Do Women Make Better Bosses?

Let me stifle my uncontrollable laughter long enough to tell you that this entry is based on a posting on a New York Times opinion blog .

It has been my experience that women bosses/managers at the United Nations and even in the private sector are, for the most part, wicked, horrible, spiteful people. Not to men. Just to other women. There are exceptions, but these are pitifully few and very far between. One thing is for certain, however: the UN, and senior level management in most places, is still very much a Boys Club. As for the UN, positive changes take forever to pass through its doors. There are too many bureaucrats who would be inconvenienced by change and therefore, in self-preservation mode, they excel at putting them down. Thus, it is damn near a given that any woman at the UN in a position with any sort of power has had to fight long and hard for her post. And before I talk shit about these women, let me admit that I salute them for their efforts, however sneaky, underhanded or mean-spirited they may have been.

Exhibit A – CL. She was my second boss when I worked in publishing. I had heard such great things about her, and I had met her briefly when I worked in editorial as a temp. I went to production and then back to editorial for her. I didn’t think anything of it when I was told that she couldn’t keep an assistant for longer than 6 months. OK, she was tough, but I could take tough, and a year of working for her would take me to editor immediately. I didn’t know she was the Miranda Priestly of computer book publishing. I’m not going to go into it, because calling her the Miranda Priestly of computer book publishing is not at all an exaggeration, and I’m sure if you’ve seen the movie you can imagine what CL was like. The only difference was that I was called “what’s-your-name” instead of Andrea and she never threw her coat on my desk because she worked from home in Boston or thereabouts. She called me every 5 minutes not to give me guidance or help or anything, but to criticise me for various things, like taking a 5 minute cigarette break, when all I was doing was learning my job by myself with help from others. I quit after 6 months.

Side note: While I was in production, there was a managing editor who took to having me proofread her manuscripts, which were these huge technical and reference books. What was she so busy doing that she left her job to a newb? Her nails. She didn’t hide it. To her credit, she inadvertently taught me a skill I still use today.

Exhibit B - My second UN boss, SM. For the first year of my tenure in her office, the CTC, she was pretty horrible to me. My mom's heart must have ached every time I whined to her about how I was being treated, and she insisted that SM treated me the way she did was because in her country (India) there was a caste system and she was a Brahman and therefore very skeptical of me. My mother's proof: SM did not treat me with any respect until I returned from a vacation in Japan, during which I attended a charity golf tournament thrown by my aunt and uncle stationed in Tokyo. Also attending this tournament happened to be a member of the royal family. So when I showed pictures of my trip to my co-worker and he saw this royal lady and me in the same room, he immediately went to show the picture to SM, and that was what upped my stock. It so happened that the following year, we changed buildings, and in the absence of anyone else with a brain (that's arguable, just not by me), I became her right hand and a few co-workers I had been friendly with started to talk shit behind my back, obviously hurt that they had unceremoniously fallen out of favor. The secret of my success, in my mind, was that after several instances where I let SM have her go at me, I stopped being able to stomach it and "talked back". This surprised her, and that was when I saw a change in her attitude towards me. Lesson: SM pushed buttons whenever possible, and when she figured out I wasn't afraid of her, she started to respect me, and it was cake from then on. Regardless of how it all ended, what a bitchy thing of SM to do and what a waste of time. At the UN, keeping one's status is much more important then being productive. In this sense, critics of the UN are absolutely right. I imagine that much more could be done to reach goals and whatnot if the UN scrapped this archaic hierarchy. Well, other things too, but that’s another story for another time.

