by Patrick Appel
Manjoo hired a personal assistant based in India. It didn’t work out:
To be truly useful, an assistant needs to understand everything about your life and work. An assistant is a confidant. But it’s impossible to develop a deep, trusting relationship with a guy you know only by email—a guy who communicates with you in canned professional-ese, who must be monitored by security cameras to make sure he doesn’t rob you. TasksEveryDay’s assistants were pretty terrible, but even if they’d flawlessly handled every task I’d given them, they wouldn’t have been nearly as good as a local person. That person would cost a lot more. But it’d be worth every penny.
The Dish 