Spencer Bailey

You got to start small.

Let's elaborate.

I got Graydon Carter his coffee on at least one occasion.

Tony Rotano, who's now at the New York Times, he was Graydon's assistant at the time.

And he sent me out to go get a iced coffee from Starbucks.

This was when Vanity Fair and Condé were in Times Square.

There was a Starbucks right across the street.

He said to get a tall iced coffee.

I didn't know my Starbucks sizes exactly.

I came back with a Venti, which is like, you know, the giant one.

And I'm like walking toward his desk and he sees me and he has this like mortified look on his face and he's just waving his hands, tall, tall, go back, go back, tall.

And I'm like, oh, I guess I got the wrong size.

So I go back down to Starbucks and I tell the barista, can you put this in a tall?

And she's looking at me like I'm crazy because we're pouring a venti into a tall cup.

Anyway, this is what I learned later.

Start small slash also attention to detail.

That was a rather humiliating experience that I didn't totally screw up because I was able to get the right size in the end, but left a very confused barista.

What was the biggest thing you learned while interning at Vanity Fair for Graydon Carter?

Well, I would say I really interned for John Kelly, who's now the founder of Puck.

John was really my shepherd through Vanity Fair and that experience.