While it might sound appealing to have the boss out sick for the day, the truth is when the boss is out you have to deal with the boss's boss. For me the boss's boss is the female boss you don't want to run into at a Bloomingdale's sample sale - she's the one who stomps on you as she rushes to the one rack of clothing no one wants. While normally this creative genius chooses to stay in her office and appear only for weekly meetings, today she found the uncanny skill of creeping up on me and appearing around corners.
On a typical day I avoid her phone calls at all possible cost. Her name pops up and I run to the bathroom, her assistant calls I'm off to the kitchen to get some tea. Unfortunately, today I'm the only one left. So when my phone rang this morning I had to pick up. "Hello"...there's always that awkward pause when she calls where it sounds like she doesn't remember who she's calling, but then it clicks...Her mission for the day - make my life miserable. My mission for the day - running around the office gathering left over premiums so that I could have a messenger deliver a "care package" to Christian Slater - who? Exactly. When something as important as this comes up we put contracts on hold, spots are late...hell, who cares if invoices aren't submitted - Christian needs his Girls Gone Wild DVDs, god damn it, and I'm going to get them to him! This task is obviously too important for her assistant.
It's days like this that make me truly proud of my work. In all seriousness- it does make me wonder, does my boss put up with her boss's mindless requests every day or was my boss's boss just being nice to me? Though I don't know much about my new boss, part of me feels bad for her. If it weren't for my new Miu Miu slingback heels I might have run all the way to Brooklyn to bring her some of my mom's homemade chicken noodle soup.
It was a rough Thursday and I'm forecasting a rougher Friday...Whatever the reason, I'm looking forward to Monday morning when everyone gets back to the office.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Ring around the rosy...
Do you ever feel like you’re playing a game of ring around the rosie at work? Or someone says something sooo ridiculous that you stare at them and think, You’ve got to be joking? Well that was my Wednesday back. I barely had a chance to hit ctrl-alt-delete on my keyboard before I was bombarded – “You’re not going to believe what happened?!” - these are the words you never want to hear from an assistant.
There are two kinds of assistants – the good kind and the bad kind. Thankfully I have one of each. The good kind this time was the one telling me that the bad kind had sent an email blast without blind copying our entire invitation list for a launch party I’m producing. This in theory should be a little boo boo and annoying duh don’t do it again…but for us it’s a big boo boo and a how can you be so stupid when the executives from every major network are now hounding our door because we didn’t invite Susie big shot but we invited Larry the nose picker who actually does all of her work and places our spots. This lovely gift bestowed on me to fix was the first three hours of my day. By the time 11 am rolled around, I was well on my way to kicking myself for not jumping in front of the cab that almost rolled over my toes that morning.
Needless to say a two day break to get over a bad cough means very little even when you’re in CT where you get no cell phone reception (email is the annoying cousin who won’t move out of your house). To my lady boss’s credit the morning meeting proved to be quite helpful to catch up on the two days I was gone and as a bonus I also discovered that a new coordinator accepted an offer – woohoo, she has no idea what she’s getting into!!! While hump days don’t always prove to be the most productive, I was pleasantly surprised with the lightening afternoon of meetings where quite a bit was signed off on. Trust me, it’s not easy getting someone to write a check for $70,000 worth of Sushi and chocolate. This was very much appreciated with the launch party only a week and a half away.
Now to the hard stuff, crunching numbers. Events (for my company) are all about the budget vs. placements – how many press placements you get vs. how much money you spend. When you have to cut a budget in less than half and pull off the same event, it gets a little tricky. That’s the problem I’m facing with one event I’m producing for first quarter ’07 and boss lady is all about big picture – no details. I need to get a new budget in front of the boss lady for the exact same event minus a few hundred thousand dollars – ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall…
So here’s a tip for a female boss who is all big picture – don’t bog her down with details. Information is power and if she doesn’t want it, don’t give it. Keep the pretty pictures in the power point presentation and cut the corners in a different way (no one is going to notice if we don’t serve lobster sushi, they’ll only notice if we don’t serve sushi, and a one color embroidery on the hand towels in the rest rooms are perfectly acceptable if the two color costs twice as much). As luck would have it, my cold managed to get passed around the office so the new boss lady is out today – though you couldn’t tell from my inbox. This gives me one more day to fiddle with then numbers for this project.
There are two kinds of assistants – the good kind and the bad kind. Thankfully I have one of each. The good kind this time was the one telling me that the bad kind had sent an email blast without blind copying our entire invitation list for a launch party I’m producing. This in theory should be a little boo boo and annoying duh don’t do it again…but for us it’s a big boo boo and a how can you be so stupid when the executives from every major network are now hounding our door because we didn’t invite Susie big shot but we invited Larry the nose picker who actually does all of her work and places our spots. This lovely gift bestowed on me to fix was the first three hours of my day. By the time 11 am rolled around, I was well on my way to kicking myself for not jumping in front of the cab that almost rolled over my toes that morning.
Needless to say a two day break to get over a bad cough means very little even when you’re in CT where you get no cell phone reception (email is the annoying cousin who won’t move out of your house). To my lady boss’s credit the morning meeting proved to be quite helpful to catch up on the two days I was gone and as a bonus I also discovered that a new coordinator accepted an offer – woohoo, she has no idea what she’s getting into!!! While hump days don’t always prove to be the most productive, I was pleasantly surprised with the lightening afternoon of meetings where quite a bit was signed off on. Trust me, it’s not easy getting someone to write a check for $70,000 worth of Sushi and chocolate. This was very much appreciated with the launch party only a week and a half away.
Now to the hard stuff, crunching numbers. Events (for my company) are all about the budget vs. placements – how many press placements you get vs. how much money you spend. When you have to cut a budget in less than half and pull off the same event, it gets a little tricky. That’s the problem I’m facing with one event I’m producing for first quarter ’07 and boss lady is all about big picture – no details. I need to get a new budget in front of the boss lady for the exact same event minus a few hundred thousand dollars – ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall…
So here’s a tip for a female boss who is all big picture – don’t bog her down with details. Information is power and if she doesn’t want it, don’t give it. Keep the pretty pictures in the power point presentation and cut the corners in a different way (no one is going to notice if we don’t serve lobster sushi, they’ll only notice if we don’t serve sushi, and a one color embroidery on the hand towels in the rest rooms are perfectly acceptable if the two color costs twice as much). As luck would have it, my cold managed to get passed around the office so the new boss lady is out today – though you couldn’t tell from my inbox. This gives me one more day to fiddle with then numbers for this project.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
another one bites the dust...
I haven't even had my one year review and I'm about to start working for my third boss. While I like to think that I had no part in the disappearance of my first two supervisors, I have to wonder - is any young ambitious female truly that innocent?My last two supervisors were women and my new director is also a woman. As I'm sure many of you can empathize with, when you're a woman working for a woman the hours between 9am-5pm Monday through Friday take on the characteristics of a cold war. More on this to come...
The most recent departure was actually quite sad. My former manager, who I'll call Adrienne, had been with the network for five and half years. She was vibrant, bold, and sharp - but not at work. The time and changes of our network had taken a toll on her. She relinquished much of her work to me so that I could " learn". I did my part keeping her in the loop but her fatal mistake was letting go and jumping on board too late. Too late to take ownership, too late to be creative, and too late to be a leader. Her bitter end finally drowned itself with masochistic tequila and mango infused vodka at a local Bleeker street favorite. That was last Wednesday.
This Wednesday is my first day back in the office and I have the pleasure of kicking it off with the 9am daily status report meeting the new boss lady scheduled. Can someone please say venti Caffè Latte?
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