Comments on: Contest!!! I Am Your Personal Assistant!

By: Rachel Rath

Rachel Rath — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 03:28:44 +0000

Ok, so it’s well beyond the stated deadline, but I’m going to leave my one-liner pitch anyway…

I work with your father-in-law, and at one point, so did you. That makes you perfectly qualified to be my personal assistant – you’ve already done the OJT.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:48:52 +0000

I am the horse trainer Nell told you about. While I would love to have a fun-loving assistant for the day, I would warn you that ranch work can be rather physical. We are currently trying to get water & electricity run to the old log cabin. We have to be careful where we run the lines since there is an archeological dig going on next to the cabin. They work on the weekends and like to drink beer and talk after their day of digging.

You really should pick Nell to work for… she bakes the best cookies and is one of the most fun individuals I know. And she doesn’t have 23 horses to look after. Good luck with your adventures.
-the one-legged-horse-trainer

By: Nell Carroll

Nell Carroll — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:12:53 +0000

I am actually applying for my best friend Rachel who has a horse farm in Bastrop county. She is getting over knee surgery which is not ideal for a horse trainer. She has 20 horses on her place and 5 cows. She begins moving horses into the barn at 7am for feeding. They get let out later and she cleans stalls. She spends the day teaching lessons, training horses, fixing fences etc. None of this has been easy as she has been healing from the surgery (she got kicked repeatedly by a scared horse in a horse trailer).
She could use a P.A. to go do errands for her while she teaches lessons, do some home repairs and a zillion other things she needs to do but has no time for..

of course I would be happy to have you be my P.A. for a day too, but I am fairly boring. Full-time working mom, traveling husband, 5 year old who loves airplanes, trains and weapons. Got 2 cats, 2 dogs, and 2 horses at home on some acreage. I need a P.A. on the weekends so I can get stuff done that the 5 yr old is not crazy about. So you’d be saddled with building with things with lego’s, blocks, watching movies (Bolt and Peter Pan are faves now) and anything to keep his busy mind active.

By: Jan Fernheimer

Jan Fernheimer — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:34:56 +0000

Dear David,
If you’re looking to escape the Austin heat, and get a glimpse of the not-so-high life of a tenure-track assistant professor, I invite you to come to gorgeous upstate New York. It’s brisk in the mornings, the leaves are turning amazing shades of rust, yellow, red, and the local apple farms specialize in cider donuts this time of year.I wish I could tempt you with the good looks of the young co-eds on campus, but since RPI has a 3:1 ratio of men to women, you’re more likely to encounter young men who know more about comics, Artificial Intelligence, engineering, and physics than you or I either care to (or are capable of understanding). You can see what it’s like to be one of the rare female faculty members teaching humanities at an engineering school. I’ll be sure to time your visit so you can help me comment and grade 40+ papers.You can relive your college days and pull an nighter marking those papers. Or in lieu commenting, maybe you can help me organize ten years’ worth of archival research and materials as I prepare to write the next chapter of my book. If you come and help out, I promise to acknowledge you in the credits when the book is published. And don’t worry, it will get published (or I’m outa a job). Maybe you want to teach a session of my course “Writing in the Digital Age,” since you’ve dived right in with this project? Maybe you’d rather teach one of the sessions of my first-year course “Representing Israel and Its Conflicts”? As you can see, being a personal assistant would provide you with a great many opportunities and options. Oh, and did I mention there are decent plum or jalapeno margaritas at a place called Jose Malone’s which combines Irish and Mexican food? You will get to visit not only Albany, the capital of New York and home to the NY legislature and EGG (of architectural infamy), but also Troy, also known as the collar city, home of Uncle Sam.
Thanks for considering my request,
Jan

(students if you see this,If I were be so lucky to be selected, I’d ask permission to share your work first, and only if you agreed would I teach the art of commenting. Neither your consent or lackthereof would in any way affect your grade in the course

By: Help Wanted

Help Wanted — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:30:44 +0000

So it seems that people are flaunting their attractiveness to try and pull you in. I’m gonna go a different route. I can guarantee that you will be the more attractive out of the two of us, a bonus for you as we hit the town. I will absorb insult after insult as I live vicariously through your powerful city lawyer good looks.

On to the day’s plans:

I will roll out of bed sometime between 9 and 10 and depending on the previous nights happenings will need you to hand me some advil, some flintstones chewables, or just bid me a good morning like Mary Poppins would. If you can do it, I’d love a song or maybe just some nice humming to wake me and welcome me to the day. We’ll then go see how my dog is doing for a few minutes. I’ll have you rub his ears and say “Good boy” for a bit while I entertain myself with the nature happening outside my place. You really can’t enjoy nature enough.

Next comes food. I like to keep it healthy, so we’re gonna have you make me something delicious that contains soy, soyrizo, or soy joy. You may make yourself anything you like from my fridge or pantry, though avoid the pizza rolls – those are for special occasions.

As for the day’s work. I’m going to choose a day where I will have many meetings at the office and I’d like you to come as my secretary/stenographer. You don’t need your own stenographer’s machine as I’ll provide one. I expect in these meetings that when I make a joke or say something somewhat funny you either high-five me or say “That’s what she said.” I need backup like this so my coworkers will respect me. This will continue for hours.

After work happy hour. We’re going to hit the town and entertain some of the lady folk. I think something on West 6th will do. Bring your A game as we’ll need it.

Dinner. Boy, this is going to be tough but I’d like you to come on a date with me. Not you and I silly, but you and me and a fine lady-friend. The duties here will be very similar to the ones in the day’s earlier meetings but instead of high-fives we’ll need a winks-and-gun thing. You’ll have to dress up though in a tux for this since we’re going to class it up and go to a fine eatery.

After dinner. If the date went well, you get to play with my dog. If it didn’t I suggest we watch a movie to mourn the date. Perhaps When Harry Met Sally? I’ll provide grapes.

At the end of the night I will thank you and we will part ways, never to speak to each other again.

By: Curious

Curious — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:05:55 +0000

Oh, and is Pikey also hitting on you and offering up some adultry for you at the end of his (I assume…) comment? Please do the Pikey one!

By: Curious

Curious — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:04:02 +0000

I’m more interested in Pikey’s situation above with his girlfriend and the lady on the side that he’s wooing. Instead of pleading for assistance for myself, I vote for Pikey so we can find out more about his “thing on the side” gig he’s got goin’ on. I’m picturing a 1980s style buddy movie with goofy shenanigans and maybe a montage or two. You two will take turns distracting/occupying or wooing and then swap. It’ll be like Perfect Strangers and you both get to be Balky at some point. This could even just be a whole new day for you aside from the PA work.

By: Aric

Aric — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:38:20 +0000

I’m putting together a website chronicling my strange, daily activities over the next few weeks, and I could really use an assistant. It’s sort of like your Forty Days, but it will also include funny stories and witty commentary.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:31:54 +0000

angledge should win.

By: Betsy

Betsy — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:22:34 +0000

Wait…you know how to make pudding? Why have you been holding out on me all of these years? Even though I’m probably disqualified from this contest due to a conflict of interest and disproportionate levels of attractiveness I’m throwing my hat into the ring simply because I need – and deserve- pudding on demand. Make mine chocolate, por favor. xoxo!