So a lovely gal from my high school recently e-mailed me asking for my impressions on my first job at a local weekly business newspaper. It seems she's interviewed at this establishment and wanted me to weigh in on my short tenure there.
How does one nicely say that I wouldn't wish that job on my worst enemy? That women flee from that place in droves? That the boss sexually harassed me by constantly asking if I meant things in the conjugal sense? That while we once were editing an article onscreen I pointed out he'd failed to erase a period, and he turned to me and said, "Yep, it's that time of the month, isn't it?!" That he encouraged me to use my feminine wiles to get information from my father's and my father-in-law's associates? That he constantly talked shit about his wife? That he was a short, nasty man who is so thoroughly displeased with his life that he must spread that hostility? That he wants a take-no-prisoner, go-for-the-jugular form of journalism that often requires its reporters to be total schmucks? That the asshole made me cry on my birthday--of all days--in the office (a pleasure I'd solemnly sworn never to give him)? That the job pays shit and that she's worth so, so much more?
I'm sorry. It's just that thinking about that place has brought up so much vitriol. I ran from that place with my self esteem in shambles. It was only under the kind nurturing of two wonderful men three states away that I would realize I was okay and that this creative world was, in fact, a place I could call home.
(Sorry Shel, I know this hits close to home. Please forgive my rants and my memories that have no doubt been colored by the passage of time.)
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3 comments:
A bit of awkwardness is a sort of blessing when it reveals the truth.
:)
So, I'm guessing you didn't like that job?
About the only thing I enjoyed about becoming a manager at a job several years ago was that I finally had the authority (indeed the legal obligation) to tell one misogynistic bastard to shut his mouth in the middle of a mixed-gender meeting when he started rattling off terms for femal genitalia. Then I had to end the meeting and take him somewhere private for a stern warning and that wasn't so fun.
Ooh, now you gots me wanting to write about them days.
No apologies to me needed. I know he is not the best boss. Luckily, I don't have a lot of direct contact with him -- he mostly lets me do my job and leaves me be. And I think he has mellowed out and learned a bit about management through the years ... or else I just don't hear his rants now that I don't have to sit right next to him (plus he can't hear my phone conversations any more, either -- yay).
I do feel bad about the women he has chased off in the time I've been here -- you and a girl I was friends with at a previous job. He made her cry, too. I felt horrible. I recommended her for the job.
I sometimes still think about the time we went to lunch around Christmas and ended up being gone for two hours or more. We were looking for Planet Sub and then ended up at Wendy's when we couldn't find it. I got pulled into the office for that one. But later the other boss kind of apologized for him. There was nothing for me to work on, so I wouldn't have been any more productive in the office.
Hopefully, I will get motivated to do something different with my life soon ... maybe even with the "really big company."
Shel
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