I’ve always wondered what athletes do during their off-seasons. Do they play sports every day just to stay in shape? Do they hang out with their families? Take trips? Buy expensive things? Well, one athlete does something very unusual during his time away from the sport - Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Ross Ohlendorf spends his down time working as an intern for the US Department of Agriculture. And he doesn’t even get paid. Man, I feel like a total slacker right now compared to this guy, it’s not even funny.
Ohlendorf will be spending 20 hours a week this winter studying cattle diseases and their migration patterns. He works in a small room that he shares with another intern. “This one’s been, I’d say, the most exciting off-season I’ve had,” he said in an ABC News interview.
Celebrity assistants often deal with crazy situations. Sometimes that means keeping their boss from drowning in the bathtub or coping with your boss’ stalker. Actress Amanda Peet’s assistant, 26-year-old Michelle Werner, walked in on a robber stealing jewelry from Peet’s home. From Entertainment Lawyer via Page Six:
It all happened on Wednesday morning when Amanda’s assistant walked into Amanda’s house and saw a man who was holding Amanda’s jewelry box. When he saw the assistant he said, “What’s up bitch? I live here.” He then ran away.
While the robber got away with $900 worth of jewelry, Michelle was unharmed. I can imagine she was probably fucking scared to death, but I’m glad she’s OK. I can’t even imagine being in that situation, and it sounds like she handled it pretty well and kept her cool long enough to call the police and report the guy. Team Michelle!
I get a lot of reader email, and I love getting to hear from the people who read STA. Sometimes that mail makes me laugh at a boss’ total stupidity or get mad about a backstabbing coworker, but only once has an STA reader email made me cry.
Yesterday, I wrote a post praising Elle magazine advice columist E. Jean for offering an internship to a homeless but incredibly smart and qualified woman who wrote in asking for career advice. It turns out that the letter-writer didn’t know her letter had been published or that she’d been offered an internship - until she read about it here on Save the Assistants.
“B.” is a regular STA reader/commenter and has submitted some great post ideas in the past. Her blog, The Girls’ Guide to Homelessness, is an engaging and eye-opening read. I’m so proud of her and her new gig (she starts her internship on September 1) and hope she’s able to take advantage of this great new opportunity. Mazel tov, “B.”, and your new boss sounds like one awesome woman. I’m honored to have had even the smallest part in helping this happen.
It started as just another letter in the pile that Elle magazine advice columnist E. Jean gets every week. Like a lot of us lately, the letter-writer was coping with unemployment and asked E. Jean for help:
I’m currently homeless and living in a Wal-Mart parking lot. I’m educated, I have never done drugs, and I am not mentally ill. I have a strong employment history and am a career executive assistant. The instability sucks, but I’m rocking it as best as I can.
The rest of the letter recounted the story of the homeless young woman applying for a job and bombing the interview. Here’s what E. Jean had to say, after two paragraphs of useful and inspirational job search advice:
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Continue reading ‘hero of the week: e.jean’
“The people I chose to run my new store in London are nice. I cannot work with b*****s, I can’t, I can’t. Maybe I am too sensitive, I get blocked. There are some people who don’t give a damn. With me, I find that if there is no energy flowing or no connection, I can’t think. Talent is amazing — I love it, appreciate it. I respect talent a lot. But if you ask me, ‘Talent and b***h, or less talent and good?’ I’ll go with less talent.”
- Lanvin fashion designer Alber Elbaz, via New York magazine
Hero alert! A lot of STA readers have reported that their boss is doing something illegal, but they’re either worried about being dragged into the mess or not being believed when they report it. However, one assistant was able to do the right thing - and help a lot of other people in the process. An unnamed assistant in England was the whistleblower who suspected Lynne Greenwood, director of a nonprofit organization, of embezzling money from the company. The assistant began to suspect that the company’s numbers were off. Turns out that Greenwood, 57, had become a compulsive shopper and was using the charity’s money to pay her credit card bills to the tune of almost £53,000 (roughly $73K). Greenwood has been ordered to pay back the money she stole and was sentenced to 11 months in prison.
Congratulations, assistant! I am hoping the reason your name has not been made public is because you are awesome and modest and want to go on with your life, not because the British press doesn’t want to acknowledge you.
