Crocs are one of the scourges of humanity. They come in bright colors that look good on no one, are made of this weird hard plastic that is actually bad for your feet (despite their claims that Crocs are ’so comfortable’) and bad for the environment, and they are responsible for half of the abomination that is The Crugg. Now, the newly introduced hole-free Crocs At Work line is designed with the ‘medical professional’ in mind. “Available in black, navy and pearl, Crocs Specialist’ introduces fun and style into the workplace, is certified by US Ergonomics, is odor and bacteria resistant and can be easily cleaned with soap and water,” says a press release.
Look, fine, maybe nurses like Crocs because they do well on a hospital floor or something. Mario Batali thinks they’re great for chefs, although I suspect his endorsement of Crocs as kitchen footwear is a cover for his absolute lack of style.
Would you be able to get away with Crocs as acceptable footwear in your office? If so, where do you work, and do you have photographic evidence?
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’
There’s a running joke at the University of North Carolina that when you enroll and get a list of the UNC majors that have been the most lucrative for alums, #1 is Geography. Can you believe a Geography major is now earning more than someone who did Business Administration or Computer Science? Well, if you pay close enough attention, you’ll realize that one Geography alum earns so much money he skews all the statistics–Michael Jordan.
If that’s not enough to make you feel inferior, Yahoo has “helpfully” provided a list of the most lucrative college majors. Because if there’s anything I need to get me through a boring Thursday afternoon at work, it’s a list of things I should have done a couple of years ago that might not have made my current day so boring. Thanks, Yahoo!
Continue reading ‘what you probably should have majored in’
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.
It seems like “life coaching” is one of those fad professions that’s not going anywhere for the time being. (Remember Terrence, Paris’ life coach on Gilmore Girls? God, I loved that show.) Now, some life coaches are specifically focusing on careers, combining motivational speaking and corporate strategizing. “The coach’s job is to see things about you that you may be blind to yourself,” says career coach Fred Horowitz. An interesting side note: Horowitz was apparently ‘certified’ at a place called Coach University. Is that like when McDonald’s managers have to go to Hamburger U?
If you’re an assistant, you probably can’t afford a career coach, and you’re probably also the person who needs one the most. So what can you do instead? Get some type-A friends who can support and motivate you. You might be able to find a mentor either on your own or through your company who can give you advice specific to your industry and also give you a heads up about advancement opportunities. Search criagslist or a social networking site for your field and see if they have meetups, networking events, or other social functions.
Or, you could just call Terrence, even though he’s a fictional character.
Thanks to the mainstream success of books like The Devil Wears Prada, bosses these days are pretty savvy about the fact that you might write a tell-all (or just an STA post) about how much you hate them. As a result, many evil bosses are keeping up the illusion of being nice bosses. They may say please and thank you, or buy you a nice present for your birthday, but it’s all window dressing to cover up the evil things they do in the meantime. (Kind of makes me think of this guy.)
The Onion has a totally brilliant article mocking this exact kind of boss. In this case, the boss is showing off how “enlightened” and “concerned” he is are by drinking fair-trade coffee, listening to NPR, and recycling, but it’s his assistant who has to actually make the coffee, tune the radio, and separate the plastic and the glass. Turns out someone else gets it, even if it’s satire.
A recent study found that less than half of American workers think that their office encourages or fosters creativity. The Workplace Democracy Association, who sponsored the study, found that at least a quarter of workers are in a “dictatorship” situation at the office, meaning that they are expected to fall in line with commands from someone in an absolute position of power.
This news shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone who is or has been an assistant. In fact, the boss/personal assistant relationship kind of defines “dictatorship”–they’re the general, and you’re the lackey who picks up dry cleaning and makes lunch reservations.
So how can we make workers feel like they have a say in what happens between 9 and 5? 80 percent of respondents wanted the ability to make their own decisions about how to do their work. 18 percent suggested that they new employees be hired by a group of coworkers instead of a single boss. If they had called STA HQ to ask our thoughts, “treating us like human beings instead of drones” would have been high on the list, as would “no yelling, throwing things, or name-calling.” Come to think of it, the latter would really be appropriate for a kindergarten as well.
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.
A recent survey of 18-24 year olds in the UK (no word on whether they were assistants) got some stats on what people do at work when they’re not working. 80% of 18-24 year olds log onto social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, jDate, etc), 63% download music, and 58% watch videos on YouTube during working hours.
About 40 percent of people in this group said they would quit a job that banned personal internet use, and another 20 percent admitted they would be annoyed.
I wish I had the option of quitting any job that banned me from looking at my email. However, I think it’s pretty unreasonable to assume everyone is working 100 percent of the time they’re at work. Even if your boss can’t figure out how to use the intertubes, he or she is taking a personal call on their work line or reading the newspaper. When you force people behind a desk for eight or more hours a day, how can you expect their attention never to waver?
To his credit, the CEO of Telindus (the company that commissioned the survey) said, “An outright ban on personal internet usage is clearly not the right approach to tackle a sluggish corporate network.”
Oh, that reminds me: speaking of Facebook, join the STA group!
