“Who was that?!”
The man on the phone was screaming at me. I gave the man, to whom I reported as an advertising associate for a St Louis department store, the name of the person who had interrupted our conversation. He barked, “WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU, YOU CAN’T TALK TO ANYONE…” I hung up before the man could finish his howl. The phone rang again, and the man was again, on the line. “We got disconnected,” he said. I told him, “No. We didn’t get disconnected. I hung up on you. I work here, I report to you, but you need my permission to abuse it. You don’t have that permission, and if you yell at me again, you’re going to be listening to Mr. Dial Tone.”
I have been watching some TV shows that have bosses bawling at the people who report to them. One of the shows, “Homicide: Life On The Street,” features loud-mouthed bosses, as well as detectives who rely on the shouted word. When I see those interactions, I realize how lucky I’ve been in bosses. My first boss was when I was 13 years old and worked in the closed stacks at the University of Pittsburgh library. My last boss, almost 50 years later, was the best that I’ve ever known. In between those two there were some others, and I staked my claim to humanity very early on.
When I was a trainee in a small loan office, my boss had a training tool. Assistants would take applications for loans over the phone, then put the application on the manager’s desk. If the application did not have all the information properly filled out, the manager would throw the application over his shoulder, onto the floor. I can remember the first time I heard the flutter and flop of the two stapled pages of a rejected “app.” I steeled myself for the upcoming battle and continued to work at my desk. My boss’ desk was behind me, and when I had taken another application, I turned, and stepping over the papers on the floor, placed the new app in front of him. The battle joined, it took my boss an hour to finally pick up the rejected application and place it on my desk with instructions for correcting it. That boss had his career shortened when he was caught by senior management in the middle of a rage-filled demonstration of urgency. He was jumping up and down on an application, which was on his desk, and was about two feet in the air when the big bosses walked into the office.
My last boss understood that I would not consent to be abused by anyone. The head of the department was an abusive man who, if he didn’t like it, would wad up an 18 by 24” advertising layout and throw it at someone. That man once told me that it did not matter if he approved each stage of the advertising product; if he didn’t like the printed version, he said “I take no responsibility for it!” When I reported to the department head — my “last boss” — she was relieved that I had not started a discussion with the tyrant about treating people decently.
I can recount other times when I have stood my ground against people to whom I have reported, who tried to treat me with disrespect and disdain. When I watch TV programs that showcase bosses screaming at the people who report to them, I remember those situations in my life, and my resolve to never suffer bawling bosses.
cjon3acd@att.net