Bad Bosses
1/31/20 - We discuss some of our worst bosses, the difference between held to a high standard and a toxic environment, and what happens when women are bad bosses.
Transcript below.
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CREDITS
Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Associate Producer: Jordan Bailey
Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed
Merch Director: Caroline Knowles
Editorial Assistant: Laura Bertocci
Design Assistant: Brijae Morris
Ad sales: Midroll
TRANSCRIPT:
[Ads]
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend.
Ann: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: She's Ann Friedman.
Ann: She's Aminatou Sow.
Aminatou: Hi.
Ann: Hi.
Aminatou: Today we're talking about bad bosses.
Ann: What?
Aminatou: Is that the agenda? Did I just do the agenda?
Ann: No, it is. I was being faux naïve about today's agenda.
Aminatou: No, I know. But I'm also like did I just do it? I love it.
Ann: [Laughs]
Aminatou: Sorry to everyone who's listening to this from last week. I'm assuming the duties of agenda for now so we'll see.
Ann: You know what it is? It's that years into our podcast relationship we are spicing things up by switching roles. That is what's going on. [Laughter] The impalpable joy when we say each other's name, what can I say?
Aminatou: Wow. The six-year itch instead of the seven-year itch. I love it.
Ann: I mean . . .
[Theme Song]
(1:22)
Ann: Yeah, bad bosses. You don't have to name names but I would love to hear about some of the bad bosses you've had in your life.
Aminatou: Wow. You know, when you asked me that question all I'm thinking of is have I ever had a good boss? What? [Laughs]
Ann: I almost spit my water out.
Aminatou: I've had some not-great bosses on the level of -- and also to be fair I have had some good bosses now that I've thought about it. But I think that my dominant feeling of bad boss is definitely someone who is borderline abusive. Like I've never had someone yell at me or slam things because I'd always told myself that for me that was a very clear line in the sand.
Ann: Abuse, yeah.
Aminatou: Yeah, whenever people tell me these stories of other industries where you have to pay your dues and they're like my boss threw a thing at me I'm like no, that's literally assault, you know what I mean? There is no place in the workplace for this. And that's not to victim-blame; it's just truly there is this pervasive feeling that certain kinds of behavior are okay by certain kinds of people.
(2:30)
And so I definitely had bosses in my 20s who were just people who did not communicate well at all and also expected you to read their minds and also try to give you demeaning work that was not your work. The boss who's always -- you know, never anything for you to do but there's always coffee to be fetched. And I was like well, actually, this is not Hollywood, I don't actually have to pay my dues, and also the Department of Labor says I do not have to do this. That is one strain of bad boss. Also just bosses that were not good leaders. That is something that I think is really hard, especially when you're working on a team and realizing there is so much in-fighting or people don't trust each other or people don't like each other. And years later I'm like oh, this is nobody's fault but the people who were layered on top of us who could've fixed this problem and everything trickled down. Yeah, a lot of bad dude -- like very typical bad dude boss behavior.
Ann: Like harassy behavior? Bullying behavior?
Aminatou: Bullying behavior. I had one boss that was definitely a bully, like did not bully me but bullied a lot of other people on our team. And I think about that work situation a lot because I think that those of us who were not bullied saw other people get bullied and did not know how to respond to it. And again this boss was enabled by a board that knew about his bullying behavior. He was reported multiple times to the board and I think one time they put him on a -- they were like go to Italy for three months and find yourself.
Ann: Oh my god.
(3:55)
Aminatou: And they thought that would solve problems. It's like no, he literally went to the most beautiful place in the world to recharge the bully batteries.
Ann: Ugh.
Aminatou: And then came back even worse. And so there was . . .
Ann: That makes me nauseous. Physically ill.
Aminatou: I know. There was a lot of yelling and there was a lot of screaming, and again it wasn't directed towards me but I had to live with the consequences of that every day and it was a work environment that was really . . . that was definitely the job that every morning that I woke up I had a knot in my stomach and I didn't know that you weren't supposed to feel that way about work. And every day as soon as I got close to the door I just felt like I wanted to throw up. I was like oh, maybe I'm not built for offices. It's like no, I'm just not built for bullying environments. [Laughs] That's the issue.
Ann: Oh my god. I really relate to what you were saying about working alongside people who are the targets of really horrible bullying behavior by bosses because you're right about it being an environment thing, right? It's not just the person who is being targeted by this boss who is affected. When I think about the worst bosses that I've ever had in most cases I was not bearing the brunt of their bad behavior, you know? The hands-down worst boss I ever had who I can name because it's totally public is this guy Don Hazen, he used to be the editor of Alternet which is a magazine I worked at for two months -- an online magazine I worked at for two months.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Ann: Because I immediately started looking for a new job after I was hired. Anyway you can listen to an episode of This American Life all about his bad behavior which is why it's fine to name him. But I will say that I knew almost all the women who are interviewed in that episode and I knew many other women who were victimized by this guy. And even though he said a couple of shitty things to me and did do things like slam doors in my face I came to really dread any email that ended in a winky face emoticon because it always contained his worst vitriol. Then he would sign off with like that -- the sideways winky face would haunt me.
(5:55)
But mostly I felt some kind of complicity or guilt that I was not on the receiving end of as much shit as a lot of the women I was working with. And I know of course that it's not my fault that he was mistreating me and his other employees and I just didn't happen to have it as bad as other people, not my fault, but also trying to figure out how to navigate that and be an ally to those people. I remember when I took another job and got out just that feeling of like oh my god, I am leaving these people behind in this environment.
Aminatou: Yeah.
Ann: The worst.
Aminatou: Yeah, the absolute worst. And also just the . . . obviously hindsight is everything, so you see it more in context and I think that in the culture we're having more conversations about this. Like I think about these bullying bosses so much because when I think about some of the worst stories that have come out from basically the men that have been fired in the Me Too movement, in addition to being harassers a lot of them were bullies.
