a bad work situation (from the past)

At a recent job interview, I was asked to describe a difficult work situation and how I handled it. I was caught off-guard, and talked about the challenges of obtaining reviews and interviews about new books at my last position. But I've been thinking ever since about the situation I should have described, which was this:

I was writing freelance for a national music magazine. I had gotten the gig because it turned out that the editor and I had some mutual friends, who vouched heartily for me; I had never done this type of writing before. The editor was very pleased with the work I produced, and he began to favor me. I got a lot of good assignments and he was very friendly. (He was not in any way hitting on me, because he had a wife at home upstate and a girlfriend in New York City; it was very clear that he was not attracted to me.) He told me that in about a year, he would be able to hire more full-time staff, and I would be the first one hired (only he and the assistant editor had staff jobs at the time). He also said that the next summer, which would fall roughly around the one-year mark, he would be sending writers around the country to cover festivals, and that again, I would have favored status. He was also talked about starting his own magazine and bringing a number of writers along with him, including me.

After a year had passed, I approached him, very nicely, about the staff position, and his response was, "We can't do that." He did not say, "maybe in another six months," or explain what was going on in any way. Soon after, I asked him about the plans for festival coverage in the summer, and he said, "I can't afford to send anyone to festivals." I didn't complain in any way about either turndown, did not show disappointment, and did not press him.

Soon after, he stopped giving me assignments, started cutting my profiles and longer pieces. In addition, he had asked me to develop a monthly column; he had approved the topic, and I had worked long and hard on putting together my first/sample column. After I submitted it, he told me that the column was being canceled, that the publisher had made the decision. I sent a very nice e-mail to the publisher (everything was very decentralized -- the editor was in upstate New York, and the publisher was in West Virginia), saying that I understood he had canceled my column, and I asked if he would reconsider, explaining why I thought the column would be useful and informative to the readers. (It was a column on internet resources for the particular type of music the magazine covered. At the time, the middle 90s, graphical browsers and web use were still relatively new, and Google did not yet exist, so there was a real need for the type of column I had proposed and prepared.)

The publisher responded, also very nicely, and said that he did not make any editorial decisions, and that any decisions about what to run in the magazine would have to come from the editor. I was absolutely shocked. I went back to the editor, and I don't remember what his response was, but it wasn't clear or satisfactory. He had become very cold and uncommunicative, and I had no idea why.

I sent him a carefully composed e-mail asking him what was going on. I said that I noticed his attitude toward me had changed, asked if I had done anything to offend or upset him, and said that I would do anything I could to make it right. He denied that anything had changed or that he was having any difficulty with me. But he continued to cut my assignments and the column never ran; neither did a lengthy musician profile he had requested and I had written.

Finally, I wrote another long e-mail, saying that it would be a help to me to know what the problem was, so I could correct it or avoid making the same error in the future. I also said, in a very nice way, that it would benefit both of us to clear the air. But he continued to deny that anything was wrong.

Because he was giving me no work, I started my own little local newsletter, covering the same type of music but on a local New York basis. The magazine covered national acts playing the same type of music, and I covered little local bands. My newsletter was quite small and dinky, I didn't use any of "his" writers, and it was distributed free; it was clearly not in competition with the national magazine. But the editor used it as an excuse to fire me, adding that no national magazine would have me because of my local project. (A second national magazine took me on immediately, and even promoted my local magazine.)

My solution to the difficult situation in this scenario was to confront the editor in the nicest possible way, clearly and without anger or finger-pointing, even after he had lied to me about the column and the "reason" for cutting so many of my pieces (he had claimed that the magazine was changing over to a higher grade of paper and so would be running fewer pages, which was not the case at all). And when he would not engage in a dialogue about it, I had to accept that he was going to continue to deny any difficulty and that I would never learn from him what had really happened. I didn't resign, but maybe I should have, although I moved on by starting my own publication and moving to another magazine when he let me go.

Later, I spoke to another staff writer, who opined that I had fallen from favor because I had believed the editor about being put on staff and being sent to festivals, when these had actually been empty promises. I hadn't considered that he had lied to me from the start.

Soon after, he was fired from the magazine. One of the editors of the new magazine I wrote for asked me to write some articles for a guide he was writing to this type of music, so I was included and credited in an actual book (I had also contributed to another, similar book). My magazine failed for financial reasons, and the second magazine I wrote for went out of business. My former editor apparently never started his new magazine, nor wrote any of the books he claimed to be writing, and has basically vanished from music journalism without a trace. After he left the first magazine, I wrote for them again in the late 90s, and once again more recently (under three different editors all together), and was treated quite well; I've only stopped writing for them because they haven't met their payment commitments. Apparently, they're not able to pay anyone, not even the editor, but I just can't work for free at this time. I already have plenty of writing credits and have considered myself a professional for quite a few years; this is why I dropped the Examiner column (which was paying based on traffic, but it was only pennies a day for a lot of work), and turned down another music magazine when I found out that I was expected to write for free (I would get a copy of the CD, DVD or book I was reviewing, which is standard, but no money).

