I have experience of the Staff Assistant thing.  Are you working in the US or for a US organisation?

I worked for 6 years for a major US airline in their UK HQ.  All admin staff were graded according to the level of the boss they worked for - so my boss - a Level 6 Manager (European VP for Customer Services) had a grade 54, his boss (the European VP) had a grade 55, and the hierarchies below that had grade 53's and 52's (usually for junior admins behind the scenes at the airport).

The next level up from admins was to be a Level 1 Manager.  My boss tried to get my role uplifted to a Level 1 Manager, but due to a management head count freeze (it was one of the airlines involved in 9/11) that came in just as he was trying to process it, it couldn't happen.

For the 4 years I worked for this particular boss I signed myself off as PA to VP European Customer Services, and no-one ever questioned it.  The single PA above me did the same, but on our contracts, and on internal listings, we were both listed as Staff Assistant.

Everyone referred to me as 'Joe's assistant' in a positive way.