Assisting for the Day

Today is my first day as an assistant. I'm filling in at one my internships and getting some hands-on experience manning phones, schedules, and people. As often as I've compared my internship experiences here in Hollywood with those in The Devil Wears Prada (not even close to the hell that Andy goes through, don't worry), today is the closest that I've come to the real thing. I am "manning the desk" so to speak

Emily: When I am not here... Andrea, you are chained to that desk! 
Andy Sachs: But what if I have to... 
Emily: What? No! Nothing! One time an assistant left the desk. Oh, because she sliced her hand open with a letter opener, and Miranda missed Lagerfeld just before he was about to board a 17 hour flight to Austrailia. She now works at TV Guide

though I doubt the consequences of a missed phone call will be as severe...

So far I've successfully re-arranged a personal training session, started reading a script that I need to have notes on by Monday, made friends over the phone with another assistant while trying to move a lunch with a well-known TV Star, felt stupid for calling said star and leaving a voicemail about moving the lunch because I had no number for a personal assistant, felt a little better when said star called back and was very kind and he could move the lunch to the time we needed, and I have used this small amount of "down" time to write this post.

 Excerpt from The Devil Wears Prada by: Lauren Weisberger
"Ahn-dre-ah, my car needs to be picked up from the place and dropped off at the garage. Attend to it immediately, as we'll be needing it tonight to drive to the Hamptons. That's all." I stood, rooted to the carpet in front of her behemoth desk, but she'd already blocked out my presence entirely. Or so I thought. "That's all, Ahn-dre-ah. See to it right now," she added, still not glancing up.

Ah, sure, Miranda, I thought to myself as I walked away, trying to figure out the first step in the assignment that was sure to have a million pitfalls along the way. First was definitely to find out at which "place" the car was located. Most likely it was being repaired at the dealership, but it could obviously be at any one of a million auto shops in any one of the five boroughs. Or perhaps she'd lent it to a friend and it was currently occupying an expensive spot in a full-service garage somewhere on Park Avenue? Of course, there was always the chance that she was referring to a new car--brand unknown--that she'd just recently purchased that hadn't yet been brought home from the (unknown) dealership. I had a lot of work to do.
                     

So far in my limited experience I have learned the following:
1.Assistants are problem-solvers. Much like Engineers... but with people.
2. Knowing who to talk to to get things done is the easiest way to solve those problems.
3. You can tell who was once an assistant before they "moved up" and they are often kind and have sympathy, empathy, or, at least, pity for you.

Well, the day is almost half-over. Let's hope that everything runs smoothly for the rest of the day with no major or minor crises (even though Culver City is apparently doing a disaster drill at 7pm tonight...should be interesting to see how that goes).