When I worked for Miranda Priestly
I didn’t, but this woman was 3x worse imo
I want to talk about a period of my life, one that if I suppress it any further, it’ll be lost to my memory forever.
Remember the scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Miranda asks Andy to procure the unpublished manuscript of the latest Harry Potter book? I was tasked by a boss to get in contact with Elizabeth Holmes’ team to get her as the keynote speaker for some women’s event. This was in 2015, the very same year that lady’s empire came crumbling down in scandal. Unlike Andy, I was not successful and was properly screamed at. One high-level person I did successfully get on the horn, however, was one Harvey Weinstein, and because I couldn’t figure out on the antiquated phone system how to transfer the call without hanging up on them both, I secretly listened in silence.
I had this boss for just six months, the longest six months of my life. Every single day I lost a year of my life driving the long drive down Santa Monica Blvd. to this brick warehouse of an office space. I remember playing the same few songs on loop during my morning commutes each day, certain songs that would calm my nerves and put me in a meditative state so I wouldn’t be tempted to turn around and never return to that office again — or to simply wrap my car around a pole. To this day I cannot listen to those songs because they will elicit a trauma response.
On my way to the interview for the job, I rear-ended someone. We quickly pulled over, and I frantically begged this person to just let us move forward with our mornings; there was no damage after all, I would say. But if you looked closely, her bumper was scuffed. I should’ve took this as an omen, a way of the universe trying to keep me from taking this job. The interview went shockingly well — I responded to her pointed, jabbing, probing questions with casual aplomb. And that same day I accepted the job. They were desperate for a body to fill the role because the last person had unexpectedly quit without notice. I knew she was difficult; it was known not only within the company but within the industry at large. The employee who had been assisting her in the interim showed me around the office while dropping severe warnings about the stress-inducing nature of the job. You had to have a thick skin. Well, of course! That was the standard requirement I’d seen in every industry job listing at that time, in the mid 2010s. How thick did my skin need to be, really?
I don’t know why I took the job. Just to feel something? To throw myself in a fire & see if I could make it out alive? I honest to God cannot place myself in my 25-year-old brain to figure out what the hell was going on in there. I have plenty of anecdotes that I’ve shared about this job over the years, none I’ve ever put pen to paper, and most of which have been shared in inappropriate settings, such as a new employee roundtable where my colleagues stare at my wide-eyed and confused.
There were moments in the job, though, where I felt weirdly powerful. Like I had the keys to this woman’s psyche; I understood her better than anyone else, and I was her gatekeeper. I was given the literal keys to her silver Audi, which I occasionally had to fill with gas. I acted like the Audi was my own. One time I was entrusted with the Audi to pick her up from the airport. After she threw herself into the passenger seat, she kicked off her flats and started taking calls. The smell of body odor and feet nearly knocked me unconscious. She was understandably in a rush to get back to the office, so she had me pull an illegal left turn, which I maneuvered flawlessly.
My singular solace throughout the day — because I had no real friends or even close acquaintances in the office — was the 15 minute stroll to Trader Joe’s during lunchtime. I craved those 15 minutes every day, a replenishment of my sanity meter which by 11am had already been mostly depleted. On some occasions, the Trader Joe’s trip was accompanied by requests from my boss. Simple things like the components of a Caprese salad. I came back from that one particular trip with mozzarella, spinach and cherry tomatoes in tow (she already had her own dressing, olive oil, or whatever). I put them in the refrigerator, retired to my desk with my sad wrap and pinged her that her lunch was in the fridge.
Moments later, I saw her plod out of her office barefoot (she was always barefoot) so heavily that it’s a good thing the floors were made of cement. And then I heard my name bellowed from the kitchen: “BRANDON!” The entire newsroom floor craned their necks to look at me. I got up and scurried to the kitchen. Before her she had the little container of mozzarella balls and the little container of cherry tomatoes. “What am I supposed to do with these?” she demanded. Other than “make a salad” — which I assumed by her tone wasn’t the response she was looking for — I couldn’t come up with anything, so I stayed silent.
The issue was the type of mozzarella — it was supposed to be a log she could cut into slices — and the type of cherry tomatoes — they were supposed to be larger in size so she could cut them in half. She berated me on using my critical thinking skills while those who happened to also be in the kitchen trying to enjoy their lunch in peace were forced to look (and listen) on. In her defense, the need for a specific type of cherry tomato and mozzarella isn’t out of line; I, too, have autism probably.
The art department was a room just off the kitchen, my other vestige of solitude from the chaos of the day. The art director who worked therein would always check on me — the Caprese salad moment included — and she was always on my side, joking about how I had the power to put whatever I wanted into her daily morning coffee; a laxative perhaps.
I inadvertently got some “revenge” during the week of an employee’s birthday celebration. The team had gotten them a cake, which by the last day of the week looked as if a raccoon had gotten to it, and it was getting dry, having sat in the fridge for the week. Nobody had picked at it in a couple days, so I made the executive decision to throw it out. But not only did I throw it out, I aggressively pushed it top down into the trash, so no garbage pickers could have a taste even if they wanted.
Back at my desk, the query bellowed from within my boss’ office: “Is there any of that cake left?” The timing was comic cruelty. Saying “no” wasn’t an option because then it would be an entire diatribe about my judgment skills and, well, why hadn’t I asked her if she would want any before tossing it. And so, I trudged back to the kitchen, removed the now squashed cake out of the trash, set it on the counter and eyed it strategically. There was a way to form a portion of the cake into a cube that could resemble a neatly sliced piece. So that’s what I did.
I remember her later from within her office saying something about how good it tasted. Well good, I’m glad she enjoyed it.
I was deeply involved in my boss’ family affairs, too — it felt like the scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Andy goes upstairs and sees what she isn’t meant to, but it was like that all the time. I was in frequent contact with her husband and her teenage sons. She once had an off-site speaking engagement coming up where all staffers were expected to attend. It wasn’t much of a chore since there’d be food and drink served. She was insistent on her oldest son attending the event; I found it oddly touching, her wanting him to witness her and be impressed by her. On the day of the event, as I corralled her into the venue, she was preoccupied barking at someone on the phone. She eventually thrust that very phone call at me and said something along the lines of, “Get him here.” And so I did mental gymnastics with a teenager to convince him to attend his mother’s work event. He eventually arrived, and the look of satisfaction mid-speech as her eyes panned over from his presence & then to me fueled my will to live for weeks.
The last straw for me was in December when she banned me from taking my annual trip home because she needed me in-person to help her host a personal Christmas party at her house. I probably could’ve adjusted my vacation dates to accommodate, but it was the principle of the thing, and I took it as an opportunity to decide enough was enough. I put in my two weeks notice and was met with an offer (felt like more of a plea) from her to stay on for my full-year term at a 14% increase of salary. I politely declined at which point I was then met with phone calls from her to the tone of veiled threats and guilt-shaming if I went through with my resignation.
To this day, she is the only contact I have blocked in my phone.
hell of a thing to write about me
why was she stinky ijbol