Ann: Oh completely.
Aminatou: A lot of them are bullies. And I think we're at a place where yeah, you probably should not harass people at work. We have laws against that. Whether they're followed or not is a different issue. But the bullying question is so pervasive, and it's so hard to talk about. It's so hard to talk about because you're pointing towards this behavior that in some ways does not code as discriminatory in the way that we talk about discrimination. But this is the canary in the coal mine of a lot of other things. It's like if you're getting away with literally bullying people at work what else are you getting away with? And if we can't talk about bullies how are we even supposed to talk about harassment? And that's something that's always in the back of my mind and I just, you know . . . now I am #blessed to work with people that I like a lot.
Ann: Gina and I don't bully you. [Laughs]
(7:50)
Aminatou: I know, you and Gina do not. Whatever the opposite of bullying is is what I get. I get too much love and support and that's its own problem because I am not built to be this loved and supported.
Ann: Aww.
Aminatou: Yeah, I'm like that's the heart of my darkness. My coworkers love me.
Ann: [Laughs]
Aminatou: Like they care about my well-being. I can't handle it. But I've gotten to make my own work environment and I think that in thinking about that I'm also understanding that work environments are designed, you know? And whether you do something about it or not is also by design. I'm like you are making your work environment by whatever your behavior is. And you're so right about that survivor's guilt. There's just this feeling of knowing that. I'm like I know people who are in terrible work situations and I personally cannot do anything about it but also it should not be my responsibility to do anything about it. And I'm just wondering how as a society we are really thinking about this because we spend so much time at work. You're spending more time at work than you spend at home so work should be amazing.
Ann: Totally. And I think a couple of things. One is that listening to you talk about bullying behavior being an indication that you cannot respect other boundaries and you do not know how to ethically use your power is true. But I think when you take sex out of the equation or flirtation or anything in that realm out of the equation it becomes very quickly this kind of slippery slope between bullying behavior to well I just demand a lot of my staff.
Aminatou: Mm-hmm.
Ann: It can be very difficult to say -- and especially because I think even good bosses are not going to be praising you all the time. Of course a good boss is not always going to say you're doing a great job if you're not. So finding that line from okay, this is someone who is actually engaging in toxic workplace behavior and is demanding way too much, like that is outside your job description, that is outside the bounds of employment law even, and then on the other hand this is just like hey, you signed up for a hard job in a difficult field and sometimes we have deadlines. Like there is a lot of gray area between those two poles. And I think that is one thing that makes bullying in particular something that is more pervasive and in many ways harder to talk about.
Aminatou: Yeah.
(10:15)
Ann: And the other thing I want to mention as you used this term survivor's guilt, and that is 100 percent how I felt when I moved on from this job, and I think that in large part because it is a privilege to be able to leave a job where you are bullied and otherwise mistreated. I think it should not be but in many cases your ability to leave depends on your financial security net, possibly even what kind of money your family has. It has to do with your education and connections. All the other things that lead people to get early jobs and move up in their careers are the kinds of things that keep them in jobs that are awful for them. So I just want to say that I think that was also bound up in some of my feelings was knowing that people at that workplace, it wasn't that they were sticking around because they thought it was going to get better; it's like they didn't have another option. And so I just feel like that has to be said as part of this conversation too.
Aminatou: Right. I think that you're correct in saying that. I also think that a thing that is really complicated for me in hearing you say that is I know that's true at a lot of job levels but there are also job levels at which that is not true. Like job security is something that everybody should have right?
Ann: Totally.
Aminatou: And I think that depending on the kinds of structures that you and I are talking about are corporate structures. And so when I think about what it means to be in a workforce that is that tough, I think that it's completely -- you're correct, it is completely unfair to ask people to step away from their dream careers because the behavior is bad which is essentially what all of Me Too has been. It's whenever you think about so many women who are like I wanted to be a costume designer, I wanted to be an actor, I wanted to be this, then now they're doing something else, that makes me physically sick because you should not have to be the one that bears the brunt of that. But I also think that it is true in certain corporate structures -- I'm thinking about tech in particular -- where the capitalism is very . . . it's laid bare to you when you walk into that lion's den and it's probably true in banking and it's true in some industries. And I want to be really clear that I'm not saying that people choose to go work at places that are bad. Like no, bosses should not be bad and structures should not be bad. But I don't know that it is sustainable for people to think that you can go work somewhere that already has a reputation for being bad and thinking that you have to tough it out, you know? Of saying well I work in, I don't know, say a very tough kind of startup environment or I'm working at a -- not going to name the bank or venture or whatever that everybody knows is bad.
(12:55)
And their work in particular is fueled by a kind of capitalism that is also toxic and this thing of telling yourself whether you're going and saying "I think I'm going to change it. I'm going to change the culture." I'm like hmm, one person doesn't change the culture so that's not what you're doing. But you are subjecting yourself to a place that's really hard. I think the only way you can make that work is by telling yourself that if it gets to a point where you can no longer sustain it you can leave. And the truth is some of those jobs do pay enough that you have the privilege of leaving but at the same time can you put a price on your own mental health? And can you put a price on your own integrity? That's something I negotiated all the time in my time in tech. I left because I wanted to, not because I felt that imperative to.
But I do think that should also be part of the culture and I think that's very different -- you know, for me it's very different if you're someone who say is working in customer service at a tech company. I'm like you are nowhere in the power structure that you are getting equity and you're . . . whatever. You're the bottom of the food chain versus someone who is like an engineering leader or you are someone who is very comfortably middle-class and a college degree and this job skill you have you can move somewhere else. The price will be high for you, but I think it is also very naïve at this point with all of the reporting and everything that we know for people to think there are places you can go work where you will singlehandedly make it better or that you should tough it out for whatever your professional career reasons are.
