Donât Leave Your Desk, Unless Itâs for Good
Iâd been working for a mega-agency for a while when an old-school actorâs small production company offered to hire me. I wanted to be in development, so it was perfect. The production honcho (Iâll call her Nancy) never removed her headset during my interview, taking calls throughout. I got maybe 10 minutes. It wasnât a good sign, but I was still bright-eyed and hopeful.
âDonât take anything she says personally,â said Alexa, the old assistant, finishing off my three-night training period. âGoodbye!â She waved as though I were walking down a gangplank.
My first task was to reconcile the office petty cash supply, used for things such as intern errands, stamps and Nancyâs peanut-butter protein power smoothies. My spreadsheet showed the cash supply as $200 short.
âAlexa must have stolen it,â Nancy snapped.
âShe seemed like an honest person,â I said.
âYou seemed like a smart person,â Nancy said. She dropped a stack of papers and a bag of potato chips on my desk.
âMessenger this home.â
âThe chips too?â I asked.
âThose are for you.â She strutted off. I stood in my cubicle, dumbfounded. âThanks,â I said to no one.
That evening, as I was wrapping up for the day, Nancy kept calling until I answered.
âI was in the bathroom,â I said.
âI donât care where you were! You are responsible for always being at that desk.â
I considered getting a bedpan to keep under my chair, or quitting. Because Nancy was going to work on a film in Canada, I decided to stay put for the summer.
Up north, Nancy hired a Canadian assistant, Jackie. Jackie and I became cordial, discussing Nancyâs needs by phone. One morning, Jackie broke down.
âDo you hate her too?â she sobbed. âShe made me peel her hard-boiled eggs. When I handed them to her, she said âYou peel them.ââ
âWow.â
âSheâs about to be kicked out of her hotel,â Jackie continued. âShe cursed out the manager in front of kids. He asked her not swear in front of them, and she yelled, âI donât [colorful expletive] care about the children!â
âWell thatâs surprising,â I said.
âSo you know sheâs . . . ?â
âUh-huh.â
Entertainment industry assistants receive instructions by listening in on their bossâ phone calls. It was immensely time-saving and extremely impersonal. If I wasnât on a call and missed an important bit of information, I got screamed at. But it was also how I found out that my romantically unattached boss was pregnant. After breaking the news to a colleague, she said: âIt wonât affect the timing of the movie!â The next thing she said was: âNobody knows. I hope my assistant isnât listening!â Too late now.
She eventually told the movie star who owned the company, saying she planned to work right up until the birth and return âimmediately thereafter.â
âDoes she think a baby is something you pop out and stick on a shelf next to your Oscar?â I said to Jackie. âNot that she has one.â
A bit later, I e-mailed my resignation so she couldnât call and scream.
âYou committed to working here for a year,â Nancy wrote back, adding that she would sue to keep me in the job. I didnât care.
That Friday, I left half an hour early (7 rather than 7:30) to head out of town.
âWhy are you not at your desk?â she yelled when she called at 7. âYou didnât ask permission to leave. You absolutely cannot do this again.â
Iâm already gone, I wanted to say. Now Iâll dish for a book deal: âThe Devil Wears a Headset.â
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