Save the Assistants: A Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the Workplace

by Lilit Marcus

Overview

"If you're tired, you're poor, and you're a huddled mass of an assistant yearning to breathe free, look no further than Save the Assistants." --Yahoo!

"Lilit at Save the Assistants . . . feels your pain." --Marie Claire

What happens when nine-to-five turns into nine-to-eleven? How do you outmaneuver the office Underminer? Is it appropriate to have a cocktail at a company lunch? How do you get reservations for a restaurant with an unlisted phone number? What do you do when your boss throws a stapler at your head?

As Page Six Magazine recently noted, bosses are "going from mean to monstrous -- and making The Devil Wears Prada look like a love story." What's an office drone to do? Call on Save the Assistants, the addictive and insightful guide to workplace sanity by Lilit Marcus, renowned assistant expert.

On your first day at work, you learned how to answer the phone and turn on the computer. But four years of college hardly prepared you for the coffee-fetching, back-stabbing, and you-should-have-done-it-yesterdays of office life. Save the Assistants is here to help you not only survive your job, but ultimately get the career you want.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781401310172
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	08/31/2010
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Lilit Marcus is the cofounder of SavetheAssistants.com and the editor of TheGloss.com. She is the former editor of Jewcy.com. Her writing has also appeared in Newsweek, the New York Post, and MediaBistro. She lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

A Millennial Assistant Manifesto xv

1 The Daily Life of an Assistant 1

2 Bosses: The Bad, the Ugly, and the (Rarely) Good 37

3 The Rest of the Office 89

4 Getting in-and out-of the Groove 137

5 Going into the Light 168

6 The Story of Wayne: An Assistant Parable 221

Endnotes 235

What People are Saying About This

Megan Hustad

“Lilit Marcus has moxie. This book offers heaps of practical advice for facing down the triple-headed demon of pressing financial need, high expectations for yourself, and a job that doesn’t seem to let you meet them. Save the Assistants is nothing less than a public service.” (Megan Hustad, author of How to Be Useful)

Vicky Oliver

“Lilit Marcus’s advice to assistants on how to handle a multitude of evil and morally bereft bosses is brilliant, pragmatic, and fun. If you are an assistant, this book will help you escape from the indentured servitude of your first real job sooner so that you can move on to your dream career. If you are a boss, this book will help you develop empathy so that you can avoid becoming one of its subjects! A must-read for anyone who had visions of making it big on nothing but a shoestring and a college degree, but somehow ended up at a tedious desk job instead.” (Vicky Oliver, author of 301 Smart Answers to Tough Interview Questions and 301 Smart Answers to Tough Business Etiquette Questions)

Jeffrey Yamaguchi

“Save the Assistants is a must-have resource for those toiling under the weight of the ground floor. Lilit Marcus, who has spent years shining a bright light on the dark-humor side of assistant life (all while on the clock as an assistant), may not save you from fetching a cup of coffee for your boss, but she will show you how to salvage your wage-slave existence and make a quick leap to a higher rung inside the workplace morass.” (Jeffrey Yamaguchi, author of Working for the Man)

Alexandra Levit

“Lilit at Save the Assistants . . . feels your pain.”
—Marie Claire

“Lilit Marcus has written perhaps the only career book that’s so fun it can actually double as a beach read. Chock full of pop culture references and caricatures that will make you laugh out loud, Save the Assistants also gets down to business with its no-nonsense advice for making the best of your entry-level tenure. Marcus’ popular online community—and now her book of the same name—has transformed being an assistant into an exclusive rite of passage.”--(Alexandra Levit, author of They Don’t Teach Corporate in College and New Job, New You)

Ellen Gordon Reeves

“Funny and practical, Save the Assistants is not only the New Testament for assistants but the Bible for bosses. Thanks to Lilit Marcus, there will be better hiring and less firing!” (Ellen Gordon Reeves, author of Can I Wear My Nose Ring to the Interview?)

Editorial Reviews

“If you’re tired, you’re poor, and you’re a huddled mass of an assistant yearning to breathe free, look no further than Save the Assistants.”

Yahoo!

Lilit at Save the Assistants . . . feels your pain.

Marie Claire