-> '''''Trixie''''': ''Confound those idiots; they drive me to drink!''

-> Written by [[http://www.fimfiction.net/user/Fizzy%20Orange Fizzy Orange]]

An exhausted Trixie enters Berry Punch's bar, where she orders a soda and wishes it was late enough that she was serving alcohol. She goes to meet Lyra, who observes that she is late. Trixie complains of being overwhelmed with paperwork. Lyra suggests that she get a secretary. Trixie loves the idea and offers to hire Lyra, since she thinks Lyra is a StarvingArtist. When Lyra turns her down, Trixie offers just to pay her to put up notices all over town.

Later, Trixie waits for applicants to arrive. After a brief fantasy in which she imagines Luna and the Court conspiring to crush her with mountains of paperwork, the prospective secretaries start arriving. The first applicant is Pinkie Pie, whom Trixie boots out without discussion. She then deals with several other applicants, including Snails, Marching Orders (who annoys Trixie by following her requests in a bizarrely literal manner), Coconut (who just wants money for surfing), and Featherbrain (whose talent lets her nap anywhere). She also has to throw out Pinkie again. Finally, a competent prospect arrives. The newcomer is a white-coated, red-maned unicorn who calls herself Moondancer and is really good with paperwork. Her cutie mark is a crescent moon surrounded by stars. Trixie hires her right away. On her way out, though, Moondancer laughs evilly. Fortunately for her, Trixie doesn't hear.

The next day, Moondancer arrives early and searches her workroom. She finds Trixie's safe and seems pleased. Trixie shows up and has her haul her desk out of the basement; she finds out, upon getting it to the top, that it contains heavy dumbbells for no apparent reason. Trixie shows her the room (including asking her not to touch her Don Rocinante book or a drawer containing her personal mail), gives her a quick tutorial on the forms that need filing, and gripes about Rainbow Dash's laziness and failure to get the snow melted during Winter Wrap Up.

The work proceeds smoothly until lunch. Trixie has Moondancer fix her a complicated and bizarre sandwich. That's the only hiccup, though, and the day ends without further incident. Later that night, Moondancer sneaks back into the house and looks through the Don Rocinante book, in case it has anything incriminating or useful inside. She finds nothing, though, and when she realizes that Trixie is casting spells and illusions in her sleep, she decides to try again the next day.

The next day goes worse. Moondancer is offended by Trixie's bizarre taste in coffee, as well as her running off to the spa with Carrot Top and dumping all her work on her. When she comes back, she rejects Moondancer's work and orders her to do it again. By the end of the day, she's ordering Moondancer to get her some household supplies that she's run out of.

Moondancer returns to her own residence in a rage. She drops an illusion spell she had cast over herself, changing her mane to a soft purple and her cutie mark to a black envelope. She then uses a magic mirror to contact someone in Canterlot. She admits to finding nothing useful, and the other pony threatens to reveal her secret; that she has tainted, Discordian lineage. He also uses her real name, Zizanie. Zizanie reveals that she's figured out the identity of the other pony, and calls him by his name, Prince Blueblood. Blueblood cuts the communication, and Zizanie prepares to return to Trixie's house to look through her personal papers. She does, only to find that none of them have anything useful or interesting; they're all work-related.

When Zizanie arrives the next morning, Trixie is singing off key. The day gets worse for her from there, with Trixie waiting until the last moment to have her run boxes of long-overdue mail to a train, forcing her to scramble through town with the boxes on her back. She does serve Zizanie lunch, but her salad is sauced with a mixture of mayonnaise and hot sauce, and when she grabs something to drink to cool down, she grabs the water being boiled for tea. It takes hours for Zizanie to recover, at which point Trixie offers to show her a trick involving cards and throwing knives.

That night, Zizanie contacts Blueblood and tells him that Trixie knows nothing. He orders her to try one more time to find information from her office; if that fails, they'll use more 'aggressive' measures. Zizanie, tired of her humiliating job, looks forward to the aggressive measures with pleasure. She then leaves to try to break into Trixie's safe.

Zizanie breaks into Trixie's house and cracks the safe, only to find a few dozen carrots. Trixie, who was already in the room, drops her invisibility spell and says that she realized that Zizanie was an imposter. She reveals that Pinkie Pie never through Zizanie a party, and since Pinkie throws everyone a party, that was an indication that something was wrong. She followed Zizanie home and witnessed her dropping her disguise. Zizanie asks if this is why Trixie was so horrible to her; it clearly wasn't, but Trixie badly lies that it was. This enrages Zizanie, and she attacks Trixie with magic, only to find that the Trixie she was talking to is an illusion. Trixie jumps at her, and Zizanie flees by jumping through the window. Trixie quickly surrounds Zizanie with a large number of illusory Trixies. Trixie mocks her, but Zizanie's eye glows orange and all the illusions vanish into moths. Trixie realizes that her horn has also turned into a moth and is flying away. She panics while Zizanie begins to run. Her horn pops back onto her head a few seconds later, but Zizanie is already gone.

Zizanie stops fleeing and realizes, to her horror, that one of her hooves has shifted into a tiger's paw. She frantically tries to calm herself, and does so, shifting her hoof back into its proper form. She sneaks out of town.

The next day, Windowpane fixes Trixie's window. Trixie reflects that the real Moondancer had died a few months ago, and she hasn't found any leads on the imposter. Pinkie again comes by to look for a job, but Trixie reminds her that she has a job as a baker at the Sugar Cube Corner. Pinkie says that baking is so much fun that she forgot it was her job, and leaves to go back there. Pokey Pierce then arrives. He says that his dream is to pierce anything and everything with his horn, but in the meantime, he's a competent secretary and is willing to put up with Trixie's shenanigans. He also reveals that he likes bad puns. Trixie hires him.

!!This episode provides examples of:

* BadBoss: Trixie, and how.
* BrattyTeenageDaughter: One of the terrible interviewees, who ditched her little brother to go buy a new bag, and doesn't understand why her father was angry at her about it.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Pinkie Pie, who actually forgot she already had a job, on account of enjoying it so much.
* IMeantToDoThat: On being discovered, Zizanie thinks all of Trixie's jerkassery were an attempt to reveal her. This is Trixie's reaction, which Zizanie sees right through.
* SpottingTheThread: Trixie realises "Moondancer" isn't who she says she is when she realises Pinkie Pie hasn't thrown her a welcome party yet.
* TerribleIntervieweesMontage: Trixie interviews a narcoleptic, a LiteralMinded pony with no indoor voice, Snails (who declares that he thinks she's hot while he's there), aforementioned spoiled brat, and Pinkie Pie, whom Trixie immediately rejects.
* TotallyRadical: One of the interviewees is a Valley Girl, who, like, talks like this, y'know?
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