Igor Stevanovic / Alamy

JOURNAL

Bossing Around

I’ve never had a boss. I’m my own boss, and not always a nice one, but at least I know what is going on in my mind. If you are working under someone else, you have no way of knowing what your boss is thinking.

For me as an actor, I can see directors as my bosses, and I have encountered a few extreme cases, but I have usually contented myself with listening to others’ boss horror stories.

A HORROR BOSS is unpredictable. You never know what mood they are in. Their subordinates need to bend over backward to please them.

An overemotional university professor demanded rational behavior from everyone else. The atmosphere in the workplace depended on the professor’s love life. They felt they had the right to dump their troubles and worries on their subordinates.

Sometimes they’d invite one of their subordinates into their office and open up about their problems. If you want to progress in your career, what else can you do but play at being a therapist?

SOME HORROR BOSSES have delusions of grandeur and megalomanic ideas. 

One boss demanded that an office with glass walls be built for them on the roof of the office building. They craved a panoramic view over the city.

Eventually, staff had to invite someone from the city administration to explain why a glass cube cannot just appear on top of a building.

LOWER-LEVEL BOSSES can be the worst.

A friend of mine who works at a theater told me about a colleague who had been promoted. My friend had known them for twenty years.

After the promotion, this colleague became a completely different person. They started to call my friend and their other underlings by their last names. They referred to themselves as “the undersigned.”

GRANT COMMITTEE members can be seen as writers’ bosses. If one of them decides to abuse their position, the author is in trouble.

Once, when my friends and I were spending an evening at a restaurant, we were joined by a man who was then serving as a member of a grant committee. He began to paw me almost immediately, starting with my arms and moving onward.

I felt trapped. How could I reject him in such a way that he wouldn’t do everything he could to reject my grant application at the next committee meeting?

I silently mouthed the words Help me. One of my friends stood up, grabbed my arm, and announced: “Restroom. I need to talk to you.”

MY GRANT APPLICATION was rejected that year.

Anna-Leena Harkonen

Adapted from a collection published by the Booksellers Association of Finland

Published with permission from the author