Being a supervisor or an employee is a lot of fun when things go well, when there is clear communication and the work is satisfactory. It gets tough when there's a problem. I learned what not to do from the editor; when I briefly edited my own publication, I had to confront a couple of writers who were not doing satisfactory work, even though they were working for free (they were absolutely novices). I did this without being angry or unpleasant, and tried to be clear about what I needed and how they were not meeting expectations. This is the difficult part of being a boss. I've been an employee a lot more than I've been a boss, and I have no respect for a supervisor who sidesteps the tough part of being in charge, of communicating clearly and appropriately with an employee who is not pleasing them for whatever reason. I consider bosses who lie to their employees, like that editor, to be the lowest of the low. And I hate to say it, but that's not the only time it's happened to me. There's absolutely no way to correct a problem if I don't know it exists or don't know what it is.

That all being said -- I still hate that fucking editor. He is both cowardly and a prick.

I just Googled the dude, and he's still apparently doing nothing. There are a few items that say he's writing a book with one or another musician, some of which are fifteen years old with no book in sight. He's also down as manager for a few musicians with whom he was always tight, but haven't been heard from much; one of them is stone cold insane. There was another mention on the website of a musician indicating that he was associated with the editor and that he would soon be writing for the magazine (this is from around the time that I was writing for this editor), but the musician never did write for this publication. There are also a few credits for liner notes and reviews he wrote many years ago. Ironically, there is a mention of him in an interview with the former associate editor who worked under him, about a book which she wrote; apparently she's able to follow through and complete her projects. He's also on Facebook, which makes me want to puke.

my teeth, my career

I'm still in the middle of all kinds of dental stuff. In addition to whatever I've already described, the walls of a weak, on-borrowed-time tooth in the upper right came loose and started to hurt. Last time, the doctor removed the walls and the filling, all the loose stuff above the gum. Today, he had to go in for three roots. Barry has been a major champ, coming with me to these dental appointments and sitting there with me when I'm in the chair, sometimes stroking my hair a little if I seem tense or in pain. The only thing that really hurt when I was there was the injection of the novicane into the upper palate, and I expected that to be pretty painful. I didn't make a peep; I usually do some whining or loud gasping. The rest was even kind of interesting; I could definitely feel him pulling out one of the roots, but with no pain. And he put in sutures.

Then, of course, at home, the novicane wore off and I bit on gauze for three hours and dry-swallowed some Tylenol with codeine. I also used an old-fashioned pain remedy that is not now legal in this state but is in 13 others. Barry bought me some bananas and some vegetables that can be cooked to squishiness.

I lose track of the days. I have less and less energy and recently went through a bout of sleeping badly and having a lot of nightmares that seemed interconnected: I was on a job where I had already been fired or was about to be, I had a mean boss much like my last one, I was horribly late on some big project for which I still felt responsible, or somehow she had given me an impossible load as a cruel joke. I was a pariah.

The truth is, even though I had some historically lousy bosses, I generally enjoyed my co-workers. I made some friendships that lasted beyond work. And from 1983 until around 2006, I usually worked for high-level people so I got to meet interesting people and do interesting things, or at least meet a lot of high-level people at the company. I worked at the Metropolitan Opera House for about seven months, which was fairly amazing. It's all there in that one building, with the exception of some off-site storage: orchestra rehearsals, ballet rehearsals, set design, the whole thing. Placido Domingo gave me the eye, which apparently doesn't land me in anything like an exclusive club, but still. Bad boss situation. Oddly enough, I got a job there for a friend of mine from my NYU job and she got a wonderful boss and stayed there for years.

I like to think I'm a kind person and on a couple of occasions have passed on or set up jobs, and passed along my ultra-cheap Manhattan apartment to an old co-worker when I moved in with Barry.

On one job, Bill Small, the former head of NBC News, introduced me to Charles Kurault, saying, "She keeps everything working around here." At the NYU History Department, we had McGeorge Bundy. At NYU Law School, I had close encounters with both John-John and Jackie, and once saw Mario Cuomo in the student lounge; you could see his charisma from a mile away.

There have been cool little things at a lot of these jobs. I wonder if I'm wishing that I could do them again. More likely, I'm trying to figure out how to write these things. Or where. I'm still proceeding as if the summer and school stuff is going to be the first book so that's not going in here, but a lot of the work stuff would probably have to be a novel or something and maybe somehow fictionalized.

I can't write plot, people. I cannot invent stories. Every story you ever hear me tell is one about me, or one that someone told me. I am interpreting existing material in a subjective manner. This is probably why I have never managed to get started as a writer. Can you tell that I've kept journals, diaries, and now a blog since age 8? Can you imagine what kind of letter-writer I was back in the pre-e-mail days?

Which just gave me a really good idea for a short story.

who's crazier, the government or me?

