When I saw the headline “Confessions of a Personal Assistant” I pretty much knew I had to click through immediately. But instead of the juicy gossip and/or horror stories the headline hinted at, the article ended up being pretty toothless. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think every assistant story out there has to be negative. (I print quite a few positive ones myself.) But a juicy title with the word “Confessions” in it hinted at some kind of expose, and instead it’s a pretty typical story about a girl who started out as a celebrity assistant and used her connections to get a job in the entertainment industry. There are thousands of those stories out there, and hers didn’t offer any unique insights.
The post’s author, Nadine Truong, graduated from UCLA and, after doing the typical post-college job search, wound up interviewing for a celebrity assistant gig.
Yes, it was for a B-list celebrity, whose name I won’t mention, and no, said celebrity did not conduct his own interview. I was interviewed by his head personal assistant. This guy apparently had two assistants already, and was looking to find a replacement for the third position, a job which had come open after the previous employee had gotten fired (for reasons unknown to me).
Celebrities often have more than one assistant – anybody who saw The Devil Wears Prada could have told you that. And the job came open because the person who had the gig before got fired? That happens in plenty of industries. The one “confession” I’d most like to hear is who the B-list celebrity was, but since he a) sounds like a pretty decent guy and b) helped Truong get another job later on, I think we can cross a whole lot of people off the list.
Continue reading ‘‘Confessions of a Personal Assistant’ Is Pretty Low On Confessions’
I’ve heard a lot of stories of weird, hyper-demanding bosses with very specific rules before. (Hell, I’ve also worked for a boss like that.) But this sweet story from author Joanna Smith Rakoff, while about working for someone with a very specific demand, is also really heartwarming. When Rakoff was starting out as an assistant in the NYC publishing world, she was given a very unusual task: keeping Catcher in the Rye author (and notorious recluse) J.D. Salinger’s home address and phone number a closely guarded secret. You see, she worked for Salinger’s literary agent, and while they had direct contact with the author, people would often call the office under all kinds of pretenses trying to get Salinger’s contact information. Young Joanna was warned never, ever, for ANY reason, to let the information get out. Previous assistants had been fired for not hewing to this rule.
I’ve had several receptionist jobs before, including one in college where I worked the front desk at the campus art museum (it was awesome, actually). But I’m pretty sure my experience was not as great as Cathy Naso’s. Naso got the chance to interview Andy Warhol when she was just a high school student in Brooklyn – that meeting led to her being hired on as one of the receptionists in his Factory after graduation. As a token of appreciation, Warhol gave her one of his paintings, a self-portrait. After holding onto it for more than forty years, Naso finally sold it at a Sotheby’s auction last weekend. The painting, which had been expected to sell in the $1 million range, 
