I just turned him off. When I clicked on the idiot, I got space for a question and 2 buttons below. One was options, the other was something else. I clicked on Options & there were 2 tabs. One was to change to a different assistant, the other was for when you want to hear from him. The very top check box on that tab was "Use the Office Assistant" Clicking there, took the check out & all the other options faded out.

I'm doing this with MS office, so if you just have a Word version, maybe it's different.