an example (with names changed to protect the guilty) of how not to email STA.
Continue reading ‘how not to email save the assistants’
Sure, if you want to be unpopular at the office you can leave your limburger cheese sandwich in the fridge for a month, refuse to speak in any tone but “high pitched scream,” or play the radio at your desk all day. But why go above and beyond when there are so many quick, simple ways to make your coworkers hate you? The best and fastest way is, of course, via email. ABC News polled employees about what their most-loathed email habits were, and the results should not in any way surprise you. They include typing in all caps, flagging every single email as urgent, forwarding around chain letters or pictures of kittens, and people who have not learned the difference between “reply” and “reply all.”
What’s the most annoying way your coworkers have used email to annoy you? In my case, it’s when someone forwards the most recent email in an extended conversation without remembering to delete the previous emails. Invariably in one of the previous emails you said something mean about the person the thing just gor forwarded to.
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’
I don’t know where Obetz, Ohio is, but I may have to schedule a visit. Recently, a local bartender named Melody Pullen (who owns a “menagerie”) brought a bear cub with her to work at the bar she owns. The bear, whose name is Pooh, needed to be bottle-fed every three hours, which is why Pullen decided he needed to come to work with her. Not surprisingly, the customers loved the cutie, but her coworkers weren’t big fans. Although Pullen has the necessary bear-owning permits and the local police said she was within her rights, other people in the town are trying to harsh her buzz by passing a “no exotic animals at work” law.
I hope this doesn’t affect my chances to get a miniature pony at my office. I want it to carry packages around the office. Come on, how cute would that be? First they come for the bear cubs, then they come for the miniature ponies, and then they come for you.
I am really annoyed by how many career advice articles out there relating to tattoos sound as if they were written by my grandmother. I mean, the “advice” for careers that you can have while still having semi-visible ink and/or piercings is always confined to “barista,” “bartender,” and “tattoo parlor employee” [such as Kat Von D, below]. Most of these articles fail to acknowledge the fact that tattoos are more and more common these days, and that includes not only employees but bosses and people in management positions. Sure, if you work in a corporate law office or something you probably can’t get away with that giant neck tattoo you’ve always wanted, but the rules regarding visible tats have really changed in the last few years.
This CNN article, while still a bit stodgy, is positively ultramodern when it comes to discussing tattoos in the workplace. This story deals with not just whether visible tattoos are OK but whether men and women have to follow different standards about body art. While lots of employers are coming around, there are plenty more who haven’t.
According to a recent study, 19 percent of office workers have stolen supplies from the office. Of those, 22 percent report feeling guilty about it.
To that I say…only 19 percent? Really? I mean, I’m not talking about stealing laptops or anything, but pens, Post-Its, and even toilet paper should be considered fair game. If your boss is allowed to have a company car and have his brand-new iPhone paid for as a ‘work expense,’ then by all means you should take home a three hole puncher. You should consider yourself the Robin Hood of the workplace.
You can see more detailed results–and who is lying–here.
Since it’s June, weddings are a pretty popular topic of conversation. Either you’re in one, going to one, or having to hear about one. But should weddings remain an off-limits topic at work, like your sex life? One office where I worked had a girl whose entire purpose in life was to get married, so when she got engaged we all had to hear about it constantly. I’d be like, “Hey, so and so, can you move that meeting to 3:00?” and she’d be like “3:00 is fine, because it’s the exact time my dad is going to start walking me down the aisle!” In case you were wondering, I hated her.
That said, it is possible to talk about what’s up in your life–your wedding, your kids, your trip to Las Vegas, whatever–as long as you do so with discretion. Maybe you want to limit your personal-life talk to the coworkers you actually hang out with in real life. Or, if you’re just so happy you could burst, try to keep it to no more than five minutes per coworker unless they ask followup questions. Regardless, other people will give you cues, and then you should follow them accordingly.
To weigh in on either side of the debate, you can go here.
