Richard a week into the first mission. "Oh S*it, she's real?!?! From the stories I heard, I thought Talia was made up! I thought I was telling people to go talk to a fake person. You know, as a way to get them to go away and not deal with them. Like how you would schedule meetings for March 31 cause it's not a real date and anyone who falls for that deserves to be ignored. . . . WAIT WHAT?!?! Oh no I scheduled so many meetings for the captain on that day!"
And that's the story of how Richard never gets picked to be an assistant. Ever.