I Love You, but I Hate Your Assistant

Well, I don’t actually hate him. I totally understand your assumed need to have an assistant, after all your life is very important.

No, really, it is. I mean you meet with people.

And email, phones, SMS, Twitter, Facebook and 4 billion messaging apps are all broken. After all a million startup pitches tell me so.

Seriously, I get it. We all watched Mad Men. Having an assistant meant you have achieved something. Like a job. Or your name on the door. Or a cigarette. I never really understood Mad Men, to be honest.

But I get having an assistant. Why talk to your friends and family? Or potential customers or investors? I mean, fuck it, why hire an assistant when you can hire a mime to act out that you can’t come to the phone when you just fucking tweeted about how bored you are sitting in your office with nothing to do so you might just Instragram the Shake Shack line?

“Sent From Twitter for iOS” doesn’t mean you sent it from your brain.

After all, what a great customer experience, right?

“Hey Micah, can I meet with you to ask you something?”

Sure. What works for you?

“I don’t know because I never took How to Read A Calendar in college. Here is a person you have never met who is going to assume you are an idiot, ask for a random time and ask you to come across town to my office just so I can ask you for a favor. Cool?”

No.

Look, running a 5 person startup is hard. I get it. I mean, you are at a point where a single six-pack of Diet Coke just won’t do. You absolutely need an assistant to buy two six-packs (and I know Diet Coke is bad for you, and you raised money. Splurge, get Diet Dr Pepper, because all the greats drank it. Like Emo Phillips).

Your time is valuable, and Instacart is way harder to figure out than raising $5mm, building a product and getting your first customers. (I mean, one day you will get customers right? It’s on the financial forecast for post your “second series A prime squared that is not a down round damn it,” right?)

But what happens when you have to move a meeting? You don’t want to look like a dick. Totally. Just have your assistant do it.

Except you now you look like a dick who has to ask someone else to tell me that you had something come up. It’s your assistant bro, I know how the scam works. He didn’t decide to cancel the meeting on his own, or else you might have to reconsider who the assistant is in that relationship…

I don’t care if you think I am a horrible person, after all, my mom would probably agree, but please for the love of all that is holy, stop with the assistants. You want to look more important — THEN BUILD SOMETHING IMPORTANT. You want to be more efficient? Stop doing stupid stuff.

I love you, man, but, holy hell, do I hate your assistant.