(14:25)
Ann: Right. And I think that what we're both saying is the circumstances are different depending on your experience level and how connected you are to people. You know, this is not like a . . .
Aminatou: And also how secure you feel in yourself.
Ann: Sure.
Aminatou: I think that sometimes -- I don't know, because once you start saying . . . when you put it that way, I was like structurally then I feel differently about say a marginalized person who is working in this kind of environment than I feel about pretty much any white person who is working in this kind of environment, right? And I think that so much of it is decoupling your own feelings from the . . . it's like what is going on here, you know? And I think that a lot of times all I am trying to say, and I feel like I'm being very careful in choosing my words because yeah, I was like work should not be tough. That's just the bottom line for me. I'm like whether you work at Blackrock or you work in the Army or you work at a tech company or you work at a hospital it should not be hard. We should be treating people with respect and dignity.
But I also think so many feelings about your amount of privilege or your amount of being able to step away, a lot of that feels very personal and the structural issues sometimes do not match up. The structural realities do not match up to the own personal feelings you have about your place in the world.
Ann: I want to go back to that thing about how it can be a slippery slope or there's a lot of gray area between this is an outright toxic work situation or a really bullying boss and then this is someone who is just demanding a lot for a short period of time while we get through a deadline. Because when I think about that like work should not be hard, like that is true in a kind of this is crushing my soul, grinding, everyday reality. I feel personally dismissed. My humanity is not present here. You know, feelings like that, I totally agree that should not be a part of anyone's working experience. But have I had jobs -- have I worked for bosses where it's been hard? Like really hard at multiple points? The answer is yeah. And I think that that has not necessarily always been in a toxic environment or for a bullying boss.
Aminatou: Yeah.
(16:24)
Ann: And so I think that can be very difficult for yourself as a human. It's sort of like that feeling of oh, is what's happening some kind of bigotry or bias towards me? Or am I just seeing things that don't exist? You know, like that kind of societal-level gas-lighting that happens to people I think is also present in this situation where you're like oh, is it that I can't hack it in this difficult deadline period or in the run-up to this meeting or whatever it is that's the thing that everyone is freaking out about in your workplace at that moment? Or is it that this is an ongoing negative environment that is fundamentally awful for me? And I think some of how you come down on that question really is a what is your personal orientation towards work and capitalism, you know?
Aminatou: Yeah, yeah. I agree with you. I also think that so much of this conversation for me too is about where you come down on the dignity of work just period because you and I are a particular strata of worker. We were groomed to gun for a certain kind of job. And I think that a lot of people who are listening to the podcast are the same. It's like you work really hard and then you land in some sort of office where you work your way up and you do this thing. And so many times, especially when I was working in tech and people would complain, and whether it was that thing of the work was really hard in that moment but it was personally challegning or it's no, work is hard because maybe our company is doing something evil.
Ann: [Laughs]
(17:54)
Aminatou: Both times a question I would ask all the time is personally why am I still here? I was like maybe I should be a carpenter. Maybe I -- you know, I was like maybe my skill and my passion is somewhere else. But I was raised in a way that there's only a certain kind of job that I know to look at and feel that I can do. That's something that I think about all the time where it's like no, we don't all have to work in media. Actually probably we shouldn't. And I thought this also a lot when we were living in D.C. and struggling so much where it's like why am I struggling so much for this job that pays me less than $30,000 a year?
Ann: We both struggled so hard for less than $30,000 a year. [Laughs]
Aminatou: I know. But now I think about that all the time and I was like wow, I could've done something else with my life. I could've, right? But at the time, and something I'm really ashamed of, is at the time I didn't think so. I did not think that there was another category of job that was something that I should aspire to or that I should strive for. And I think that so much of that is how we raise people. It's the system you go into the minute you go to college. It's just the way we talk about jobs is also very reductive and there are, you know, there's just all kinds of occupations that are also dignified. And I think for me at the end of the day it was really saying to myself I need to figure out a way to pay for the life that I want to live and however I do that should be a way that I am happy and fulfilled. But that is a new framework and I wish that I had had that from age 16 onwards.
Ann: I want to bring this back to bosses because I think when I think about the bad bosses that I have had they have really exploited all of the stuff that you are describing and really kind of stoked my insecurities about my ability to find another job or to do the kind of work I really wanted to do at that job or elsewhere. And that is really I think a hallmark of this person is not asking a lot of me because we are going through a difficult growth period or something is in the immediate future that we're all working towards really hard. That's a sign that this person is like trying to keep my salary low, keep me here, suck me like a leech until I am fully dry and unable to even contemplate hunting for a job somewhere else. So yeah, so just to bring that feeling back to bosses because I think it is very much related in that sense of does this boss actually care that I'm learning things and gaining new skills and maybe considering all the options available to me both within this work environment and elsewhere? Those are the kinds of questions that a good boss will be prompting.
(20:40)
Aminatou: All I can think of is when Cardi's like "You're a worker, bitch." [Laughter] It's like yeah, you're either the boss or you're a worker. Yeah, you know, it's interesting too because I'm thinking a lot about my own career development and by the time I got to a place where I was managing people and it was very clear that I was also on this track to be a boss, I'm not saying that I had compassion for the bad bosses but I started to understand how bad bosses are made, you know?
Ann: Oh, it's hard to be a boss. Yeah.
Aminatou: I was like yeah, you have no support. No one teaches you how to be a boss. Everyone is cosplaying the last boss that they had or the boss they wish they had, it's one of those two things. And on top of that there is so much pressure and there's so much insecurity. And I've worked at great companies and some of them do have support where you're like okay, great, they're going to send you to a manager training. You're actually going to learn the ropes of how do I do my own job and also be a coach for all these other people? Like a coach and a therapist and a mom for everyone, but on top of that I have to do my own work every day and I have 17 meetings a day. You have to stay on top of everything.
