Lemondrop

Once upon a time, North Carolina native Lilit Marcus thought she was on her way to the American dream. She had gotten her first job as a receptionist at a major media company in New York City.

Within a few days, Marcus realized she was actually on track for the American nightmare, pulling double duty as company receptionist and personal assistant to a frustrated, old-school senior executive, all for the same entry-level salary. Rather than quit and go home, she braved the rocky waters, weathered verbal abuse and crazy demands, and emerged exhausted but with a great sense of humor to sustain her.

After moving on to a new job (with a supportive and welcoming boss), she set out to offer other downtrodden assistants a welcome respite with her blog, Save the Assistants. Now six years to the day she moved to New York with dreams of becoming a writer, Marcus has just published her first book, appropriately titled "Save the Assistants: A Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the Workplace." She sat down with Lemondrop recently -- away from intercoms and office supplies -- to discuss evil bosses, how she coped and how you can, too.

Lemondrop: Tell us about your background. How did you become the patron saint of assistants everywhere?
Lilit Marcus: I moved to New York at 21, with a degree in English literature, which basically means I could do nothing. After months of applying for entry level jobs and temping in the meantime, I landed the receptionist job at a media company. I thought it was a good way to get my foot in the door. The office manager came up to me while I was setting myself up at the reception desk, and said "Great to see you. Let me take you to meet your boss." I was a little confused since I thought my boss WAS the office manager. She replied, "Oh, I guess I didn't tell you, you're also an assistant, so let me take you to meet the guy you'll be working for." I should have realized right then that it wasn't an accident. I should have realized they never would have advertised that job as it actually was, because it required you to be in two places at the same time.

This was the head of the company?
No, he was just one of the executives. Before me, he had a full-time assistant, who had her own office, sat across the hall from him, and was a proper Editorial Assistant instead of just an Admin. But he got demoted, so they were punishing him by giving him a part-time assistant who was also the receptionist.

But really it punished you.
Right. The man was in his 70s. He had someone or another as his assistant for about 45 years. You don't want to be the person who had to change his routine -- and I had no idea what I was getting into. I heard: "You're going to be his assistant part-time and you're going to be the receptionist the rest of the time." He heard: "You're my new assistant." It was really difficult. Anyone who would have taken that job would have been screwed. Even if I had been the most competent assistant in the world, and to be honest, I wasn't ... I would have been completely screwed having that job. They were just setting me up for failure.

That doesn't sound like fun. Does that happen a lot?
It's a lot more common than I realized. I call it the "combo job" – when two low-paid or entry level jobs are combined into one job. People have been using the economy as an excuse to do that, even if it's not necessary. I was making $26,000 a year and I was expected to be in two places at once.

So what were your days like?
I would have these humiliating days. He had an intercom, so he could call out to me while I was at the front desk. I'd be signing for a package, sifting through a giant pile of mail, and he'd be on the intercom, screaming "Where are you?! I said get here, right now!!" I would freak out and would always try to say to "hi, oh, I'm really sorry I wasn't able to get here as quickly as you wanted me to, but all the mail came in and I had to sign for some stuff." He thought I was making excuses and that I was lazy. The problem was that HR hadn't really communicated to him what to expect or he was in a whole ton of denial.

How long did you last?
Eight months. I set a record as the longest assistant he had in recent years.

Did you ever speak up when he pushed you around?
He would scream at me on the intercom. So, sometimes the only power move I had left was to leave the intercom on all day so everyone in our open office would hear him shout at me. I could have picked up the phone and spoken to him, but instead I would leave it on all day so whether he was politely asking me to take his lunch order or if he was saying "Get the fuck in here! Where the fuck are you?" At some point, he caught on to me, and asked me to turn it off, but I just played dumb. I said 'I can't help it! My hands are busy, it's the only way I can communicate and if I'm holding things for you, that's the only way I can do it.' I figured if he was going to be so awful to me, I wanted everybody to know that it wasn't my fault.

Did you start your Save the Assistants blog to cope while you worked there?
I didn't start until after I left. I became friends with the other assistants, who helped get me through most of it. But while I worked there, I did what I always do when I don't understand something: I looked it up. I kept looking for websites with "assistant support," but all I found were aspiring executive sites for people who wanted to build their "personal brand." But I didn't give a fuck about my personal brand. I wanted to know what happens if a stapler gets thrown at my head.

So, instead, while you worked at your next job, you started your own blog to share advice and commiseration with other assistants, it took off and now you've not only got your own new book, but you're also the boss as Editor in Chief of TheGloss.com?
Exactly. Yes, now I'm the boss, and that's weird. But I don't have an assistant, I have interns.

