Tag Archive for 'Horror Stories'

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Horror Story: Too Big for His (Orange?) Britches

Published on September 20, 2010 in Horror Stories. 0 Comments Tags: .

I work in the mostly-male aviation industry.  I’m the receptionist and assistant to the CEO of a company dealing with huge numbers of helicopter pilots. I was fully aware of the horny, “give me a piece of that ass”, attitude of pilots and males in general, but I had no idea what I was in store for.

The CEO (while friendly and a genuinely nice guy) is infamous for cycling through PA’s. First he dates the girl. Then, he impregnates the girl. While she is on maternity leave, a new girl is hired. Not long after, he dumps the previous and starts on the newest HOPA at the front desk. Right now he is on cycle 4…. and I’m cringing at the thought.

That’s not even what bothers me though. The worst man in the company is the newest hire.
A frat boy fresh out of college, he interned at the company for a few months, and was hired on as another assistant. He was fun to work with at first, but after he got his first pay check well….

It started out small: “Hey can you help me do (insert simple, 30 second task here)”

I’d readily agree and show him how.

Then it became: “Hey, I’m going to need you to run to (store) and pick up (item) while I’m at lunch, thanks.”

And finally: “Hey, clean this.”

This kid is Waaaay too big for his britches.

I’m in the process of hiring a receptionist so I can focus on the PA part of my job. New Kid was helping me sort through hundreds of resumes when he drops this bomb:

“We can’t hire a guy to take your place, because that would be like hiring a male waiter at Hooter’s.”

Continue reading ‘Horror Story: Too Big for His (Orange?) Britches’

Should Assistants Be Required to Work for Their Boss’ Family?

Published on August 16, 2010 in Celebrity Assistant Soapbox. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Although she was thinking about selling out her boss, Eleanore has taken back her job as Lindsay Lohan’s assistant. However, there’s one wrinkle – Lindsay’s not around to tell Eleanore what to do. However, don’t think that means Eleanor gets to go on vacation until her boss is back roaming the streets. According to the New York Post, Lindsay’s mom Dina and sister Ali have decided that while Lindsay is in jail/rehab, Eleanore works for them. A source told the Post that Eleanore is miserable but doesn’t want to quit again and is counting down the moments til Lindsay is out of rehab.

A couple of things are going on here. One: I have no idea why Eleanore went back to work for Lindsay if she was supposedly getting offers eleswhere. I understand that ratting out your former boss for money isn’t the classiest thing to do, but she could have tried to parlay her assistant gig into a chance to work for another celebrity a la Lindsay Ratowsky.  Once you have worked as one celebrity’s PA it is a lot easier to work for another celebrity. Two: With all those rumors swirling around about Eleanore possibly selling her story to a tabloid, why would Lindsay take her back at all? I suspect no one else wanted to work for her and Lindsay was desperate.

That said, I don’t like the way that Lindsay’s family expects Eleanore to wait on them while Lindsay’s away. It doesn’t surprise me, since plenty of celebrities and non-celebrities alike end up making their assistants work on personal shit in addition to their actual job duties. My former boss was always making me deal with his kids’ schools and run errands for his wife and, unfortunately, there wasn’t much I could do about it. When you’re hired to be a celebrity assistant that usually means that you are involved in every aspect of their lives. It sucks, but it’s quite typical. And when the family members happen to be terrible people, that makes your job all the more awful.

Free Eleanore T-shirts, anyone?

Bethenny’s Assistant Is Totes Not Gay, You Guys

Published on July 5, 2010 in Celebrity Assistant Soapbox and Video. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

The new series Bethenny Getting Married, which features Real Housewife of New York Bethenny Frankel actually becoming, well, a wife, just aired its first episode on Bravo. Already, my favorite character is Bethenny’s assistant Max. I feel kind of bad for Max because Bethenny, while certainly less crazy than some of the other housewives, is needy and overbearing. When Max was put in charge of packing Bethenny’s suitcase for her, he was told not to be weirded out by packing her underwear because “her vagina’s not still in it.” I don’t know about Max, but I’d rather my boss not mention his or her genitals in any capacity. In this segment, Bethenny once again asks Max inappropriate questions about his sexuality and his hair care products.

MMA Fighter Arrested for Choking Assistant

Published on June 6, 2010 in Assistants in the News. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Kim Couture, an mixed martial arts fighter and the ex-wife of UFC star Randy Couture, has been arrested on charges that she choked her personal assistant. Police were called to Couture’s home in Las Vegas and saw her choking her PA. She has already been released on bail. I’ll bring you more as this story develops.

Horror Story: The Mis-Reader

Published on April 28, 2010 in Horror Stories. 0 Comments Tags: .

Recently, I’ve had some problems with my boss. I’m not an assistant, but I’m a freelancer, which is sort of like being an assistant and not having health insurance. My boss has been late paying me, and that was the last straw. I sent him an email list of complaints and issues he needed to address, and in response I got this:

Read Grapes of Wrath or Schindler’s List. We are fine. It sucks but nothing that we can’t handle.

