Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

by Alyssa Mastromonaco

And that’s how this story starts—with the humble goal of seeming competent and not too annoying.

You should always be prepared to defend your choices, whether just to yourself (sometimes this is the hardest) or to your coworkers, your friends, or your family. The quickest way for people to lose confidence in your ability to ever make a decision is for you to pass the buck, shrug your shoulders, or otherwise wuss out. Learning how to become a decision maker, and how you ultimately justify your choices, can define who you are.

one of the hallmarks of a great leader is being able to explain your decisions.

That might be the difference between men and women: Women need to know they are right before they stand up. Men are OK objecting if they just think they might be right.

There is no bigger compliment than being intellectually curious about what someone else spends his or her days doing—it turned out that not having the answers did me no harm. The feedback I got was that the WHMO directors all “felt good about my leadership.”

Preparation is protection you can create for yourself; for some people, the hard part may be balancing precautions with paranoia, but in my experience, you can never be too prepared.

When I’ve had to prepare for a job interview, I make sure to keep up on any news or current events related to the person or organization I’m meeting with. I read up, if I can, on my interviewer.

Jobs like this—the kind of job of which there are many, the kind that are definitely good but that no one teaches you to want—are found only with an open mind and a willingness to do your own thing.

If you do it responsibly, quitting something that isn’t benefiting you—whether it’s dance classes that “everyone is taking” or a soul-sucking job that has nothing to do with anything you’re interested in—can change your life.

It forever formed my opinion on how we should help those in need: humanely and respectfully. Maybe that sounds obvious to you, but unfortunately there are a lot of people who would disagree.

There is no greater feeling of independence than being able to provide for yourself, knowing that if you really hate a job—and you will probably hate jobs at various points throughout your life—you can leave and be OK.

Never brag about your ability to type. It will never get you anywhere you really want to be.

Being self-aware means knowing when you’re about to act bad—and then not acting bad.

One of my main goals in writing this book is to give you the permission to admit to feeling or doing things that are silly; once you do, you can get on with your life.

In other words, any time someone like me expresses interest in beautiful clothes, or celebrities, or whatever, it doesn’t indicate that I have a multifaceted personality with a healthy balance between light, fun hobbies and intellectual, political, and professional concerns—no, this reporter said, it means I have been squashed under the thumb of the patriarchy.

I argued that modern women see no contradiction in being both informed and fashionable (and that men’s magazines don’t get much grief for running photos of women in bikinis alongside lengthy reportage).

“I’m sure there’s a salary band for the position, and my hope would be to come in at the high end of that.”

Being resilient means being honest: You have to admit when you’re struggling. Usually, someone will help you.

There are certain lessons you pick up gradually as you go, letting them accumulate after a series of similar mistakes or experiences until you finally realize you’ve been a fool all along. And then there are the lessons that are so massive they smack you in the face—you don’t reflect on a period of your life and realize, “Oh, I learned something then”; you know it’s happening when it’s happening.