Lydia Whitlock - To My Assistant: Things Ill Never Do to You, But Many Other Crazy Bosses Will

Copyright 2013 by Lydia Whitlock

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Portions of this work first appeared on the authors blog, ToMyAssistant.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Whitlock, Lydia.
To my assistant : things Ill never do to you, but many other crazy bosses will / Lydia Whitlock.First edition.
pages cm
1.ManagementHumor.I.Title.
PN6231.M2W55 2013
818.602dc23 2012047902

eISBN: 978-0-7704-3783-1

Cover design by Kyle Kolker
Cover photographs: (woman) Cultura/Liam Norris/Stock Image/Getty Images; (glasses and sticky notes) Mediaphotos/Fuse
Author photograph: Megan Kathleen McIsaac

v3.1

To my parents, Meg and Mick Whitlock, who helped me build the skills to get a terrible job and the confidence to leave it.

LIFE at the OFFICE

TIME

COMMUNICATION

TRAVEL and TRANSPORTATION

MAKING things PERSONAL

The situations put forth in this book are not based on specific jobs Ive had or bosses Ive known, but on the common assistant experience. Had most of these things actually happened to me, Im not sure Id be alive to write about them.

To My Assistant:

Its me, your boss. Well, Im not actually your boss yet. But I will be someday, when Im finally rich and powerful enough to hire you. (Lets just both agree to work from the assumption that I will actually be rich and powerful one day and leave it at that.)

For now, Im still an assistant, sitting in her cubicle, waiting for the day to finally end, just like you are, though I imagine your computer is a little faster, your cell phone a little smaller, and your car a little more airborne. Just kidding! We both know you could never afford a flying car on your salary.

Id like to think that I havent changed that much between now and whenever it is youre reading this: that I still have a sense of humor about this business and about myself, that I can carry on an extended conversation about topics that arent directly related to what I do for a living, that I still have a basic understanding of how computers work, and that I havent gained too much weight from secretly stress-eating fast food in my car to fill the hunger left by eating only small and expensive salads in front of my coworkers.

But I know how this goes. One minute Im commiserating with fellow assistants at five-dollar margarita night, the next Im putting seventeen-dollar nachos that I wont even eat on my Platinum AMEX and keeping the receipt so I can expense them. Its an uncommon person who survives the journey up the food chain with both personality and principles intact, and while Id like to think that highly of myself, I know better.

So, dear future assistant, heres your safety net and survival guide in one. Here are all the things I will never do to you, but which many of your other bosses probably will. And when I inevitably slip up and let my job get the best of my temper and my sanity, well, you are more than welcome to wave this list in my face.

Right after you bring me a cup of coffee. Black. No sugar. Thanks.

Your Future Boss

I will not tear confidential documents into many small and irregularly sized pieces before handing them to you to shred, one by one.

If I ever ask you to take dictation, it will be when I dont already have something written down. I will not make you come into my office and try to keep up while I read aloud from a set of notes I already put on paper but refuse to just hand to you, because I enjoy hearing the sound of my own voice and think my thoughts are magnificent when read out loud in a dramatic tone.