“The World’s Worst Assistant,” a new memoir by Sona Movsesian, chronicles what happened when an ambitious young woman who excelled in both Burger King’s drive-thru and the NBC page program managed to change the things when she landed a job as Conan O’ Brien’s assistant – a deal she sealed by asking if she could lie down during the interview.
“The HR rep told me that Conan liked my couch joke,” she wrote. “I got my job at Conan because I made a joke about being lazy – foreshadowing at its best.”
Thirteen years later, Movsesian, who co-hosts the “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” podcast, has amassed many skills and work experiences rarely touted on LinkedIn. Once, for example, she watched 58 episodes of “Friends” on the clock over a four-day period because she heard that Robert De Niro’s assistant had watched 55. Sleep at work? How to “abuse your company card without technically diverting”? “Worst Assistant” has illustrated guides for this.
But Movsesian’s story isn’t about celebrating laziness or incompetence. It’s about how two flawed people who were meant to be together came together: a boss accepting an employee for who she is and how she does her job, and an employee accepting her boss for all he is.
“I give Sona the space to be Sona (see the book),” O’Brien writes in the foreword, “and she in turn gives me the space to knock a delicious cupcake out of her hand just just as she’s about to take a bite.”
Here, the world’s worst assistant talks about the movie she’s watched the most, the TV she gets to watch with her kids, and the Girl Scout cookies she buys in bulk. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
1. Expensive Cher is a very important person, and not just because of her contributions to culture and fashion. She is part Armenian and I am Armenian. For us, we have very few celebrities in the limelight, and no one is bigger than Cher. She’s an icon, and the fact that she’s half-Armenian meant a lot to all of us, especially growing up.
2. The Evil Eye The evil eye is present in many cultures, including the Armenian culture. It is a round eye that is usually blue, white, and black. It keeps the evil eye away from you. If people try to curse you in some way or wish you harm, it repels that and protects you. It’s in my car. It’s at my house. It’s at work. It’s a big part of who I am as an Armenian and who I am as a human being.
3. “Galactic Quest” “Galaxy Quest” is the first film that I saw four times in the cinema. When I ran out of people, I went to see him at the theater alone. I had never done anything like this. I don’t know why, I always felt like it was weird going to the cinema alone. “Galaxy Quest” broke that seal for me.
4. Fred Rogers We have 1 year old twins. My husband and I were like, what could we watch with them that we won’t hate? And so we bought all the old seasons of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood”. The episodes are timeless. There’s an episode where he meets Yo-Yo Ma. Afterwards, he says: Let’s think about how Yo-Yo Ma talked about how he would feel playing the cello. And there’s just a minute of complete silence. No one would do that now. No one would ever do anything for a minute.
5. “Health” I started gorging on the whole series about six years ago. Then I met the man who was to become my husband, and I discovered that he was also gorging himself on “Cheers”. We were almost at the same place. When he told me that, I thought: Oh, we have to get married and we have to finish “Cheers” together.
6. The Rock Wrestling was a big part of high school for me. It was like a soap opera that I didn’t realize I needed in my life. And The Rock was the most important character. When The Rock left wrestling, he took my love of wrestling with him. But I’m still going to watch everything he does. I don’t care if I’m interested, I’ll ditch my kids and go to the movies for a few hours.
7. Cock Sparrer When I met my husband he was in a cover band for Cock Sparrer, a British punk rock band. It’s a genre that I had never really dabbled in, but when we heard that Cock Sparrer was playing in Santa Cruz, we went to see them. It was really cool to connect with my husband that way, to see something he liked in a genre he liked, and to realize that I liked him a lot too.
8. “Half-brothers” Years ago, after buying a condo, I cut a window in the wall between the kitchen and the living room specifically so I could watch “Step Brothers” while cooking. With Will Ferrell’s films, the more you watch them, the more nuance you get. But I also like being able to put it on, do something else, and then watch TV anytime and laugh at whatever happens.
9. Disneyland When I was a kid, I was filled with absolute wonder when I went to Disneyland. My mind would explode. Now I can go there and buy a Popsicle, then five minutes later I can buy popcorn, then two minutes later I can have chicken tenderloins. I can do Disneyland like I wanted to do Disneyland as a kid, but I can do it as an adult because I’m paying for it.
10. Girl Scout Cookies Girl Scouts is where I met my core friends when I was in elementary school. Today, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a colleague’s daughter or a stranger on the street. If you say “I’m a Girl Scout, will you buy cookies?” I’ll say yes and I’ll buy you an inordinate amount of cookies. Most of the time, it’s Samoa.