So I owe you wonderful people a story, don’t I?

Once upon a time there lived a young woman who worked as a newspaper reporter/photographer for a small bi-weekly.

This $5 an hour gig helped her pay for silly things like college tuition, car payments, insurance and gas. She was a busy little lass. You could usually find her either working (30 hours a week for the newspaper), at college (as a full time student), or in her vehicle (there was a 20 minute drive to work and a 50 minute drive to school).

This young lady LOVED her job. But of course, there was a turd in the punchbowl. Actually? There were two nasty, malicious ones. One was her editor, whom we’ll call Adam. And the other happened to be the sports editor — an even more conceited ass her editor blindly idolized.

Shortly after joining the paper, she realized her editor was an arrogant jerk who thought he was God’s gift to the industry.

Soon a pattern emerged — if the editor made a mistake in front of his hero (the sports editor) he’d blame and berate the young girl in front of the sports editor we’ll call “Dick”.

Adam had a “do as I say, not as I do” management style. Although he always stressed the importance of getting the names, towns, and ages of the people photographed, he never did this. More than once, he handed the girl a photo and said, “Find out who these people are. Don’t leave until you’ve identified everyone.” These shenanigans caused much stress for the girl. She also ended up missing several classes due to this behavior.

One day, she came into the paper (before a full day of class) to finish a story. Her editor dropped a photo in front of her insinuating that if she left before identifying the people, she’d be fired. He wouldn’t give any information as to where the photo was taken or why. It took her SEVEN hours to identify the people. She missed an entire day of classes.

Another time, she came in on her day off. She was sick but had scheduled a quick phone interview. The editor, knowing she was sick, sent her off photograph a house fire in 0 degree weather.

When she came back to the office, after two hours of being outside, she felt even worse. She had been wearing dress clothes, dress shoes and couldn’t wear gloves, as that got in the way of focusing the lens. The editor told her to write a general blurb to accompany the photos. Then he asked for another blurb for another photo. Then another.

Finally, he realized that what he needed was a story. But instead of asking the girl to write one, he pieced her blurbs together. When Dick (who at times, served as an editor-at-large) saw the story, he said, “This story stinks like shit” to the girl. Adam then piped in, “Yes, it IS a shit story. What is wrong with you Lisa? You can’t even write a decent story. Its not difficult.”

The girl lost all respect for her editor.

Upon approaching her two-year anniversary with the paper, the editor began making nasty comments. He told her she “had no people skills”. (Although he was banned from the police station and city council meetings because he had upset both groups to the point where they refused to talk to him.)

At that point, the girl was getting accused of and verbally berated for mistakes on a daily basis. She couldn’t eat. She’d cry either on her way to work or on her way home on a daily basis. Started to get ulcers. She knew this wasn’t about her performance. This was about HER. She didn’t understand why, but she knew this couldn’t be ironed out with a talk.

(Coincidentally, she received A’s on the stories she submitted to her professors — people that had worked for dailies in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles.)

The boss finally took a rough draft of one of her stories from the trash. He claimed this draft was what she submitted as a final copy. The girl KNEW this was untrue. He did too. He told her the work wasn’t up to his standards. He insinuated that if she didn’t stop making errors like the ones he “found” then he’d show them to the publisher and general manager who would fire her.

The girl had alot of respect for the publisher and general manager. She knew Adam would completely poison the publisher’s image of her. The stress was mounting. She was missing class at her editor’s whim. She didn’t want to leave but felt it the healthiest decision.

Adam unknowingly did the young girl a favor. She switched career paths and landed a prestigious paid internship in public relations. She went on to work for a big engineering/architectural firm for twice the money she would have been offered had she stayed in newspapers. (She also met, at the A/E firm, the man she’d marry.)

The End

(As with the other story, I could include many more examples of the editor’s toxicity. But in the interest of keeping this short? I won’t.)