Stereotype Sally and My Long Torture In Music Hell

The woman I'm currently working for is a Music executive. We'll call her Stereotype Sally. We'll call her this because she's every stereotype of a Hollywood executive I've ever encountered. This is the kind of woman who makes me call ahead to restaurants to make sure they have tablecloths, or else she'll bring her own. She's got collagen lips, giant sunglasses, and a better than everyone else attitude. She's got it all.

Stereotype Sally has the wonderful privilege of placing music in films. She detests her job, and worst of all, generally hates music. This is an insult to all musicians. She hates female voices especially ("women's voices are boring and all sound the same!"). She doesn't own a walkman or an MP3 player because she "sure as hell doesn't want to have to listen to music when I'm not at work."

She barely knows how to use a computer. She refuses to learn. She asks me to "MP3 a song to someone," having no idea what that might mean. The office still runs on paper trails - a dinosaur typewriter, hand-written calendar, and a paper rolodex. This drives me nuts because there's a fully functioning Outlook system right in front of her face that she refuses to look at.

Stereotype Sally is a drama queen, and everything that happens to her is a tragedy. If she gets a small paper cut, she absolutely freaks out and yells at the sky, "WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME? DO YOU SEE WHAT I HAVE TO DEAL WITH?" This weekend, she has to get a hotel for her son who is competing in a hockey tournament in Salt Lake City. "This isn't the worst thing that ever happened to me, but it's almost the worst thing that ever happened to me," she just yelled at me over the phone. I was completely silent. Wow, lady, if getting your son a hotel room is almost the worst thing that ever happened to you, you are a very lucky person and need to shut the hell up.

If she's out on "vacation," or generally out at all (which is most of the time, as she spends only about half of the day in the office, coming in two hours late and leaving two hours early), she is calling me, I'M NOT KIDDING, every three minutes. This is the busiest I've ever been at a job, as there are nonstop orders barked at me and wall to wall CD burning going on whilst essentially doing her job for her.

I'm here because her assistant quit secretly in the dead of night without telling her, probably so she could safely make her escape. I've now been here two months, because she can't seem to take the time to hire someone. This is the trap of being a little too efficient. They don't want to get rid of you. I may have to change my tactic in this regard soon.

I talked to the previous assistant on the phone and the first words out of her mouth were, "LEAVE! Leave NOW, before it's too late! Don't get trapped there! Don't ever give her your cell number or your home number. Don't ever offer to do more than you are given to do, or she will take and take and take until you are nothing but an empty shell." Wow.

That's never good, fellow temps. We all know that it's a bad scene when you come into a situation thinking, "what a falling out was here?" The desk is blank, the drawers empty, the suicide note taped to the computer monitor. Usually in these situations, there are no instructions for the desk, no computer access, and no outside help. You have to wing it.

When you are dealing with someone with such a frenetic, high-energy stress level, the only response is calm silence. For every "SEND THESE STUPID ROSES BACK BECAUSE THE BLOOMS ARE OPEN TOO FAR!!!", you meet it with an emotionless, unimpressed gaze. She begins to back down. Do not cater to the whining or the desperate attempts for pity. "Hildy must have high blood pressure, she's so calm," she says, eyeing me nervously. Don't ever let them engage you in fights. Always be the bigger person. This is the only way to maintain dominance in the working relationship. This way she always knows she is not allowed to give you any crap.

The great joy of this job has been the Amazing Booty Haul. This is a music office, so there is a massive music library, and new music comes in by the stack every day. For some reason, the previous assistant was dumb enough to leave behind TWO iPods filled with library music and hundreds of unwanted CDs. She didn't seem to understand that A) You can re-format the iPods any old way you want, and B) Amoeba or any other used CD store will buy your CDs for CASH MONEY. It's a veritable gold mine here. I've also been able to add hundreds of CDs we've wanted or even are marginally interested in to our collection, which has been a major boon considering we'd never have been able to afford buying this kind of music on our own.

I've learned so much about music from the business perspective, as I have been given the task of listening to the formidable stack of CDs that accumulate on my desk each day. I have become the person I used to hate - I stick a CD in and within 15 seconds I can tell if we're keeping it or not. I used to think this was cold and callous but it's reality and it will certainly help me market my own music more effectively in the future (strongest songs ALWAYS first, make sure artwork is fantastic, label CD with genre). One thing to know is: there's no such thing as unsolicited material. So many CDs come in every day that there's no way to track where everything came from. So fear not, musicians: send away to all your favorite executives. You may get thrown in the trash, but you may just get heard, at least for 15 seconds.

I would SO want this job if it weren't with Stereotype Sally that I had to work. It's ideal. It's brilliant. It's impossible. As a temp, do not forget that your job is to be transitional and seamless. No attachments must be formed. Temping is the ultimate Buddhist meditation.