The Assistant Economy
14th June 2015
When I was an undergrad at Harvard, the English department produced fancy brochures about the opportunities available to its majors: teacher, editor, Rhodes scholar. Personal assistant was not listed. I hadn’t even heard of such positions until senior year, when older friends, artistically inclined friends, started snagging them. It’s the position I think I’ve heard most about now.
…
Welcome to the main artery into creative or elite work—highly pressurized, poorly recompensed, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes menial secretarial assistance. From the confluence of two grand movements in American history—the continued flight of women out of the home and into the workplace, and the growing population of arts and politically oriented college graduates struggling to survive in urban epicenters that are increasingly ceded to bankers and consultants—the personal assistant is born.
This is actually a reversion to the medieval practice, where an important man’s ‘secretary’ was a candidate for important positions later on. We are so used to thinking of secretaries as clerical drudges that we forget the roots of the job. You’ll remember the famous scene in A Man For All Seasons where Cardinal Wolsey and Sir Thomas More are speculating on who will wear the Lord Chancellor’s chain after the Cardinal. Wolsey mentions his secretary, Thomas Cromwell, and More doesn’t immediately scoff but rather considers it seriously.