(21:40)
I started to see the structure of that and it would just make me mad, because I was like if you were running -- say you were a CEO of somewhere, wouldn't you want everyone who's in charge of someone at your company to be the best kind of boss they could have so you could get the best kind of work out of every single human being there? You would think it were that simple but that's not what happens. The realization too that any time that your boss takes something out on you it's probably because somebody took something out on them, that you're like oh, I am paying for the sins of someone else in the trickle-down structure that I'm in, is a feeling that took me a really long . . . it was always a pervasive feeling I had.
And once I started seeing all those pieces on the chessboard I was like yeah, this is a . . . organizational structures are in shambles and people at the bottom of them suffer the most. The people at the bottom of them have the least information, the least transparency, and suffer the most about everything that's going on. Here is a kind of hierarchy we have that really butts up against every messaging that capitalist America tries to lie to you about. It's like we're a family. It's like hmm, no.
Ann: Team. Hey team.
Aminatou: I'm like in families we don't have bosses. [Laughs] you know, in families people usually treat each other better. And also work is work; it's not family. That's one of I think the biggest lives that young people believe when they go work at some of these newfangled however they're recruiting people now.
Ann: Newfangled. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Whatever thing. I'm old. But I hear it all the time. I see it all the time. People are like "Oh, we're a family here. We're this." I'm like no, you're not a family. Your family does not pay you money to show up like five days a week somewhere. [Laughs] This is not how this works.
Ann: No, your family emotionally blackmails you to show up.
Aminatou: Right. I was like that's different. [Laughter] I'm like you're poor and hurt. But, you know, it's just that really all of the messages around how you are supposed to be at work, they're convoluted with all these other messages about how you're supposed to be in community and society with people and it never matches up. It's like well actually if your work did care about you we would pay everyone fair wages. We would just do that in America. If work were family all of these -- you know, I think especially in places that are prone to saying that, I was like hmm, if you are a fast food restaurant and you're lying to your hourly employees about how you want to treat them you actually have a mechanism for making them feel good and for families like pay them a living wage. Let's just do that.
Ann: Mm-hmm.
(24:00)
Aminatou: And, you know, it's like pay the women in your company the same that you pay . . . companies, it's almost like you don't collect the salary information and you have no idea about the inequity that is happening. [Laughs]
Ann: It's almost like you don't want to know about the inequity that's happening, yeah.
Aminatou: Right! And I'm like they know and then people just leave feelings so confused and so hurt and I think so much about all of the bad messaging that I received as a new person in the workforce and how confusing that is to your sense of self, especially when you come in with all of these ideals or you come in with just a very clear sense of who you want to be in the workforce and what you want to achieve and that just does not line up with the reality a lot of times of how it shakes out in the professional world.
Ann: Let's take a quick break.
[Ads]
(27:24)
Aminatou: Well one thing that's definitely been interesting, I'm using interesting in the Midwest sense of the word interesting.
Ann: Hmm.
Aminatou: Hmm, interesting. Hmm.
Ann: The judgiest interesting. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Interesting. One thing that's really interesting in this conversation about bad bosses, because I think that we're seeing a lot of reporting about both workplaces that are trying to organize themselves or bad bosses just being really exposed in a way that I don't think was true even a decade ago, at least for me, or maybe it's just that these industries are more relevant, and that we're seeing actual consequences, is a lot of this reporting is also about women behaving badly in the workforce.
Ann: Right, it's not only male bosses.
(28:00)
Aminatou: Yeah, it's not only male bosses who are bad bosses. That conversation is interesting to me on so many levels because on one hand you have the people who are like "If they were a man would you talk about them like this?" And you're like well they're a literal lady CEO so yes. [Laughs] We would talk about them like this. But also the truth of, you know, sometimes feeling like some of these stories are contextualized in a way that doesn't always sit right with me or that it is inevitable that if the boss is a woman that is a huge factor in how we talk about it. And that's not to excuse the bad behavior but there is a nuance there. One iconic bad boss -- iconic is the wrong word -- but one, you know, very . . .
Ann: Recently noteworthy.
Aminatou: Recently noteworthy, yeah. She's not iconic at all, but one noteworthy bad boss . . .
Ann: Wow. [Laughs]
Aminatou: I mean, you know, bad behavior is not iconic is what I mean. Bad behavior is but bad behavior is . . . [Laughs] is Amy Klobuchar. And that story is interesting to me on so many levels because on one hand it has so many echoes of bullying, these very pervasive bullying, even some of these very pervasive Me Too stories in the sense that everyone is like everyone knows. And you're like well, you know, who is everyone and how do they know and how is that -- what is that? And now it is out in the public. And so I think the incident that so many people refer to is her throwing a comb at one of her staffers.
Ann: Can I just back out?
Aminatou: Yes.
Ann: I just want to read the . . .
Aminatou: Please do. Please read it.
Ann: It's from a year ago so I feel like -- it feels like . . .
Aminatou: It's only been a year? It feels like a decade of my life.
Ann: Yes. It feels like a decade and yesterday.
Aminatou: Tell me.
Ann: Anyway, so the headline of this New York Times article is How Amy Klobuchar Treats Her Staff. And the first line of the article is "Senator Amy Klobuchar was hungry for Clifs and losing patience." And it goes on to describe a trip to South Carolina in 2008 where an aide had gotten her a salad and he had forgotten to get a plastic fork or whatever. He didn't have a plastic fork for her salad. And so here's the New York Times: "What happened next was typical. Miss Klobuchar berated her aide instantly for the slipup. What happened after that was not; she pulled a comb from her bag and began eating a salad with it according to four people familiar with the episode."
Aminatou: Shudder.
(30:25)
Ann: Then she handed the comb to her staff member with a directive: clean it. So yeah, then the article goes on to say that many of her former aides say that she wasn't just demanding, i.e. that kind of good but tough boss we were talking about earlier, but often dehumanizing. Not merely a tough boss in a capital full of them but a steward of a work environment colored by volatility, high-handedness, and distrust. So that is sort of like a recent -- yeah.
