Workplace Nemeses

Hollywood assistants like having workplace nemeses. Now that we're out of the fast-paced, high-stress corporate world, there are really few things that can rankle us during our usually placid days in production & development land. Our office running out of Diet Coke tends to really chap our hides. Or when people call us repeatedly to pitch us really crappy story ideas – how many times do we have to say "We can't take unsolicited submissions?" in one day. But the thing that puts us in the worst mood of all is having to deal with our workplace nemeses.

In speaking with our other assistant friends, we've come to the conclusion that we all have a workplace nemesis. This is usually a person who you must deal with on a regular basis to get the most routine business accomplished, and they usually find a way to screw it up. They become the Newman to your Seinfeld. Hearing their voice on the other end of the phone automatically raises your blood pressure. Seeing an email from them in your inbox makes you grit your teeth. Our friends have had a long line of nemeses over the last couple of years, but one in particular takes the cake.

Like most nemeses, Ultimate Nemesis (from here on out referred to as UN) was an assistant at one of the most powerful entities in town. Don't ask us why the stupidest people tend to work at the most powerful places. It's like trying to find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop – the world will never know. UN dealt with people at the highest level of the industry all day long, which makes it all the more unbelievable that UN was so frustratingly dense and bad at their job. Our friend eventually came to the conclusion that UN may actually be a robot, not a human. These are the top 5 reasons why we believe that UN is a robot:


1) UN never answered emails during work hours. Responses always came at the very end of the day or early in the morning. Some may say that UN was too busy during the day to respond. But actually, we think UN's internal computer was set to respond to all emails at a predetermine time each evening and morning.

2) Whenever our friend called UN to ask a question, it never knew the answer… To even the simplest question… even if my friend knew for a fact that this was a piece of information UN would HAVE to know. This is because UN cannot compute human syntax.

3) Even though UN and our friend conversed and emailed for several months, whenever our friend called UN's boss's office for his boss, UN never acknowledged that they "knew" one another. Robots cannot form attachments to humans.

4) UN routinely forgot to get back to our friend on very important issues. He blamed this on a glitch in UN's software. UN's programmers obviously haven't worked out the kinks yet and there are major issues with UN's memory chip.

5) Just like Max Headroom, UN would ask our friend about the same things repeatedly. Even after our friend had already given UN the answer. There is obviously some skip in UN's hard disc. Or perhaps UN's internal computer forgot how to use it's save function. CONTROL-S! CONTROL-S!!!!!

Workplace nemeses are an ever-changing thing. Some fellow assistants will miraculously get their acts together and stop bothering you, thus opening the door for a brand new nemesis. So learn to live with your nemesis and make sure to praise them when they actually do something right. Like puppies, sometimes they just need a Beggin' Strip to learn to roll over. And most importantly, treat your nemesis as you would want to be treated. Because remember: you too are probably someone's workplace nemesis.

WHERE: Your home-away-from-home, the office
COST: $0.99 for a stress-relief ball to firmly grasp when dealing with your nemesis, so that you don't scream at them