Exhibit C - LM. She was not my immediate boss, but as a person of a "higher grade", she thought she had the right to act as my boss. Out of all the crappy things she said to me, the way she treated me, the worst was the fact that she tried to block my promotion not once, but twice. 1. The UN staffing rules used to state that after two years at the G3 level, the staff member would be automatically promoted to the next level, G4. At the time, I was a G3 and our office was in the process of splitting into two separate entities serving the same Security Council committee. I was in the middle of that, and fortunately, my "real" boss was this Scottish lady, and LM had really just come on board and tried to take ownership of me. If she had been a nice person, I wouldn't have had to go over her head, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. In any case, the Scottish lady was much more reasonable (one of the "few and far between", to be sure) and helped me along, and soon, I got my promotion. Much to the chagrin of LM, of course. The second time I wanted a promotion (and suffice it to say, I was well overdue for it), I had to leave the office altogether. Lesson: The fear that this woman had of anyone climbing the UN ladder, even a little, was palpable. It was not just me she targeted, by the by. She did whatever she could to stop anyone from moving anywhere, regardless of whether it was a lateral move or a promotion. She just wanted to keep people in her service. An aside: she had a raging case of rosacea which reared its ugly head when she was stressed or frustrated. So whenever her efforts failed, her face would get red and spotty and blow up. It was quite a sight.

Exhibit D - My fifth UN boss, RC. I was actually really excited to join this new office, PBSO. In the interview, it sounded really right up my alley, and I think they were kind of excited to have me too. If I had had any inkling, however, of how it was going to end, I wouldn't have taken it in the first place. It was a promotion to G5, but I still would rather have stayed a G4 in my previous office. It was a colossal waste of time. RC was actually brought in after me, and I was unlucky enough to have her assigned to my team as my boss. So while I watched as my job was downgraded to keeping RC's schedule, I had to take her rude, disrespectful and condescending comments almost everyday. RC had a great professional reputation. I went into the relationship expecting a sort of "mentoring" kind of scenario. But RC was busy making sure I never felt proud of myself for a job well done, and that I never "got a big head". The emphasis was on me knowing my place. One of her comments, while I can't quote her and I don't remember all the situations where she said this, was that I could only make an administrative contribution to our section's work. This made it easy to disregard my ideas, whether or not they were good ones, and sometimes they were, according to co-workers also in our section. The kicker: After a year, she told me that PBSO would not renew my contract. One of the reasons she cited was that I never tried to make any contributions to the work of our section.

Which brings me to my current situation =)

Exhibit E - NS. NS is not my immediate boss, but has been allowed to take ownership of me, because her colleagues cower in her presence. This includes the ASG and the
P5. This of course would be fine with regard to distribution of supervisory obligations and whatnot, if she were a decent person, that is. But she's one strange bird. Rumours surround this woman. She’s disliked by many, yet others adore her. She has a great relationship with her niece and nephew, and her office is full of drawings and cards they’ve made for her. I suppose everything started out OK. I was not interviewed by her, and I suspect if I had been, she would have blocked me. They needed someone quickly for my current post, as the person I am replacing was leaving on mission in two weeks. I got on with everyone and learned the ropes really quickly. So quickly that in my second or third week here, the other two assistants took off on vacay and I was able to hold down the fort for the next few weeks by myself. In fact, I still often have to hold down the fort by myself. For whatever reason, one of the assistants is almost always out. The other assistant has arranged it so she doesn’t have to do anything for anyone (don’t ask). I often pull 12-13 hour days, sometimes three in a row. So it’s apparent I’ve put a lot of time and energy into this gig. NS appreciates exactly none of it. The other two people we work for, a Frenchman and a German girl (she’s my age, so she’s a girl, like it or not), presumably, don’t either, in part because of what NS has told them about my poor performance in terms of budget and staffing. And I’ll be the first to admit: my aptitudes do not at all lie in those areas. But any failures in those areas on my part are certainly not for lack of effort, and not for lack of trying to understand it. NS just brushes me off and/or snaps at me for nothering her. So there are times I'll sit in front of my computer, tearing my hair out, trying to figure out how in the hell I can do it myself without having to talk to NS. I often avoid her, actually. She's rude, disrespectful and snippy to me so often that I have had to ask her to please control her tones with me. I have since given up and have just accepted the fact that she’s going to be awful to me almost all the time. As for the other assistant, she had applied for my post and the others wanted to give it to her, but she was blocked by you-know-who, who cited her inability to do x, y and z, yet denied her training to do x, y and z as well. But in these weird changes of heart, NS brings me little gifts from her trips. When she went to Timor-Leste, she brought me this cute woven tapestry-thing. From her recent trip to Sri Lanka, her country, she brought me incense. But when she gave out Christmas cards last year, she left me off her list of recipients. She invited the ASG’s assistant to drinks tomorrow night within my earshot, but did not invite me.


