The World's Worst Assistant

by Sona Movsesian

Sona, my assistant of thirteen years, believes that the pursuit of the divine Greek state of Arete is “lame” and should “go eat a dick.”

Sona is actually quite brilliant and endlessly creative in her singular pursuit of her own comfort.

Believe me, I love it when people “stick it to The Man,” it’s just that sadly, in this tale, I am that Man.

eventually made it to HBO, and from there, any dreams of a more “productive” hobby were over.

Me too

Act first, especially if it’s funny; think later.

We’ve seen so many images of Hollywood assistants being mistreated in their jobs—from the comical yet stress-inducing representations of getting lunch orders exactly right in Set It Up to the bleak and inhumane treatment depicted in The Assistant.

Eat, shit, eat shit, get promoted, eat, shit in someone else’s mouth, get promoted, eat good food, then inexplicably continue shitting in someone else’s mouth because that’s what you saw before you and it’s all you know.

LOL

I’ve seen people mistreat others because they themselves were mistreated and think it’s a rite of passage to treat someone like garbage. When you get to the top, you mix that with a tremendous amount of power and influence, and you feel like it gives you license to continue treating the people working below you poorly.

FACTS

So how does the entertainment industry human centipede end? Easy. We can make the conscious decision not to treat other people we work with (interns, PAs, assistants) like they’re literal trash.

JUST HIGHLIGHTING THIS WHOLE PAGE

Everyone knows the assistants run Hollywood and NYC media anyway.

How do you stay angry at someone who acknowledges their mistakes and apologizes? You can’t.

I don’t know where that confidence came from, but it was almost like I manifested my career.

got my job working for Conan because I made a joke about being lazy—foreshadowing at its best.

It could’ve been when, three months into my job, I was speaking Armenian on the phone with my grandmother and Conan asked if I was arguing with Dracula.

It also could’ve been a year later, when he told Rolling Stone magazine that I floated to this country in a basket while my father was in the midst of a goat attack on the island of Armenia (I was born in Los Angeles, my father is not a goat herder, and Armenia is landlocked).

Luckily, one of our writers thought that it was an excellent idea that I should devote my week to beating De Niro’s assistant’s record.

Conan and I went to a hat store across from the restaurant because they said they would give him a hat for free. He insisted on paying so he ended up buying a weird hat for $120. Then we got in a cab and he told the cab driver that he was a Greek fisherman and that he likes universal healthcare because it comes in handy when the “nets come back empty.”

didn’t write about the nightmare that was Bonnaroo. How it was humid and hot as hell and how I saw drunk and high festivalgoers standing under a giant mushroom structure that was spouting water

I never mentioned the tour bus and how my friend Meghan and I watched The Human Centipede on it with the shoddy internet. It took us four hours to watch an hour-and-a-half-long movie, giving me plenty of time to ponder the film’s subtle relevance to my industry.

I just love to spend money I pretend isn’t mine, even though the petty cash is part of my salary.

Over time, the stress and panic I would feel in these situations dissipated. They stopped as soon as I realized what I needed to get done would get done even if I stayed relaxed.

This is a filler section. It’s complete nonsense. I’m just typing out words so I can add them to my word count.

I had made the scarf way too wide, so now I have a short, wide scarf—like a chode.

So what is professionalism? I’ve learned it’s being cognizant of the people you’re interacting with and keeping a very specific line between who you really are and who you should be in a work environment.

I would watch all attractive guys I have a crush on from behind a plant in the green room.

Shes just lkke.me.fr

I realized what needed to be done: I needed to ask Conan’s kids to help me push the golf cart out of the empty lagoon.

I was contemplating how the Saddle Ranch on Sunset Boulevard was just as trashy then as it was when my friends and I had gone there five years earlier.

HAHAHAHAHA

recently googled him to see what he was up to, and he hasn’t produced a movie in almost fifteen years. Maybe he should try working ten times harder than the other producers. Or being insanely attractive.

I had watched the movies and I had spoken to enough assistants to know that sometimes our bosses were going to ask for odd things and we were just going to have to get it done somehow.

SUBJECT: Re: Phone Number You don’t understand, Larry, I taught her English two years ago. She still thinks the office phone is the Devil’s Watchdog. When it rains, she eats garlic and gyrates in the parking lot.

I realized adults make mistakes, and as long as we acknowledge them and move on, then I don’t know where the harm lies.

“Oki threw up and shit everywhere,” and he misread the text and thought I had typed out “Okay, I threw up and shit everywhere.”) By the end of the segment, I had the audience chanting “buy her a house” after I took the opportunity to ask Conan if he’d buy me and my husband a house.

I found out the other term for speech and debate competition in college is “forensics.” I found out because Steve had to tell people who were hoping to get into a CSI-type job that they were in the wrong class on the first day.

I always had issues with ambition, as if I was comfortable in the middle, the 50th percentile. I didn’t allow myself to think I deserved more than that, as though striving for more and deserving more weren’t meant for me.

but something I actually respected—going outside the norm of what your job entails and having a good time doing it.

Vulture ranked “Conan in Armenia” as the best of all of Conan’s international specials. Conan is an Armenian icon now, and if you live in Montebello, Los Angeles, it really can’t get any bigger than that.

Conan beat his Irish compatriot President Joe Biden in acknowledging the Armenian Genocide by five years, making him a trailblazer with respect to acknowledging crimes against humanity in world history.

anyone can make something beautiful about a culture if they’re coming at it from a truly curious perspective.

This job saw me through my biggest life transformations, and the more comfortable I got, the more the work suffered.

And I did it while being unapologetically myself, warts and all. I didn’t set out to be the World’s Worst Assistant, but I put in the work, or lack thereof, and discovered my true calling. It’s been nothing less than a complete thrill, and I am honored to pass my expertise on to you. Godspeed.

This is what i needed

I will never be the type of person who will compromise their mental and physical well-being for a job. I’ve gone out of my way to ensure that my happiness in what I’m doing and who I’m working with are my priority, and because of that mentality, I’ve managed to find a job that I look forward to going to on Mondays.

Agree

I realize how lucky I am, but if being the World’s Worst Assistant means I get to have a social and personal life as well as a fulfilling career, then I like to think I did something right.