Sydney Chen Sydney Chen is James Hillyer's administrative assistant, and way too smart to be working as -- let it be said -- a secretary. But it's a good thing she is -- smart, that is. If not for her hard work and brains, Hillyer, Jones would already be in the grave it seems to re-dig for itself daily. But -- believe it or not -- Sydney loves her job. She's only two years out of NYU, and she likes the "gal Friday" role for now. She thinks of herself as sort of an Asian-American Katharine Hepburn in "Desk Set." Her parents own restaurants throughout New York -- in Chinatown, Flushing, Bayside, Sunset Park -- and are contemplating taking on the late Joyce Chen's dominance of fine Chinese dining in the Boston area. Sydney is aware that her family is an over-achievement cliche: one sister's a cardio-thoracic surgeon, another's a NASA engineer and astronaut, and her eldest brother's a lawyer in the Manhattan D.A.'s office and head of their community church. But, an aspiring writer herself, Sydney's content to word-process for James Hillyer, who lets her write the occasional line of copy for an advertorial. And wait till they see the first-novel she's working on, in which the goings-on at Hillyer, Jones figure quite largely. She's changed the names to protect the innocent -- only, from what Sydney can see, nobody's innocent.