Go-fer

Or a clerk may be regarded as a paralegal, or even little more than a glorified “go-fer.”

On a typical day at JPL’s Von Karman Auditorium, one would encounter hard-boiled newspapermen straight out of The Front Page, dedicated young correspondents for obscure scientific periodicals, science-fiction authors, overbearing television correspondents complete with their camera crews and “go-fers,” bewildered feature writers, a small army of Japanese reporters who speak little or no English, and clusters of starry-eyed space enthusiasts who know every line of dialogue in both Star Wars movies.

To make ends meet after her graduation from Yale, she was a go-fer for the O’Neill Playwrights Conference.