I had applied for social security disability (my friend Robin calls it "crazy money" because her crazy mother has received it for many years), and got my turn-down letter today. What's crazy on their end is that they basically wrote "You claimed to have X and Y. Our examination of you confirms that you have X and Y. Therefore, you are able to perform the job of Z." X is mental illness -- specifically, depression so severe that I can only leave my home once every two or three weeks. Z is administrative assistant, which was my job classification for many years. So they're saying that yes, we agree, based on our examination of you and paperwork from your personal psychiatrist, that you are so depressed you can only rarely leave your home, which qualifies you to be an administrative assistant. I mean, I'm copping here to being badly broken, but I think I'm smarter than whomever's making the decisions for the feds. Just sayin'. I'll either appeal or reapply; my husband's discussing it tomorrow morning with an expert he knows.

I've been under treatment for depression for a dozen years, though I realize I probably had it a whole lot longer. I never knew until a couple of months ago that a strong desire to stay home -- to be in a familiar place and not have to face the world -- is a four-star symptom is depression. In my case, this would have to go back to cutting school. The reason I had so many administrative assistant jobs is in part because I called in sick so often -- and even moreso if it was a high-pressure job and/or I had a difficult boss -- and this was cited in quite a few firings.

My last job kind of broke me, even though it was aforementioned beloved publishing job. It was extremely high-pressured and low-paid and long hours, and most of the people doing it were about 25, which is about half as old as I am now. Still, I was fortunately to have a boss about my age who was very encouraging and lovely to work for. I had a huge success with a book I began working on when I was still a temp, believe it or not, because my boss hated the author and I offered to work with him. After a year, I got promoted out of entry-level (which usually takes two years), and an unheard-of 10% raise. Then my great boss left and a year later, I was fired. The stress during that year was excessive, and I actually saw my depression and anxiety progress. I would have weeping spells during the work day, sometimes for hours. I had begun looking into a transfer into another imprint (this publisher has many), or even another publisher, which I would be eligible to do after the full two years. But I lost my job before that could happen.

I did do some looking for another job, and came close to getting a really good one in Hoboken. But then my husband's father got sick, and as the only unemployed one in the family, I ended up doing a lot of visiting and keeping him company. He was quite old, and what was originally a fall ended up being a urinary tract infection, then breathing problems, then extreme weight loss, and so on, so it was a pattern of hospital, rehab, assisted living, and back to the hospital, until after some months, he could no longer rally and died at 89, just a year after my mother-in-law.

And by then -- we were in a financial collapse! I think this is when I started having trouble leaving home. My husband lost *his* job somewhere in here, and that got me way anxious, because his industry has been gasping for years now, and yet I've been unable to get him out of it. He's been in it most of his working life, and his father was in the same industry, and there just aren't very many jobs at all there anymore. The company that let my husband go went out of business.

So it's been a time of deep anxiety. I've been a jeweler for about eight years and was thinking about selling my jewelry on line, on Etsy or such, and bought a digital camera, but I found out that photographing jewelry is extremely difficult and requires more equipment that we can fit in here. I do write for a national blues magazine that earns me about $15 and a free CD or two every month.

When I lost my job, I thought I could do some freelance writing, but all of a sudden, practically every journalist on the planet is out of work, and some of them even write better than I do. All of them are better-connected.

Right now, we're doing OK on two unemployments, and have managed to buy health insurance (which naturally, excludes mental health care, mental health meds, and chiropractic), and we're managing to pay rent, bills, and my meds.

I understand that mental health, like a lot of illnesses, occurs on a sliding scale. You're somewhat better or somewhat worse, but it's not necessarily about "cure." (There was a good book on this, but I can't seem to find it on Amazon.) So my doctor added a new med which seems to have drastically reduced my anxiety attacks/crying fits and has stopped my suicidal ideations entirely.

I feel a little out of whack lately since we had to do some fast tidying in this apt due to a landlord's visit, and my jewelry stuff is all packed away. This is really bad. Also -- and I hate to say it -- my husband is home too much. He's extremely helpful, but maybe if he were working, I would push myself to get out more.

I hope this all isn't scaring anyone to death. I'm relatively normal, getting good care, mostly fairly happy, and making every effort to get to important events.

great dream

Generally, when I'm in the throes of a bad depression, my mind dredges up all kinds of old injustices, slights and enemies, and I dwell and dwell on these. A milligram of clonazepam generally shuts this stuff up, but it does also turn up in my dreams. Two nights ago, I dreamed yet again that I was still working for my last boss, since I apparently still haven't let go of despising her after a year and a half. Usually, the dreams are all confused: I'm working for her, but at NYU, not where I actually worked for her, and in some of them, I've already been let go but am working out my last couple of weeks and being treated terribly. But last night, I finally had one that made me smile: I guess I had already been let go or was on the verge of it, and she was bitching bitching bitching at me about something I supposedly hadn't done or hadn't done to her liking, and for some reason, she chose to explain herself by inviting me to touch her knee (as if trying to illustrate something, though I can't imagine what). Instead, I punched her right in the nose, yelled "I quit!" and stomped out of the building. Very satisfying.