Aminatou: Wow. That look is quite a look. Part of the problem for me is we have, you know, I get that executives are busy and I understand that they need support but . . .
Ann: And a senator is an executive.
Aminatou: Right, and a senator is definitely an executive and a campaign or going to visit your home state or whatever, I understand the things that need to happen. But the line between a boss that is tough and demanding and a boss who is dehumanizing is actually a very bright line. There's not a -- you know, you're not like walking some sort of fine line there. For me it's well, are you asking people to do their job or are you asking them to be your nanny and your babysitter and to pick up your kids and to do whatever the things are that make your life possible? I understand getting lunch for your boss but Amy Klobuchar maybe you should carry your own fucking forks around, you know? So that it's not someone's job to do that for you all the time. And I know the push-back against this is the executive is all -- you know, they have to use all their brainpower to do other things. But I do think that we ask people to do tasks that are not appropriate in the workplace.
(32:00)
Ann: Yeah. I mean this story is interesting to me because actually the fork anecdote -- the comb fork anecdote that leads it.
Aminatou: [Laughs] Also can we just talk for two seconds about eating with a fork? I really want to stay there.
Ann: With a comb?
Aminatou: With a comb. What?
Ann: Do you think it was like a scoop method?
Aminatou: Ann I've thought about this so much and every time there's a comb in my house I look at it and I go how? And I don't understand.
Ann: Also there is something that is so viscerally gross about that. The idea of a thing that is in hair being the thing -- you know what I mean?
Aminatou: I know. Wouldn't you just eat the salad with your hands?
Ann: I would 100 percent finger food that salad. There's no question. [Laughter]
Aminatou: I know! Call us. We'll teach you this.
Ann: But I mean the thing is the . . .
Aminatou: Future president Amy Klobuchar. [Laughs]
Ann: But the thing about this article is okay, so that -- and it's funny because you remember that as throwing a comb at the staffer or whatever.
Aminatou: Right.
Ann: And, you know, I think it is really -- it is such a funny and concrete image, you know? But the rest of this article is her basically being like I'm a tough boss, I have high expectations, and other people being like it's too much essentially.
Aminatou: Right. Also who is not a tough boss who has high expectations? That's how you get there first of all.
Ann: Right. And I think this is really hard for -- I actually feel like if you were like "Go on the record. Is she a bad boss?" I'm like I don't know. You know what I mean? There are people saying like "I felt dehumanized in this work environment." And I think that is 100 percent valid and worth considering. And for me the answer that is like listen, I am like a sitting senator. I'm campaigning. I'm always busy. This is just how I have to treat the people who work for me. You know, like that thing you said earlier about my time is valuable and I need to use all my brain for this. That excuse, it makes sense to me, like why she thinks that is an excuse, and also you can choose to be better than the standard that has been set around you for people who have your job.
(34:05)
Aminatou: I guess the reason that excuse doesn't sit well with me is because I don't believe that a terrorized workforce is an effective workforce.
Ann: Sure.
Aminatou: You know? I'm like it's just not true. I think it costs you nothing to not be mean to people. There's not a way to give someone your comb and say "Clean it" that's the appropriate way of doing that. I was like no, this entire scenario.
Ann: I actually think there kind of is.
Aminatou: Oh my god. Turns out you're a tough boss. [Laughs]
Ann: Let me tell you the alternate reality for the comb story. Okay, the comb story is the aide is like "Here's your salad. I'm so sorry. There weren't any forks." And she's like okay, what could I possibly eat? Let's talk about this. And they're like "Okay, here's a comb," and they laugh about it together. Like what is more ridiculous than eating your salad with a comb? Then after she has completed the salad she's like "Listen, would you mind . . ." There's a nice way to ask and there's a nice way to joke about it as opposed to being like "You fucked up, now wash this. Clean it." That's what I'm saying.
Aminatou: You know, I guess we're saying the same thing. I think that again the responsibility is on you and the way you treat the people that are around you.
Ann: Totally.
Aminatou: If you need someone to do -- it's not their job function to wash your fork at work. It's just not. Even if you are the CEO of blah, blah, blah, it's not. That's not a real job. You ask people to do that for you and you ask them nicely and that's how that system perpetrates itself. I was like even your executive assistant is not there to do very menial tasks that we're asking of people, but you can ask them nicely and then we can all deal with it. But I guess my point was just saying that the excuse of you can be someone who is professionally demanding of the people with you, everyone at the highest level of work is that way. You don't get to the top by, you know -- who is the not-ambitious person who suddenly is catapulted?
Ann: The person with no expectations.
(35:54)
Aminatou: Right, the person with no expectations. But I just think for me so much of this is like how are you -- what do you think of the people around you? And would you speak to people who work for you in a way that you would not like to be spoken to? And that's not like a . . . that should probably take up a little bit of your brain power. Because again I just don't think you are being the effective leader that you think you are. Everyone is just scared of you. That New York Times piece also goes into retention in her office and it says that she's had the highest rate of turnover in Congress.
Ann: One of the highest, yeah.
Aminatou: One of the highest. If people don't stay working for you is it that you're demanding or is it that you're a nightmare? Who doesn't want to work for a demanding boss that will make them be their best person? So this narrative just does not line up for me.
Ann: I mean some people don't but probably not people who want to work for a senator, yeah.
Aminatou: Yeah, not people who want to work for a senator. I'm like what? I think it's very demeaning of the people who work for them because they know. You're like "Hello? I'm here. I would like also to be the best." The legislative assistant wants to be the best. The LD wants to be the best. This is the whole point, and you want to support them to do their best work. Asking someone to wash your utensils, that's no one's job.