Not only was that email totally unhelpful, my grandparents are both Holocaust survivors.

- Submitted by Dave, New York City

Russell Brand Assistant Horror Stories

Published on April 19, 2010 in Celebrity Assistant Soapbox and Horror Stories. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Some celebrities (Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt) have happy, well-paid assistants who are loyal to them for years. Others go through assistants the way that a person with a cold goes through boxes of tissues. Russell Brand, the comedian, sex addict, and fiance of Katy Perry, is one of the members of the latter category. His former assistant told People newspaper (no, not the magazine):

“Russell was very, very high maintenance. He used to walk around in his underpants. Calvin Klein boxers might have done it for me, but Y-fronts certainly didn’t. Some things I was asked to do were nearly impossible. I’ve worked for Michael Flatley and Harvey Goldsmith, but Russell was by far the most demanding. He does go through a lot of personal assistants, I think some have even had mental breakdowns.”

Worse than Michael Flatley? Now that is a burn.

Horror Story: Not Quite Write

Published on April 1, 2010 in Horror Stories. 1 Comment Tags: .

I’d been working for a certain media company for two years, and after chasing countless coffee runs and filling absurd requests like “Can you download the PDF in this email and then email it back to me and my eReader?” my insane furry-animal loving boss had granted me the recognition I so rightfully earned: a byline on an article I’d spent months researching. Usually, I’d do all the work, write the copy, edit the whole thing, and she’d slap her name on it. So continues the plight of entry-level work in media. It goes without saying that when she dumped all the research in my lap and told me she didn’t want anything to do with the article anymore, I nearly cried with enthusiasm.

Two months later in a meeting with the editor-in-chief about the upcoming article, crazy furry-animal loving boss tells me that her attendance to the meeting was merely a formality. “I’m here for moral support,” she told me, smiling.

I believed her; I was nervous as hell and any help was greatly appreciated. We sat down, and before I could open my mouth Crazy Furry Animal Loving Boss was talking about how the article had really been trimmed but drove home the point we wanted to make. Having not actually read the research in months, of course, she was pulling it all out of her ass. She began throwing out absurd statistics and using phrases like, “Now we’re cooking with gas,” and other obscure, vague corporate cliches.

“I’ve let Lydia take most of the editorial lead on this project,” Crazy Boss said. “And I’m really so proud of what she’s done. Maybe someday she’ll get that byline she so deserves.”
- Submitted by “By-line Bystander,” New York City

Horror Story: Water, Water Everywhere

Published on April 1, 2010 in Horror Stories. 0 Comments Tags: .

Mid-way through my second year as an assistant, I started getting a bit of attitude. I guess I was just sick of the whole grind, but I wasn’t very good at hiding it from my boss, who at that point, really hated me (she hated me from the beginning, but especially after I got some ‘tude). Anyway, one day she got on my case about not processing a bill that my co-worker was meant to handle and I did not apologize sufficiently so she started yelling at me about all sorts of things. She worked herself all the way up to, “Your ONLY PURPOSE in this office is to make my life easier!” Then she screamed at me, “I can’t stand how you just get up at 6:00 PM and waltz out of here! You just… go home!” Yes, I do, because I don’t live here in my cube. Anyway, she really can hold a grudge and the whole rest of the day she kept sending me on pointless errands and having me push papers around for no reason just to “put me in my place” I suppose. Even a night’s sleep wasn’t enough for her to get over it because the next morning at 8:45 I got a message from her blackberry to my inbox: “You should be in the office. Get my water bottle from my desk drawer and fill it. Place it on my desk. I want it there by the time I arrive.” Getting sent on coffee runs as an assistant I understood, but filling up your boss’s gross, used, slobbered on, plastic Fiji water bottle? No thanks.

- Submitted by Talulah, New York City

jessica simpson’s meeting foul

Published on January 28, 2010 in Horror Stories. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Meetings are weird things, and often they’re a breeding ground for embarrassing workplace behavior. Because of the sheer amount of boredom in the room, there’s always someone chewing on a pen, doodling, spilling coffee down the front of their shirt, or forgetting to turn their cell phone off. Well, Us Weekly has decided to share one of the most embarrassing meeting stories ever – for some reason, they deem a story about Jessica Simpson farting in a meeting to be worthy of attention on their website. I almost didn’t post about it, but I decided that it’s worth pointing out that Us Weekly is really grasping for straws. I love celebrity gossip as much as the next girl, but come on. It’s not like she pulled a Paula Abdul and answered her cell phone during a meeting. Sometimes people fart. It’s involuntary and they can’t help it. I mean, for fuck’s sake, leave the woman alone. If she says or does something, we can judge her behavior, but what’s next – an article about how she sneezed while someone was trying to ask for an autograph?

awesome blog alert: please fire me

Published on January 15, 2010 in Horror Stories. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

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.