Women have to work a lot harder to get positions of power. That much is true. So why are they so hell-bent on NOT being supportive of other women? Would they not want to help get more women into top spots so we can all take over the world??? Yet they treat men so much better. They kiss their asses. Even male assistants. So, if you find a position where the boss is a woman, don’t think you two will get along swimmingly. Odds are you won’t. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather be chased around a desk.

Today, I'm going to

Shut the fuck up and work. I feel like a bad girl.

Just sayin.

Question.......

They say men and women can never be friends. Or at least, they never should be friends. I did not have this problem. One of my best friends is a guy. We're like Harry and Sally, minus the tension and the pity-fuck.

Recently, however, I developed that very problem. Or maybe it's more of a friend ditching me because an S. O. made an appearance in his/her life, which is not terribly unusual, but hurtful and disappointing nonetheless.

Recipe: Take a healthy amount of ditching, and add it to a pot already bubbling over with unusual amounts of time spent together, some weird sexual-like tension, semi-uncalled for comments, and a very generous amount of flirting. Add a pinch of kissing and cuddling to taste. When this mixture starts to make your other friends nervous, then you have the perfect base for the next layer: a fight, confusion, disappointment, confrontation, denial, and a lie or five. Add a sprig of secret relationship with other for flavor. With all these ingredients fighting and bubbling and mixing and simmering in a pot, is there room for the friendship that we started with? I don't think so, and it's awkward even thinking that me, friend AND S. O. hang in the same circle and will one day be forced to be in the same room. I am SO dreading that day. What's more, the "secret" of friend and S. O. was effectively kept from me by other friends, in particular, one I considered close and who was living in my house at the time, and another who now has aligned herself with friend, because they were afraid I would be hurt/flip out/hurt them/have to be committed to an insane asylum, or some such shit, which to me means that these people have no idea who I am. The secret is still being kept, and I know because I have only one honest advisor left. It goes without saying, but I'm saying it anyway, that both friend and S. O. are keeping completely mum, preferring that I find out through the changing of the relationship status on Facebook.

I don't really care that friend is in a relationship after swearing up and down he didn't want one, read: didn't want one with me, which is totally fine, and we talked about that, so he knows this, or at least he should. Why in the hell would I want to push someone into loving me? I always felt the fundamental thing was that we enjpoyed each other's company above everything (and everyone) else. Which would mean we would still hang out. The problem I have is that EVERYONE is acting like fucking children. I don't like having friends that feel they need to treat me with kid gloves, like I am some kind of ogre or something. That shit makes me feel worse than anything. I'm a fucking adult, for shit's sake. I'm the oldest one in the crew! Besides, queens are supposed to have an army of advisors loyal to her in some way. At least be somewhat loyal because I met most of these people first and I was the one who brought friend into our circle in the first place. I feel like I have to get a whole new group of friends.

So my question is: am I allowed to not ever invite those two, or some of their accomplices, to any event/outing/social occasion that I plan? Do I get to do that now? Cause, well, I already am, but I wanted to know if it's OK. Yeah, I have a very fucked up and non-linear way of doing things, I know this.

It's been a long time, shouldn't have left you......

I'm gonna go ahead and dedicate this post to J. H., previously my kryptonite, but now one of my inspirations for picking up a pen. Or a keyboard. As the case may be. I have a lot to say but have had no desire to say it. I don't know why. But I realized that my previous excuse "I don't want to write because I already sit in front of a computer all day" is a bunch of bullshit. What do I do when I get home? Get on the internets with much less noble intentions. In any case, as M. H. said, "it's never too late". Yeah, I just need my ass kicked sometimes.

