My very first boss in communications was Annette. I both loved and loathed her at the same time. She was a brilliant writer who thought she could write circles around me. She could at the beginning, but it wasn’t long before I was turning circles around her.
Perhaps that’s what made her so hard on me. Looking back, she was not a nice boss at all. In fact, she’s the worst boss I have ever had. No one else comes close.
It’s not that I made life easy on her. I admit that I was something of a bad boy, back dating my vacation requests on the day I returned on vacation. She would yell for me to come to her office and ask where the hell I had been. I would point to her huge stack of unread mail and tell her I had put in the request. She’d have her assistant Ginny rummage through the pile and sure enough, there was my request, the ink still wet.
When I was moved to the trailer out back at AG, I constructed my own cubicle. I made sure to make the entrance to it a wee bit too small. She would never come in, being a fairly large woman. Instead, she had to stand outside my office, never invading my stronghold.
That didn’t stop her from bellowing down the hallways whenever she wanted to have an audience with me. The entire staff of Market Advertising could hear that I was about to be in trouble. It’s not that I did things wrong, I just didn’t do things she liked. And so we would have long discussions about the whys and whats of what I had done.
At times, I would burst into tears, her language so harsh. I was just a young pup and she and I could verbally fence with the best of them. She would say something, I would respond with an obliquetry, or as she called them, “round cornered answers.”
I suppose she was frustrated with me because I was getting things done without her help. Initially, she and I worked closely together, me playing the role of mentee. I can’t really say that she didn’t improve my work. She did. But being a fellow Gemini, Annette had a pretty hard time staying on task. She would eventually find another shiny, new object to play with and I was left to my own devices, often for long periods of time.
So I would just plod along, doing my job. For almost a year she had no idea what I was doing. I don’t remember what was distracting her. I only remember that day when she showed up at the Tacoma Dome to shmooz with her bosses at the Food Dealer’s Convention. We had just won the Best Exhibit award at the show for our 40′ space shuttle, which she promptly took credit for.
She had no idea there was a space shuttle, or any of the rest of the stuff we had created. But she willingly took credit for it all.
That was really the beginning of the end for Annette and I. I guess she was a bit jealous. Not necessarily of me, but of the fact that I still got to create stuff while all she got to do was manage. I think, given the chance, she would have taken back my job in a flash.
I was only the fourth in the line to be the PR person at AG. Before me it was Joyce Halderson, then Annette and before her, Bill Muncey. If you’re from or in Seattle, that name might ring a bell. He was the sax-playing hydroplane driver of the Miss Thriftway.
Overall it was a great job. I loved working at AG for the most part. At one time I was a bit confused as I had five bosses. That was a real challenge, mostly because I had to have all of their approval to take a vacation.
I only wish I knew then what I know now. I would have been so much better in my job. I wouldn’t have let Annette hang me out to dry and would have stood up for myself. I never would have let her browbeat me or not say something when she left right in the middle of my performance review and didn’t come back for three days. Yes, I took that kind of personally. I still wish, though, that I had found a skeleton and put in in my seat in her office, cobwebs strung all over it, to remind her that it’s kind of rude to leave someone in the middle of their performance review.
I took solace in my own little way, however. I had found a little Jabba the Hutt toy at Value Village. It sat on the top of my cubicle. It was an ugly, sluggish kind of thing. If you’re a Star Wars fan, then you know Jabba.
This particular toy had a cute feature. When you moved the tail Jabba’s head would shake to and fro.
It couldn’t say ‘yes,’ only ‘no.’ I’m still not sure how it happened, but this little creature came to be known as Otis the Hutt.
I’m quite certain that there was absolutely no likeness whatsoever. But when you asked if you could have a day off, the Hutt always said ‘no.’ I suppose it didn’t care much for back dated vacation requests either. “Ginny! GINNY!”
In the Emerald City, thanking my lucky stars that all my other bosses have been so wonderful,
– Robb