The following article is so awesome I couldn’t even restate anything in it and just had to quote it verbatim:
Lots of bosses say they value their employees. Some even mean it.
And then there’s Leonard Abess Jr.
After selling a majority stake in Miami-based City National Bancshares last November, all he did was take $60 million of the proceeds — $60 million out of his own pocket — and hand it to his tellers, bookkeepers, clerks, everyone on the payroll. All 399 workers on the staff received bonuses, and he even tracked down 72 former employees so they could share in the windfall.
For longtime employees, the bonus — based on years of service — amounted to tens of thousands of dollars, and in some cases, more than $100,000.
Read more here.
This just over the wire from the Associated Press:
Kirsten Dunst doesn’t need Spider-Man — she’s got an assistant who recently proved capable of protecting the actress.
Dunst’s assistant performed a citizen’s arrest on a man who bypassed security and showed up at the actress’ Hollywood home in November. Dunst was not home at the time.
Police and Dunst sought a restraining order against Christopher Smith after his Nov. 20 arrest. Documents show state police have found Smith at Dunst’s home several times in recent weeks.
The actress wrote she is “quite frightened” of Smith, whom she has never met.
Records do not indicate whether Smith has an attorney. He is due in court later this month on a trespassing charge. Dunst’s restraining order could be made extended on Dec. 22.
Thanks to STA reader Margot for forwarding this along, and if I can find contact information for Kirsten’s assistant, Elizabeth Donohue, I will seriously send her a care package. Or a medal.
Elizabeth follows in a proud line of rescuer-assistants including the one who saved Liz Taylor from an accidental drug overdose and the one who kept Lindsay Lohan from drowning in the bathtub.
Assistants…is there nothing they can’t do?
British singer Leona Lewis, who entered the scene after winning UK talent show X Factor, has a hit single called “Bleeding Love” that I couldn’t go anywhere this summer without hearing. She has great hair, a good voice, a successful record, the adoration of X Factor head judge Simon Cowell–and no personal assistant. That puts her in the ranks of actress Ellen Page, designer Anya Hindmarch, and American treasure Tim Gunn as celebrities who don’t have assistants (or didn’t, the last time I checked). Here’s what Leona has to say about how normal she is:
While Mariah uses a private jet to fly her Jack Russell terrier between her homes in New York and Los Angeles, Whitney demands pulp-free orange juice and peanut butter and jam sandwiches backstage at concerts.
Lewis, who earlier this month was named Best Pop Female and Best New Act at the World Music Awards, says she does not even have a personal assistant or any security guards travelling with her.
She tends to shun glitzy events and previously said: ‘I just like to stay at home and chill out with my friends, maybe go for a nice meal.
‘I like to relax and take it easy - I’m a low-key kind of girl.’
And rather than splashing out a small fortune on a 10-bedroom mansion, she is instead buying a flat in Hackney, close to where she grew up.
‘When you’re settled it’s hard to move,’ she said.
‘I love the flat – it’s really private and the neighbours are cool - and it’s very close to my mum and dad.’
There I was, fresh out of college (very fresh, one credit shy of actually graduating) and I took the first job I was offered after a rather disappointing search on Craigslist.
Without going into details about what I did or who the company worked for, suffice it to say that the management treated me like dogshit. So, after several months and the evaporation of promised healthcare, I hatched a plan to stick it to them as best I could. When I got my tax refund in the same month as that three-in-a-month biweekly paycheck, I knew the time had come to leave the company in the most destructive way I could think of (that didn’t involve arson).
On Friday, I began a major six-month project and held off completing the one I had been working on since I got to the firm. Monday, I sent an e-mail to the boss(es) that explained that I wasn’t coming in tomorrow or ever again–I didn’t need to give two weeks’ notice because they refused to give me a contract or even any proof of employment–and detailed exactly why.
I cc’ed the clients on this e-mail, and told them, in a P.S., that the reason the project was going to be delayed was for no other reason than they treated their employees so badly that I had to quit, and not to let my boss tell them any differently.
As I was packing up my apartment, I got a cease-and-desist letter from my former employer’s lawyers threatening me with all kinds of penalties if I ever contacted their client again. Even if I wanted to, what were they going to do to me? The company made sure I didn’t have any assets to seize, and I was leaving the country with no forwarding address.
I can be a real motherfucker when I feel like it.
–Submitted by JD, New York City