I talk a lot about the dumbing down of America. I usually blame Bush for it, but recently, I put a little more thought into things. There's no denying that he's helped legitimize the idiot's case in a major way. Just look at the 2004 election. But this has been a phenomenon I have observed for a long time now, beginning probably around 1997, when I was a junior in college, lamenting the younger classes with their rich parents (read: no tuition assistance needed) and their harder drugs. That was the end of SLC as an "Art School" and the beginning of it as a sort of "Confederacy of Dunces", if you will. When SLC was an art school, there were a bunch of different personalities, but all with one thing in common: We were the high school rejects. We were never popular because we weren't interested in the trivial shit ("When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." - Jonathan Swift. I really don't care how elitist that makes me look, by the way) or we were different in some sort of way, like how we dressed and what sex we got it on with. We were the writers, the artists, the actors. The loners, the weird drama kids. So we finally got our something at SLC. At least that's how I felt. But the "cool kids" always find a way to ruin it for the rest of us. In that sense, they aren't so stupid and clueless. At the end of my junior year, when it came out exactly how many overdoses/hospital visits had happened during the course of the year, the campus shut down and went into insular mode, meaning all social activity ceased. I visited SLC in September 1999 and was amazed to see that no one was hanging out on the lawn. Used to be that the lawn was the place to meet all the new kids, to dance around, to write, to hang out in the warm weather. Honestly, it looked sort of like a Dead concert without the acid. Coincidentally, I spent a good bit of time listening to "Uncle John's Band" and whatnot on the lawn, but anyway..... Things looked boring and a little scary/surreal to me. Cool kids win again. And SLC was all the dumber for it. So don't ask me why I never give them money. They lost themselves in the drive to stop giving out too much aid, to attract more male students, to make it a more homogenous experience. TO RUIN IT.

So, 2008 and the Internets. Last year, I signed up for a (fairly) new website in which people wrote reviews of restaurants, parks, monuments, etc., and there was this kick-ass community attached to it. I really enjoyed it. I wasted shitloads of time there. I met several excellent people. Also learned a lot of lessons, some about human nature, some about not expecting too much from people. But recently, it has been hijacked. Not really, but there's a new crowd. They don't talk about anything important. They seem to like to sound very intelligent when the mood strikes, but whenever they do, it reeks of an opportunity to blast someone else, not to actually put out some sort of actual thought. Nothing new. So a bunch of the original community live in exile, because they just don't enjoy these other people. So someone starts a thread about how some of this new shit/people just isn't/aren't funny. I agree, and I said so. Their reply? "There's no profit in trying to categorically decide what is and isn't funny." But it SURE IS "profitable" to spend all day not thinking and commenting about boners, isn't it? It was a self-preservation tactic on his part, so I'll let that slide, even though he's basically saying "We're idiots and shut up about it" in a very varity football kind of way. Whatever. I'll let them win again. Most of the OG's have lost interest, and funnily enough, that includes "the mayor". Just don't be surprised when it's all RUINED. And let me add here that there is something about kids born in the eighties, like after 81 or 82. Some are OK. Most of them are just weird.

So is this blog my new self-imposed exile? We'll see.

I Can't Stand the Rain.....

I wonder why I keep naming posts with song titles. Maybe it's because my iPod has become an extension of my hand.....In any case, I am feeling hungover and supremely lazy. Add to that the fact that my co-worker will not leave me alone with these fucking travel costs. I'm sayin', how about nobody fucking goes any-fucking-where? Problem solved, everyone's happy, corporization saves money. So my brain is twisting back into knots after I worked so hard to untie it all last night. Maybe a little too hard. So, I'm posting this here article in the NY Times City Room blog about yesterday's events. Read this too. It's called "Constructive Bitching".

Look at the comments that follow the post. I agree with 1, 2, 6, 7, and hell, pretty much all the ones that point the finger at the MTA one way or another and make Bloomberg out to be the lap dog that he is. And where the fuck was Spitzer during all of this? You know, Albany is not that far from the city. I'd hate to think he's another member of the "New York City Drop Dead" contingent. Anyway, read the article.