This sounds like an interesting book: “How to Deal with Divas in the Office”.

Since this is almost an election year in the USA, I guess I need to clarify that this is NOT a book about the political arena. LOL

Just a friendly reminder that you can sign up for my free E-zine, DIVA NEWS. Just check out the sign-up box on the lower right hand side of this website.  Enter your email, and voila!

I try to send out at least one E-zine a month, sometimes more.

If you are kind of new to DIVA NEWS and would like some back issues, send me an email (at dealingwithdivas@gmail.com) and I will be glad to send you a few.

Thanks!

Send your questions to:

dealingwithdivas@gmail.com

Dear Miss Know It All,

I have been asked by my employer if I would be interested in traveling with her and her family for Christmas to Aspen. My initial reaction was: no way! I am certain she wants me to babysit her adorable twins (age 2) while there,  but I know they also asked me because I do not have family close by.
Here is my dilemma. On the one hand it would be cool to be in Aspen for two weeks living in style; but on the other hand I do have close friends that I usually spend the holidays with unless I am able to afford to fly home (Mid-West). What would MKIA do (WWMKIAD)?

Not home for the Holidays
Continue Reading…

Hi y’all.

I’m taking a working vacation so won’t be posting anything until around Dec. 14th. (BTW I wish it was Hawaii or some sunny location; however, will be on East Coast)

Just wanted to give you a heads up. PLEASE CHECK BACK!!

I give examples in my book of how to change your thinking. Here’s one:

Old Thought: The celebrity is always right.

If your boss has ten lousy qualities (in your humble opinion) and one wonderful quality, choose that one that is fantastic to focus upon. If they have ten great traits, and one that drives you crazy, don’t focus on the one that drives you crazy. I know this is easier said than done. Of course, if this behavior trait appears to involve something such as illegal drug use, I assume you’ll get help handling that. Be smart! No job is worth being arrested for abetting someone. Although I know we walk a fine line, celebrity personal assistants work in a unique environment where money and temptations run high. If you are not in a situation where your life or the lives of people you work with are in danger, or illegal activities are taking place, my guess is that your day-to-day routine with your employer is not super-dramatic. However, I can guarantee that she has personality traits that can drive you up a wall. I knew a celebrity who had a bird that flew around the house and home office unattended to. The bird was trained to leave a prize in the office wastebasket on a regular basis. All this was so the employer could use the bird’s shit for his organic garden. What a lovely office environment that must’ve been!

New Thought: I won’t rehash the past, or place blame, resentment, anger, or guilt on my employer for past abuses. Instead, today I focus on the one aspect of this person’s personality that I like and think of that when I’m working for them.

Check out the full list of nominees here.

Happy Thanksgiving.

I am so grateful for all of you and your ongoing support.

Have a blessed day.

Today I found a number of interesting Diva websites new to me. Have fun checking these out!

Rock N Road Divas – promotes cycling for all ages

Divas And Babes – Clothes for mom AND baby in one place

Wedding Paper Divas - beautiful invitations for that special day

Interesting article below about the National Portrait Gallery in London and their showing of famous divas of the theatre.

Written by Ruth Leon

Sometimes the best theatre in London isn’t in a theatre. Despite it being the height of the season, with every West End, subsidized and fringe theatre lit every night — despite a queue of plays and musicals waiting for theatre space, praying for a flop so the theatre will become available — despite a procession of star actors and playwrights jockeying for ink and recognition, the most theatrical event in London is over at the National Portrait Gallery, where an exhibition of paintings of “The First Actresses: Nell Gwyn to Sarah Siddons” is just opening. This is where the London theatre really started, after Oliver Cromwell tried, and nearly succeeded, in making England a republic and, with his Puritanism, destroyed the all-male pre-Revolutionary theatre.

After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the new king, Charles the Second — renowned libertine and lover of women, especially actresses — opened the theatre to women, destroying an entire industry of boys playing women’s parts and taking the saucy redhead Nell Gwyn, formerly a Covent Garden orange-seller and now the toast of the comic theatre, as his official mistress. There are some serious scholars who believe he actually married her, although that’s unlikely.

Actresses in the 18th century, although generally not considered respectable or wife material by royalty or the aristocracy, had a unique position in London society. The best and most famous had their own households with servants, carriages and elegant accommodations. A good actress with a regular company could afford the most fashionable dresses, wigs and hats and was seen at the best public events. They were independent women with their own incomes at a time when all the assets of a woman, no matter how rich or aristocratic, were automatically transferred to her husband upon marriage.

	A 1785 portrait of Sarah Siddons by Thomas Gainsborough

These were the celebrities of the 1700s, and their every move was followed by their fans; these paintings are the equivalent of rockstar posters. The marketing that surrounded them included renderings of them in all kinds of media, from intimate biographies to wall tiles, playing cards, snuff boxes and figurines, which their besotted fans would snap up as soon as they came on the market. The audiences would have known the identity of each actress on sight, whether the paintings portrayed them as themselves or in one of their famous roles. Hardly surprising, then, that the great artists of the day — Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, George Romney, William Hogarth — queued up to paint them. This exhibition brings to life both the plays and the performers.

These women were admired and envied, the objects of adoration for the young bloods of the town and the mistresses of the rich and distinguished. Some of them even married into society: Lavinia Fenton, Polly Peachum in the first cast of A Beggar’s Opera, eventually married her lover, the Duke of Bolton, and Giovanna Baccelli, a famous dancer and singer whose portrait by Gainsborough is one of the highlights of the exhibition, married the Duke of Dorset. Some of the most interesting subjects — Mary Robinson, Frances Abington, Elizabeth Inchbold — became writers, poets or playwrights of considerable distinction when they retired from the stage, maintaining their position as independent women of wealth, in control of their own lives and money.

They were the Lady Macbeths, the Perditas, the Ophelias of their day, and their fame alone attracted audiences to Drury Lane and Covent Garden, just as Judi Dench and Maggie Smith do today. Everyone knew the names and the favorite roles of Sarah Siddons, Mary Robinson, Peg Woffington, Dorothy Jordan, Nell Gwyn and their colleagues, and you had to have seen their latest performances to be able to converse in the coffee houses and London parks.

Grand ladies of the time also wanted to act, but of course they couldn’t be seen at a public theatre, so in the private houses and stately homes, aristocratic women often put on plays for family and friends. One of the most fascinating paintings in the current exhibition shows Elizabeth Lamb, Viscountess Melbourne and Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire — two ladies at the very top of society — and their friend, the sculptress Anne Seymour Damer, as the Three Witches in a private performance of Macbeth, painted by Daniel Gardner in 1775. Because of the closeness and the friendships that grew between the painters and the actors in a London where show was a business even then, the portraits in this exhibition were, in themselves, an intrinsic part of the theatre theatrical. It’s wonderful to see them together at the National Portrait Gallery, (geographically) exactly where they should be — just steps from Covent Garden and Drury Lane.

Send your questions to:

dealingwithdivas@gmail.com

Dear Miss Know It All,

How do you handle a situation where the boss is suddenly so enamored of a gal that is half his age and is constantly asking you to send this person gifts, send and reply to personal emails, drop and pick the lady up at the airport, etc?

My job has been for the past few years to handle his schedule, manage his household staff and  of course  answer fan mail and the like. This added job seems weird to me. Shouldn’t he be doing all this himself? Especially if he’s so in love with her. Why am I now working for two people?

Pulled in Two Directions

Continue Reading…