Assistant To The Regional Manager

In his Songfacts interview, Jeremy DePoyster said that a typical The Devil Wears Prada songs often starts with a melody written by guitarist Chris Rubey, while singer Mike Hranica pens the lyrics. As far as naming the songs goes, however, it's an entirely collaborative process. It usually involves the band tossing around jokes and bantering until a name they like comes up. In line with this, the band has said that they don't like to give their songs "serious names," and instead prefer to use jokes or goofy allusions. DePoyster explained that "Assistant to the Regional Manager" is a reference to NBC sitcom The Office. The title refers to the self-affixed position that character Dwight Schrute would often lords over his co-workers.

The song uses trademark Devil Wears Prada sounds - fast-paced, adrenaline-pumped Metalcore. The lyrics are a defiant refutation of the crippling effect of living through hard times. It's an anthemic call to arms that urges its listeners ("These writings are to those who have weeped") to rise up and overcome their troubles ("Wrong again but stronger now, we can face this"). They also exhibit Hranica's preference for dark, intense imagery with lines like, "Tombstones serve as mirrors and the graves are infinite."

The song appears on 2009's With Roots Above and Branches Below. The album was well received by critics, and saw the band enjoy a significant bump in popularity, peaking at #11 on the Billboard Top 200. Speaking to Female First, drummer Daniel Williams said that the band didn't have any particular goal in mind when writing they album. They simply decided to work until they had something they were happy with, and assume that if they enjoyed the music, other people would too.