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.
Remember when Conan hired a zombie to be his personal assistant on The Tonight Show? Well, he’s keeping the bit going - and mocking Twilight in the process, which is always fun. Enter the brooding vampire, the hot werewolf, and … the sexy mummy?
This weekend, SNL brought back one of my all time favorite recurring Weekend Update segments - “Really?!” with Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler. The deserving target of this week’s tirade was finance behemoth Goldman Sachs, who got H1N1 (that would be the Swine Flu) vaccines for all their employees, even though there’s a nationwide shortage. In case you were wondering, this means that bankers are more deserving of, well, everything, than we regular folks are.
Last night I was all ready to commend David Letterman for making a point of thanking his summer interns on The Late Show, but then the “thank the unpaid help” bit turned into a hilarious segment showing Bruce Willis as one of the intern crew. Here’s Bruce in action as he gives dating advice, makes copies, and runs errands:
“Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?” - Edgar Bergen
“You don’t want another Enron? Here’s your law: If a company, can’t explain, in ONE SENTENCE….what it does….it’s illegal.” - Lewis Black
“The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working when you get up in the morning, and doesn’t stop until you get to the office.” - Robert Frost
“What happens to a company if somebody takes a boss away? I will answer your question with a question. It’s like what happens to a chicken when you take its head away. It dies unless you find a new head. I need to find which one of these people has the skills to be a chicken head.” - Michael Scott, The Office
“I do not like work, even when somebody else is doing it.” - Mark Twain
STA reader Matt sent me this very funny Family Guy promo video, which makes excellent use of that ubiquitous “Christian Bale telling off an assistant director” audio clip. As Matt himself puts it, the clip “combines celebrity gossip and cartoons in a really awkward and funny way.” Check it out:
I’m out of town right now, but I can always count on STA readers to keep me posted on what I need to know in the assistant world. And quite a few of you sent me this hysterical Hollywood assistant rap, that deals with the crazy LA drama, coffee-fetching, name-dropping, being chained to the desk/phone, having to wear the ubiquitous headset, driving all over the place, and more. It’s totally worth a viewing - or five. Even on my crappy connection, it’s still hilarious.
“Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?” - Edgar Bergen