Beauty and the...Idiot

As part of my new duties as "The Highest Paid Administrative Assistant in the World," I have been tasked with sending out a particular kind of announcement for my company using a piece of software by a company in Atlanta called Silverpop. Now, this software basically lets you craft spam e-mail and send it to a huge list of people, and then it does some nifty things like track how many people actually read the e-mail and other fun stuff marketing people think is really cool.

This fun little project was once owned by a lady in my department who joined the company as an intern a couple of years ago and has somehow worked her way into the good graces of the boss, while I, the highly paid "Writer" for which my company has no counterpart, get her crap-work with little to no instruction.

So, for nigh on three weeks now I've been trying to get this lady to train me on the use of this application...well, actually I don't need training on the application really, I need training on who all to send the e-mail to; how to pull the list out of the database, etc. And for two weeks she's put me off and put me off. Twice now I've had to scramble to send the announcement out on my own because this former intern is too busy to give me an hour in training.

Oh, did I mention she's kinda hot? Well, in a used-up biker kinda way, but still...kinda hot. And even though she has the looks, I've really been trying to give her credit and pretend like maybe she's actually kinda smart, but the more of this project I learn about, the more I figure she really didn't know how to teach me, so she avoided it at all cost. And the thing is...it's not rocket science...but if you don't know which option to check here, or what to type there, it won't come out right. So, you just have to know the particulars. And even this is apparently beyond her expertise.

This only tends to prove the old adage that you generally can't get brains and good looks in the same package. You can have one or the other, but not both. Sorry.

What? You want examples? OK.

Just last week, she was giving me some instruction for a very important announcement I had to send out today and she wanted me to get with another person in the company to help me send it because she was going to be on vacation. Me, still trying to get her to actually train me says, "Let's pretend the worst case scenario occurs and this person is hit by a bus and it's up to me to do this on my own. Can you walk me through it so I know how to do it?" Her answer, "No, I don't have time."

Oh, but I bet you can imagine what happened today can't you? No, the person who was supposed to help me wasn't hit by a bus, but she really didn't know what to do today when there were "special instructions" for the announcement that didn't fit into the mold of the one other time she had sent the announcement out.

Well, we figured it out for the most part, but perhaps the most important part of the e-mail got boogered up...the personalized saluation. See, my boss thought the software pulled the person's name from the database and entered it in the salutation, but it didn't. So, the e-mail everyone received, warmly started with:

"Dear ,"

Wow! That's the level of expertise you expect from one of the largest companies in the world. And I was part of it.

Sniff sniff...I think I'm gettin' a little teary eyed over the whole thing.

Nah. Hey Recruiters...my resume is on Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com. Check it out and then call me.