Ann: Right. And I think what's interesting when we start talking about bad bosses who are women is that there is a truth that when women are saying things neutrally it is perceived as more direct or, you know, more shrill or more insert your stereotype here. It's like among people of all genders who have a woman who is in a position of power over them they tend to perceive words and directives and things like that in more negative ways than if a man is like "Do this. Do that." So that is true, and it is also true that that is something that bad bosses who are women hide behind, you know? Both of those things are true.
So I think it can be very difficult like, you know, when this story about Amy Klobuchar first came out or when I've read any number of other articles about bad bosses who are women to kind of say like okay, I am weighing what I know about stereotypes against what I know about my expectation for bosses. And also what I understand about power which is to say when you come into a position of power in an institution like the Senate where there are expectations about how you're -- air quotes here -- "allowed" to treat the most junior aides who work for you the odds are not stacked in your favor for really kind of reforming the system and doing it your way. And it's like you were saying earlier about people who join a workplace at a mid- or lower-level thinking they can reform it. I actually think that some of those problems extend all the way to the top, like you in theory have more power to reform it. But like, you know, the system is powerful and already in place and it's bigger than you.
(38:35)
Aminatou: Yeah, the gears have been grinding.
Ann: Grinding.
Aminatou: Since before you got here
Ann: Well I feel like this is one reason we want to talk about it is because these are the kinds of things we talk about when we consider a lot of the companies that have wanted to advertise with us, when there are . . . you know, I think that it becomes very real not just with companies led by women but as we try to think about how do we weigh accounts of what's happening internally at various places who are potential advertisers or people who we might want to work with outside of CYG? Do I take an assignment from an editor I know people say is a joke or whatever? I mean like for me very personally it is like a thing, yeah.
Aminatou: Right. And I think that everyone has kind of their own system for how they deal with that. I think even internally with our podcast we bring different feelings and different views on this and it has been really hard to have a standard because I think whenever we get into this tussle of, you know, our show runs on advertising. Surprise. If you're listening you get a show for free every Friday because we have chosen a model that we feel is the best model that works for us. And every time we get into this conversation of like this advertiser is in the news for doing something bad or we know personally that this is an environment that does not work, sometimes we are 100 percent aligned and it's like not acceptable that -- you know, like it's fine. And then other times really what the larger question is is should we be taking advertising at all? Because . . .
(40:08)
Ann: The can of worms factor is real, yeah.
Aminatou: Right. It's like here's the actual can of worms, right? Here's the truth. We know what we know about companies that are being reported about but we also know what we know about the workforce and capitalism. There could be a profile of pretty much every single company that advertises on the podcast about how they're doing something wrong.
Ann: In various categories: environmentally, human resources.
Aminatou: Right.
Ann: The product is bad. The list is -- they've run an ad somewhere else that is racist or homophobic. There's a million reasons, yeah.
Aminatou: Right. It's -- you're so right about pointing that out. It's not this like cut-and-dry just "Oh, they're bad to women at work."
Ann: Yeah.
Aminatou: It's like hmm, they're bad to a lot of . . .
Ann: And I would say a bad boss or bad work environment is one amongst dozens of things that may or may not come to light about every company. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Right. And I think it has been a very . . . I don't know. I think for me that's the thing I keep coming back to of I understand why we make these decisions and obviously sanction all the decisions that we have made personally. But I think it's also just a headache in that everything is a slippery slope once you . . . you know, slippery slope probably not the right imagery here but yeah, it's the can of worms. It's like the minute that you start examining one of these . . .
Ann: It's a can of worms rolling down a slippery slope. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Right, the canary in the coal mine deal. [Laughs]
Ann: Into the coal mine where it knocks into the canary.
Aminatou: And, you know, I think of this both as a creator but also as a consumer because I've also been on the other side of like I'm the person listening and why is this ad running on my favorite show? Why is this person I respect making this choice about something? And so I understand that visceral feeling of just like ugh, this does not sit right with me or feeling like they're being a hypocrite in that moment or not. But I think that understanding the economics of it too I'm like I get it. I get it but I know emotionally it does not sit right with me.
(42:05)
Ann: And I think that it frequently comes up for us in this very particular context which is that -- I'm going to quote from this article that Rebecca Greenfield wrote in Bloomberg Business Week about companies that are run by women and are sort of critiqued on an HR level. She writes "Here's how it often goes: a woman starts a company that caters to female consumers better than what's out there. The company uses that market differentiator to sell itself as a warrior in the fight for greater equality. Then it turns out that the company itself is in some way not living up to the inspiring ideals that it's virtually made its raisons d’être. I was like its raisins of etra? [Laughter] Sorry, I was like . . .
Aminatou: I just understood what you were trying to say. Now I'm dying.
Ann: Me too. I'm sorry. Also I cut and pasted it so it wasn't italicized.
Aminatou: See? All these days that I'm trying to teach you French and you're refusing, it has now all come to a head.
Ann: 2022 goal there. Anyway, but I think that that is a good summary of the type of advertising that we often get on this show because we have a large audience that is dominated by people who identify as women and companies that are catering to women as consumers in a new way are drawn to advertising on podcasts and on our podcast in particular. And so there is this level of, much in the same way we've discussed, that there is like a higher -- a perceived higher sort of standard for us because of our professed beliefs so there is also a higher standard for a lot of these companies. And I think in many ways that's justified. Like I think that we are -- we do think hard about who do we absolutely say we won't work with? And what are the kinds of ways we want to conduct our business as people who are also bosses ourselves now together. But I really struggle with I don't have a clear feeling for myself on whether it is warranted, if you are making your money on, you know, professed feminist ideals for lack of a better shorthand, if you are expected to be X percentage more feminist in all of your ways of working. And I feel like the answer, I want to say yes even though that standard is really, really . . .
Aminatou: Wow. You would say yes. Interesting.