Although it's funny, you really gambled when you played with your boss by using the intercom. Do you have any suggestions for the average person who can't risk getting fired as they try to succeed or at least stay sane?
You have no power, so you have to be really careful about everything that you do. If you recognize that your boss is a bad boss, you can do a few things. If you are meeting with your boss and she intimidates or bullies you, always leave the door open unless they specifically ask you to close it. Opening the door will make others aware of the boss's behavior. You should also immediately zero in on what your boss is bad at, and try to be good at those things. Also, learn to think on your feet and find quick solutions. If your supervisor wants a reservation but the restaurant is closed, offer alternatives and suggest calling right away, since your boss will probably only focus on where he wants. Any proactive thinking that would result in fewer "little eruptions" during the day, I considered a victory for my own sanity and would suggest the same to anyone now.

Any other ideas for the day-to-day offensive to really do well and not just be on the defensive and deflecting?
Before anything, make allies in the office. If you and your boss hate each other, you are going to need someone who likes you. Maybe there's one assistant – the Joan Holloway-type (from Mad Men) who knows everything or just whomever has been there the longest... Find THAT person immediately and become their friend. It's really important to know context of things like "what is such and such boss's biggest pet peeve" For example, somebody filled me in that my boss had been demoted and had had an assistant before me, and then I was able to figure out why he behaved the way he did.

Second thing: Manage your expectations. It's hard when you see the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world, who became millionaires in their 20s, and you think that since you're not like them that you're a failure. You're not! Some people use this to mean "get used to something that sucks." But I don't mean that – I mean, be realistic, but still be optimistic. This may be what you're doing now, but it's not what you're going to be doing forever. That's why half of my book is survival tips - you first have to survive in order to thrive.

Finally, have a really active life outside of work, because you can't let a job that you hate be the thing that defines you. If you want to volunteer, be in a band, have a regular girl's night, whatever you do, make sure you know that you are an ENTIRE person, and you are not just what you do at work every day. It's so good for your sanity to have other people in your life and other priorities. You might even find you hobby turns into work, like mine did. If you want to do something else, you'll ultimately find a way and you should do it now. A lot of times the things I'm NOT doing at work end up helping me the most. I mean, at my current job, they know all about Save the Assistants. That's part of why they hired me. They wanted somebody who could start a website from the ground up, and I had never done that on a corporate level before, but I had done it for myself.

To sum up, assistants need to do the following to see sunnier days in the workplace:
1 – Leave the office door open
2 – Complement, not just compliment, your boss
3 – Think on your feet
4 – Make office friends and allies
5 – Manage your expectations – this isn't forever, it's just a stepping stone
6 – Have a life outside of work

Not to make fun out of misery, but we all know the assistant horror stories are fun, as long as they're not happening to you when they're being told. Can you share a few just for us?
Sure! I've got two. I just got a letter from one reader whose boss called her into her office in a panic. She said "I need you to install this thing. It's urgent. I read the directions and it's really complicated." It was a coffee maker, so the boss walked out and left the assistant to deal with it. The assistant took one look at it, plugged it into the wall, and that was all she needed to do.

My first boss did something similar. He was a lot older, so he wasn't super computer proficient and thought they were magical gizmos that required a secret language. Since my dad's a computer programmer, I've always been good with computers, and the only time my boss would ever say anything nice to me or compliment me on my work was when I would help with them, actually. One day, he called me to his office freaking out. He said his computer was broken and he needed me to look at it. I looked really quickly, and figured out that his screen saver had come on and he just didn't know how to turn it off. I was so disgruntled and he treated me so badly that there was no way I was just going to move his mouse and have that be it - I wanted the payoff to be really good. I got under the computer, pretended I was messing with wires, sat there for about ten minutes, looked behind the screen and all the while he was staring at me, riveted. Finally, I hit the enter key and it came back on. And he said "WOW, you're really good at this." And I just said, "Oh, thanks, I really learned a lot in college..." and went back to my desk, smiling.


Stephanie Jo Klein works in the music business for the legendary New Music Seminar and is also a New York-based freelance writer whose byline has appeared in the New York Post, Glamour, TV Guide, Fortune Small Business and on Shape.com. She paid her assistant dues years ago at a small business magazine that went bankrupt just before her highly anticipated promotion.

How about you, readers? How did you cope with your first assistant job or nightmare scenarios? Share your worst below