Skendall stormed through my office and into the lair just about twenty minutes ago, saying she was so angry she had to take a walk.
Mer Bear immediately jumped in too and they began venting to each other.
Naturally I was curious. What could get these two so upset?
THIS.
And of course after I read it, I was infuriated too.
I've been the office manager at FinePrint and an executive assistant to Peter Rubie, the CEO of FinePrint since May 2010. I was an unpaid intern before that.
I'm still technically an assistant. I'm an agent in my own right, and damn proud of it, but for at least a few more months, I'm also Peter's assistant. I interact with assistants at every major publishing house on a daily basis, and I know plenty of assistants at well known literary agencies.
Which is why I'm wondering who was actually interviewed for this article and if their words were taken out of context.
Because not one assistant I know would read this and say it was an accurate portrayal of publishing.
"THE ASSISTERATI ARE hired for their taste, their poise and their pedigree, but once they settle into their cubicles, these traits are about as valuable as perfect punctuation in the cover letter of a slush submission."
Actually no. Sure does a college degree from an Ivy League impressive? Yes. But as someone who has has co-coordinated an intern program and placed all of our interns last semester in a job at major publishing houses, it's damn hard to get a job in publishing. You can't just have impressive credentials and pedigree. I know an assistant who got her job after three rounds of interviews, two writing assignments that included reading two whole manuscripts, and then having a former intern supervisor forward multiple examples of her stellar editorial work on the job.
""The things that are the hardest, or maybe scariest, for me are admin things, like phones, paperwork—especially tax forms!" a 22-year-old assistant to a literary agent told The Observer from her office, over Gmail chat."
Administrative tasks are scary when you're in your first job anywhere because the potential to screw up is HUGE. Um tax forms, they may not be glamorous, but they're important.
"A distinguished if not currently prominent author recently took a meeting with the assistant's boss and upon arrival, standing not three feet from her desk, said, "Have your girl print my boarding pass for my flight this afternoon and bring me a coffee.""
Have I occasionally run into chauvinistic men who've asked me to get their coffee? Yes. But not while I've been in publishing. Oh, I'm sure it exists, just like it exists everywhere. You ask any female recent college grad about her experience in the workforce, and she'll have a story.
"Thanks to industry-endemic budget tightening, the publishing assistant's duties have steadily declined on an asymptote toward the menial. More and more time is spent scheduling lunches, taking minutes and mailing galleys (often to the other members of the Assisterati, with chatty notes on their personal stationery). They may be drafted into bartending a party—a debasement of one of the job's few perks. Little of their workday is left to discover the next Lorrie Moore; to read the thousands of manuscripts you have to mine to find The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, they sacrifice their weekends."
Actually due to industry-endemic budget tightening, the publishing assistant's duties have doubled or tripled. They might be scheduling lunches, taking minutes, and mailing galleys (I've done all three), but they're also editing for their bosses, acquiring their own projects, and working nights and weekends in order to get it all done. As a general rule, when an industry tightens its budget and lays people off, but then still produces the same output, it means the people who still work there, take on more work.
"The Assisterati's bosses are the gatekeepers to the kind of meaningful work—acquiring or editing books—that they must master in order to move up the ladder."
Welcome to real life. Bosses are bosses in every industry. When you take an entry level job, you put in the work in order to learn and move up.
""I spent easily 80 percent of my workweek with my boss," remembered Lilit Marcus, author of Save the Assistants. "He would talk to me about his kids. I knew his Social Security number. I still know his doorman's cell phone number by heart.""
I know similar details about my boss, and I also spend a similar amount of my official workweek with him. And I can list all 40+ of his clients and tell you not only what titles they have coming out in 2011 and 2012, but what those books are about, what publisher is putting out, and what some of those clients are working on now.
And the 19 hours a day I spend working or the weekends I'm in the office ? I'm working on the manuscripts for my clients so I can add to the deals I've done.
"Only one of the mostly early-stage Assisterati The Observer spoke with at the party betrayed such fatigue. She likes the work, but it's not a good fit personality-wise, she said with utmost diplomacy. She'll consider leaving after the one-year mark. The rest of the crowd still wore a honeymoon glow."
Right. This is because the writer of this article most likely came in with preconceived notions (which were wrong) about the industry and then did a terrible job listening to the assistants he/she interviewed and getting the true story.
All in all, one of the worst articles I've read from The Observer.
(For Mer Bear's reaction, she blogged about this HERE.)