(44:25)
Ann: Well it is interesting because I actually feel like -- with a caveat. Sorry. I would say yes, with a caveat that you are working within a system where many times the only way to make it work at all is to compromise those values at least some. And so I guess I think we have generally come down on the side of trying to be transparent about where we make the compromises, but I think the fact that we just don't say yes to everything that crosses our desk is a sign that yeah, we are applying a kind of political or values lens to the way we do our business and I think that's right.
Aminatou: No, I think that's right and I'm proud to do it. It's also interesting about I guess what the thing is that we think we're doing, like I don't believe that Call Your Girlfriend -- the business, right? Not whatever, maybe the podcast here. I don't believe that we are a feminist company. I was like never. I was like we are feminists who have a company but the fact that we're peddling in capitalism already you that we're compromised from the beginning and that's always an understanding that I've had. You know, companies that make like t-shirts that I like or stores that are run by cool feminists that I love, that has always been my understanding where like I understand what you say your values are but I also understand that those values are not tenable under capitalism so . . . or not tenable but they're already compromised and so this is what we're doing. The other end of this for me, like the place where I think I chafe at a lot from some of the reaction, hearing you say are we held to a higher standard? I reject the higher standard and I chafe at the higher standard because again this is why whenever people who say that they're feminists -- and I don't mean, you know, the empoweritizing people, let's get real here. For people who say that they are feminists or for people who say that they are just as focused people who also start businesses, those businesses fail all the time because the support is not there.
(46:25)
So hearing from listeners we don't like that you're doing this or we don't like that you're doing that, the question there for me is like well is there enough of you that you can actually make a difference in how business is made? Are you, by holding some people that you like to a higher standard, are you contributing to the fact that there is just less of an opportunity for people who -- I won't say good values because I will not position my values as good, I cannot make that judgment, but are you holding back people who have a very particular bent about justice from participating in business at all? And I think that's a thing that as consumers people should have to contend with all the time.
Whenever we get these emails I'm like when is the last time you emailed CNN or someone who is like a bigger fish in our ecosystem to hold them accountable the same way that you are trying to hold us accountable? And so I don't know, I think about that a lot because I'm also that consumer. So it's a very uncomfortable kind of feeling but I also think it's something that we can all -- the only way to navigate it is with more transparency. It's not with . . . I certainly do not feel under assault by people questioning the kinds of like where my money comes from. So this is not one of these like I'm complaining about the critique that I get. I'm like no, the critique is valid and the critique is good and I think also this is how we all sharpen each other but I think that it is worth putting everything on the table then. Where it's like well then what is the place for people with strong values to participate at all in having their own businesses? And I don't know what the answer to that is.
(48:05)
Ann: Right. And I think much like the difficulty in delineating the difference between like oh, this is like . . . this is actually like a bullying boss and this is just a workplace where I'm being pushed to work hard, you know what I mean? Like the way that that difference is difficult, I actually really struggle myself with the difference between I want to conduct this business in a way that aligns with our professed values. And that's not even like good values, whatever. Just our values.
Aminatou: Just values.
Ann: Our professed values, yeah. That to me, it has to be -- there is some kind of middle ground between that and everything is dirty, like we say yes to everything. You know what I mean?
Aminatou: Right, and we don't. So we are somewhere in that messy middle right? And I think that the way that this ties back in for me specifically about this bad boss conversation is it affects everyone. Whether you work in these places or not the stink is on all of us now. And so the point of like it's more complicated than someone just being a bad boss, it has a ripple effect. Also I think if you are a person who is thoughtful it makes you think a lot about how entrenched you are in the system, whether you are in that company or not. And I just wish that in our industry, and in particular in podcasting, that it were something that everyone was having more transparent conversations about.
Ann: Yeah. I think it's also worth noting is that one thing we often try to do is if there is an article about some behavior that an advertiser we have had is undertaking, so alleged behavior or they do something that we do not think is values-aligned, often there is a behind-the-scenes back channel where we ask follow-up questions about it where we try to get more information, where we're like how are you addressing this? And frankly how those advertisers respond to those queries also informs how we make decisions going forward.
Aminatou: Right.
(50:00)
Ann: Because I think one reason why it is fair to say if you have these professed values what are you doing about it, the what are you doing about it isn't always just why aren't you rejecting these ads? Some of it is how are you exercising your power as a person that these people want to be in business with to say . . .
Aminatou: I feel very comfortable about how we are exercising our power.
Ann: Exactly. And I guess I think it's worth saying explicitly that that is sort of how I negotiate some of that gray area between it's all capitalism, who cares? And we are being held to an unfair standard of purity, right? It's like how are you using the power you have? And I also think of this in other consumer contexts of like my friends who watch football, I'm like where are you petitioning for whatever rules for head injury? I don't know, they don't care about me. I'm not a fan.
Aminatou: Right.
Ann: But like, you know -- sorry, that's like a ridiculous left field example but . . . [Laughter]
Aminatou: Your one football player fan friend is going to lose it.
Ann: I have two football player fan friends or football fan friends, okay? [Laughter] But I guess we're talking about it in the context of this episode because this particular charge of a company led by a bad boss, and often a company that has sort of like feminist-lite (TM) marketing.
Aminatou: Yeah.
Ann: This is something that we grapple with. And so to make that point about a bigger -- your point is very well-taken that a bad boss is not just affecting the environment within. And I think, you know, I want to live in a world where stories like this continue to come out so that people who work for bosses who are maybe struggling to find the like okay, is this normal or not? To have an article written that's like actually this is not normal behavior that you feel this way, or actually you are allowed to walk away or set boundaries when someone is asking for something outside the scope of your job. I want to live in a world where those articles continue to come out and where people who have power to exercise, i.e. like an advertising partner like us or someone who might want to be doing business with that company in another context, can say like hey, I want you to know this is an issue for us and we want to know what you are doing behind-the-scenes to address it. Woof.
Aminatou: Let's take a break.
