So, I’ve worked both as a freelance writer as well as in-house for large and small companies. I’ve had different kinds of managers — most of whom I’ve been lucky enough to have gotten along pretty well with. There have been those occasional times however, when I had to work for someone whom I knew would pose more of a challenge.
There was Julie, the hard-driven career woman who would brag about working til all hours of the night. She also lived on Diet Coke, frozen burritos and chips. As time went on, we came to a good working relationship but she would never ever ask how I spent my weekend or how a vacation was (she of course never took one).
There was Jill, who managed a group of writers (myself included). Her title was “lead writer” but she never lifted pen to paper. She would ask others to compose emails for her (she was many layers below a VP) and appeared to spend most of her time at meetings or making meetings to discuss irrelevant projects many months in the future. Seemed to me to be a completely redundant and unnecessary position but I guess within large companies there is room for every kind of cog.
Freaky, rude, difficult, selfish, phony — all the qualities of a bad manager. Like I said, I’ve been very lucky to have had only a few who fit into this category.
