Just need to call your attention to this update left by the person whose boss treats her like she’s on-call day and night. The update itself is longer (and you can read it in full here), but it contains this gem about her boss:
Upon arrival each day, she dumps her purse, laptop, and shoes with the receptionist, then expects this person to have the slippers she wears in the office ready, and to carry her possessions up the stairs to her office, like a dog.
I mean, this has crossed over to caricature and thus is almost awesome, if we want to judge on entertainment value.
I wonder if your boss has a boss though.
Sounds like a scene from the Devil Wears Prada! The boss should read this blog, but then again is probably so much of a narcissist would not recognize her own destructive behavior.
Kat, I had a Devil Wears Prada flashback too! And then the slippers take it to a whole new and exciting level.
Add me to the "The Devil Wears Prada" flashback group. That was my immediate thought as well. The question is, is this life imitating art or vice versa? This is seriously the stuff that sitcoms are made of.
If they ever do a "The Devil Wears Prada" sequel, they might need recasting the role of Miranda Priestly to this woman. Sorry Meryl Streep!
But seriously, that's scary. However, I was glad to read the OP found a new job to get away from that toxic place. No need to get sick or ulcers from work.
The boss sounds like a former exec at my last company. He bought a pair of new shoes and then made the office assistant wear them for a couple weeks so he could take them back to Austria as "used" shoes, to avoid paying customs fees.
Wow…I'm another person in on the close similarity to DWP.
The more I read, the more I appreciate my boss.
Seems like everyone is mentioning "The Devil Wears Prada". Unfortunately there are people that expect this kind of treatment and because the companies that hire them probably cater to this so they con focus on what ever it is that they do. It's good that she found a new job but things like this will probably never change. :-(
Wow I've been reposted again! OP here.
I don't know if she STARTED crazy, but I do know in the last year we've tried to actively keep her away from seeing 'The September Issue', lest she get ideas.
And no, she doesn't recognize her behavior. I work at a magazine (I know, cue the DWP stuff. . . I swear most magazine folks are NOT like these, we're actually very nice. And tend to wear flip flops), and a couple of months ago I got the chance to interview someone who'd written a book about toxic workplaces. It was like a play by play of our office, it got printed, my boss saw it and. . . nothing.
The slippers really are special tho: she steals them regularly from spas, so she's got a whole collection. Part of me wants to hide all of them in high, unreachable places on my last day :P
Alas, while there is a higher-up who could potentially call her out on the vast swathes of inappropriate that make up her life, he's just like her. If I complained, I'm pretty sure they'd form a poor management megatron or something. I think that's where the problems really started: ultimate power corrupts absolutely.