Ann: Another break. [Laughs] Okay, I have a palate cleanser question for you.
(52:10)
Aminatou: Tell me.
Ann: I would love to hear you describe the best boss you've ever had.
Aminatou: Hmm, I love that I'm pretending it's taking me really long to think about. [Laughs] I've had two bosses that they were really effective in how they taught me to get better when I messed something up, you know? Because my pervasive feeling probably until I was 31 was every day it didn't matter if I did well or bad at work that day. I was like every day you're going to get fired.
Ann: No!
Aminatou: I'm just like someone's going to let you go. That was the fear in the belly every day. And I remember one time, like the first time I fucked something up royally at work -- with the help of someone else I might add -- just having a boss that was like, you know, there was a fire to fix the thing. It was like yes, it does not feel pleasant, especially when you work in client services, it's like if you mess up it actually looks bad for someone else. So we were rushing to fix the thing for the client and that was not pleasant at all because it's just like yeah, you messed up so we're doing it. And still at the end of the day I did not feel like I was personally being reprimanded. It was like yeah, this is bad, it can happen at work, and it's not the end of the world and here's what we're going to learn from it. And so that was a thing. We had this meeting probably that week where it was very much like how do we learn from this mistake that was made? And never once was I made the center of the mistake. I remember that very, very, very clearly. And my boss taking some of the responsibility of like oh yeah, you are kind of new here. Here's how the system failed everyone including you, and how do we make that not happen?
I just remember there's a way to do that kind of thing where you make the person feel very small and instead I was like yes, I feel uncomfortable that I am a fuck-up in front of all of my colleagues but also my boss is like we'll all bounce back from this. And in another context had a boss who did something very similar and I think that both times I was like oh yeah, this is kind of the worst kind of place where you can be at work where there's feelings of shame and inadequacy and if the boss steps up and is like okay, we are going to fix it as opposed to you have to fix it yourself, that paid dividends for me later at work and I think contributed so much to making me feel confident as a worker. And I don't know, it felt very generous at the time. I was like you're right, if your brand new baby employee messes something up probably the system has failed this person and not just that they're incompetent. Those are my two good boss examples.
(54:48)
Ann: Inspirational.
Aminatou: Well, you know, who's your best boss?
Ann: When I think about good boss experiences I've had I think about one boss in particular who really let me own the expertise that I had. My experience up to that point had been a lot of bosses who sort of were like yeah, I know this isn't your title but I don't really trust your decision-making ability as a final word.
Aminatou: Hmm.
Ann: And this is a boss who I think maybe even literally was like oh no, I 100 percent trust your judgment. In fact there are many such decisions where you know better than I do. And I think that that really stuck with me because it is appropriately humble, like acknowledging that just because you are sort of organizationally at the top that doesn't mean you are the expert, the be-all, end-all expert of everything your team might be doing.
Aminatou: Yeah.
(55:45)
Ann: It really set a tone for me of understanding like yes, am I ultimately responsible to this person for the good, the bad, everything else? Yes, I do report to them. But I truly felt very empowered to meet the goals we had set or make choices because he was I think literally like I trust you. Because then whether it was like something good or bad and there was like I made mistakes and also did great things, it's like it was very clear that I owned that. And I guess that's a little bit . . . it's almost in some ways the inverse of like okay, if you screw up we'll fix it together. It wasn't that I felt like I was in it alone but it was more just like the sense of yes, you work for me but also you work for yourself and you work for this set of goals that you have that are related to the rest of what we're all doing but independent.
Aminatou: Yeah. It's like I think the ways those two stories are similar, like bosses that make you feel confident at work and make you feel that there are stakes about the things that you do and I think that that's so important. It's so important to just be like yeah, what you do here is important.
Ann: Yep.
Aminatou: And I really like that. Good job that boss.
Ann: I know. And also I really -- that person recognized that I did not work for them, the individual. I worked for myself and my interest in building this skill set and I worked in some ways for the larger organization but I wasn't working "for them" -- air quote -- you know?
Aminatou: I mean you know this is my number one pet peeve right?
Ann: When people are like she works for me? Yeah.
Aminatou: Yeah, when people say that. And people who say that are -- it's particularly grating to me when that person is a middle manager. I'm like don't worry, you work for ten somebodies fool. And it's the most telling thing about how someone feels about their colleagues. It's like no, no one here works for you. You don't own this place.
Ann: Yep.
Aminatou: So they work with you and that's it. And it really -- man, I'm getting stressed out even thinking about it.
Ann: Even a personal assistant, yeah, they're there for some larger reason you know?
Aminatou: Yeah. And also shout-out to the personal assistants because assistants make everything run. That is a skill set that so many people do not have and again it's why the hierarchy of work drives me nuts because it is not rooted in the reality of all of the hands that it takes to keep a place running.
Ann: Totally.
Aminatou: And we reward so much bad behavior and bloated kind of titles and actually most workplaces run because some of the people who get paid the least and get recognized the least do some of the hardest work.
Ann: Because they're managing up, yeah.
Aminatou: Yeah, they're managing up all the time.
Ann: Yep.
Aminatou: And they have an attention to detail and have like the full story of what is going on in a way that so many people in silos do not. So I am . . . whew. Well I'm going to go to my podcast office now with my podcast colleagues who work with me, not for me.
Ann: I almost said I'm hanging up.
Aminatou: You can't hang up. You're sitting across from me. [Laughter]
Ann: I know. I know.
Aminatou: I'm emotionally hanging up on you. Bye!
Ann: See you on the Internet.
Aminatou: Bye. See you on the Internet. You can find us many places on the Internet: callyourgirlfriend.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, we're on all your favorite platforms. Subscribe, rate, review, you know the drill. You can call us back. You can leave a voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. Our logos are by Kenesha Sneed. We're on Instagram and Twitter at @callyrgf. Our associate producer is Jordan Baley and this podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.