"Are you married?'' he asked below his bushy moustache.
No.
"Do you have children?''
"No.''
"Good, because this is a very demanding job.''
That was how one job interview went in my early career. My feminist spine still stiffens at the memory.
The next woman who came there for a job showed pictures of her twin boys when asked the do-you-have-children-or-any-kind-of-human-life-because-people-with-wombs-are-lesser-human-beings question. As I listened outside the door (the walls were feather thin) I pictured the boss mentally making a bonfire of her resume. The poor fool left there humming, probably thinking, hey, that was chummy. She didn't know she had just been sucker punched.
I should have run for the hills but instead that day was the beginning of my life in publishing, working with some mad genius types without whom nothing incredible would happen and whose tyranny is vastly superior to the bullying of wackos who do not possess a redeeming brain cell in their heads.
Everyone has had a bad boss in a good job (former Commissioner of Police Eustace Bernard recounts in his memoirs that a senior officer ordered him to clean out the toilets in the police station) or an okay boss in a horrid job. Those who had bad jobs with bad bosses are called serial killers.
Even in the polyester climate of Washington DC, you get some Devil Wears Prada types. Houston Representative Sheila Jackson has been voted the worst boss on Capitol Hill because more than half her staff quit every year. A former employee reported that Jackson once declared, "I am a queen and I demand to be treated like one."
Admit it. You enjoy revenge parties where you view Horrible Bosses, mix margaritas, and discuss the best ways to get rid of the men and women who phone you at midnight to shriek fresh instructions for the trash project that was dumped on you between your morning coffee and your first trip to the bathroom to throw up because of stress.
So, in commiseration, I did what every responsible columnist would. I collected experiences from emotionally scarred employees, so I could publish them in this space and we could all have a therapeutic chortle at their expense.
My friend Halcian, who is a culinary master, donated this story: "Had a boss at a bakery that refused to call me by my right name or spell my name correctly on my cheque. When I confronted him about it, I got buffed for having parents that trying to make him learn 'stupid fancy names' and how my mother should have called me Mary or Jill. Before I left I made sure to call him a name that's unpublishable.''
Then there's KG, who after leaving school, worked for a year in a tyre shop, changing tyres from 7 am to 7 pm for $25 a day. It cost him $11 a day to get to work and back home. He stuck it out for a year but he grew up to be an artist and speechwriter and he has not changed a tyre since. The experience is, usefully, now a story to eventually inflict on his grandchildren to convince them they have things too easy.
My octogenarian pal Ian Skidmore, a great wit, who famously got fired from the BBC for being too English, called trumps with this one: "I had a boss who accepted an invitation to my wedding, did not bring a present and gave me two days for my honeymoon. When I came back he gave me night jobs all over the week, made me hand over my spare time pay as a theatre critic and at the end of the month sacked me."
Me? I am a terrific boss. I am really cool. Junior staff can come to work in jeans, shave half their heads, and decorate their own space in the concentration camp with as many personal mementoes as they wish. Fridays are no electronic ankle bracelets day.
To keep things simple, I have only three rules.
Rule 1. The boss is always right.
Rule 2. If you have any questions, refer to Rule 1.
Rule 3. If ever you see me in burgundy, olive or orange, I am an impostor. Call the police and take the day off.
