Get an Outsourced Personal Assistant

I had dinner with my pal Michael Galpert a few nights ago and mentioned how for some time, I had been curious to try out an outsourced personal assistant, but couldn’t justify the cost for just myself. I’m still on the fence about trying it out, but the conversation made me dig up an Esquire article from 2005 on the subject.

Honey has completed her first project for me: research on the person Esquire has chosen as the Sexiest Woman Alive. (See page 232.) I’ve been assigned to write a profile of this woman, and I really don’t want to have to slog through all the heavy-breathing fan Web sites about her. When I open Honey’s file, I have this reaction: America is fucked. There are charts. There are section headers. There is a well-organized breakdown of her pets, measurements, and favorite foods (e.g., swordfish). If all Bangalorians are like Honey, I pity Americans about to graduate college. They’re up against a hungry, polite, Excel-proficient Indian army.

The writer A. J. Jacobs has his assistants pay bills, research articles, call his parents, write apology emails to his wife, and read bedtime stories to his son. The upshot: despite some humorous gaffes, for the most part it works! Well worth a read.

Link: My Outsourced Life