You definitely know what it’s like to go on interviews. But odds aren’t as high you’ve ever had to interview someone. This blog post gives insight into what it’s like to sit on the other side of the desk. It may be aimed at bosses instead of assistants, but the highly practical tips should make both parties happy. (Note: I hate when people don’t let you know one way or the other if you got the job. Not knowing is the worst!)
Don’t forget: you represent your company. Once, I got an interview with a “marketing boutique.” I was kind of excited about it. It sounded trendy, fast-paced, and down right fun. Upping the cool quotient was the fact that the office was based out of the owner’s studio loft apartment in a trendy par of town. I arrived at the apartment at the agreed upon time and knocked. I was greeted by the owner, a woman in cotton shorts and a t-shirt, no makeup, and flip flops. Her apartment was a mess, including the unmade bed in plain sight. Meanwhile, I was in a suit with light makeup and jewelery. The woman was abrasive, blunt, and down right annoying. I suffered through the interview and went home. I never contacted her again. I understand the perks of working out of your house. But seriously? A previously scheduled interview with a potential co-worker and you don’t even change clothes or make your bed?
If you end up not hiring someone, have the decency to tell them. Not that long ago I interviewed for an office position with a real estate group. The first interview went well and I came back for a second interview. The agent seemed excited and said many times how much she would like to hire me. At the end of the second interview, she even said “I’ll be in touch. I think we’re getting close.” I waited the alloted amount of time and when I hadn’t heard from her, I called and left a message. A few days later I emailed her. Two days after that, I saw the job re-posted on craigslist with the phrase, “We are looking for the RIGHT candidate.” Ouch. My respect for this woman went way down. I can handle not being right for the job. But after two interviews and hints that I WAS right for the job, are you really so cowardly that you can’t tell me you won’t be hiring me?
Click here for more.
Does it seem like no matter how much you’re on top of things you still have 4,000 unread emails in your Outlook? Darren over at Problogger has some great suggestions for how to clear out your inbox and reduce the number of emails you get every day. (We cannot teach your boss how to send one long email instead of fifteen that are each one sentence long, unfortunately.)
- Unsubscribe, unsubscribe, unsubscribe. If you get newsletters, some of them may be ones you didn’t even sign up for. Scroll down to the bottom of the email and find the link for unsubscribing. For emails you actually do want but don’t have the time to read, find out if there’s a way to reduce your subscription to 3 days a week or something.
- Consolidate multiple email addresses into one. Darren used Gmail. You probably can’t do that with work email, but you may be able to consolidate multiple variations of your work email (as in, do you get email at CB@company.com as well as ChrisB@company.com? Find out how to merge.)
- Create more folders and labels within your email. This way, you can store emails you might need for reference later without having them take up space in your inbox and potentially get lost.
- If you have Outlook, there’s a function that allows you to have email from certain people appear in different colors so that you can spot it immediately. Make your boss blue, your mom yellow, and that bitch in HR purple.
- Make friends with your “Archive” feature.
- If an email deals with a specific task, and you do the task, erase the email ASAP.
For these tips and more, click here.
The resurrected Radar magazine veers between self-conscious and subversive, but we never miss a chance to steal a copy from a coworker’s desk. The back page of their April issue featured a hundred things never to say in a job interview. We’ll skip to some of the good ones:
- “Is Jesus considered a personal reference?”
- “Allow me to answer that with a tambourine solo.”
- “My ideal supervisor would be a surrogate for the mommy who never had time for me.”
- “You’re not going to make me take one of those fucking anger management seminars, are you?”
- [Winking.] “Why, I have no idea how that ten dollar bill ended up on your desk.”
- “Each of my personalities will require its own compensation package.”
- “Let’s just cut to the chase: who and where is the office slut?”
- “It was either get back on the horse or blow my brains out, and this job seems like a decent compromise.”
- “If you Google me, just be warned that there’s a sexual predator who happens to share my name and Facebook page.”
And our favorite, because, well…we’re guilty of it:
- “I can’t wait to blog about this job.”
