Maybe you have suffered THAT boss or client..… you know the one… the have to micromanage the details… persistently criticizing something….. no matter how well you do something, they intervene in some way…… They are compelled to put their stamp on your work.
Like a dog relentlessly marking their territory, they must change something… usually not for the better … the endless changes are demoralizing…. they suck the initiative out of a great employee faster than a Mississippi mosquito eating supper.
If this happens, maybe we need a hairy arm.
A long time ago…. before computers and internet…Maya was a young, but very talented and ambitious graphic artist….. and perhaps a bit over confident.
She had just landed the dream job - a staff role at one of New York’s premier publications….. she dove right in…. working every day from dawn to dusk…. But just a few weeks in it became obvious that her dream job was quickly turning into a nightmare.
Fred was the supervisor for the graphics department ….. had been there since Moses parted the waters…. He was not only old school, he invented old school. He lacked any artistic or graphics talent…. Yet somehow, he had battled his way to be supervisor…. Fred knew his weakness and that insecurity drove him to constantly impose unnecessary changes on everyone’s work just to maintain control.
Young Maya resisted the random changes to her work…and Fred was clear he had to bend her…. He corrected Maya’s work relentlessly … she tried harder to please him… only to find that Fred weighed in stronger.. and insisted on changes ….. changes that usually diminished or ruined Maya’s very promising work.
The harder Maya tried to perfect her work the more damage Fred did with his petty corrections - she was on the verge of taking his talents somewhere else.
Late one afternoon Maya was working on a big advertising spread for spring women’s clothes… her most important and challenging assignment yet…. on a short deadline
As was often the case in those days Maya started the layout by reusing velum from a previous advertisement…. she was still working the drawings when Fred came by to weigh in.
He immediately spotted an error…..
“Maya, what the hell is this !?!!” and pointed to a woman’s arms.
Ahhhh..… the previous layout had been for a man and Maya had not yet removed the hair from the arm.
Before she could explain herself, Fred launched in:
“Clean this up, you should know better, this is the type of attention to detail you need to learn !!”
… then nothing….. Maya waited for more criticism ….and changes to the real substance of the work – proportions, colors, shading, coloring…... nothing.
Maya quickly apologized for her lapse …. as Fred walked away, he gruffly reminded her of the deadline that evening.
Maya had an idea…… the next day when Fred came around to review her work, he had barely looked at the sketch when he took her to task.
“This shadow is way off….you have to master these shadows!!! Change it right away !” … she apologized for the mistake ….. waited…. and then nothing…. Fred moved on.
It worked!! … going forward Maya intentionally created at least one small, but obvious mistake in each piece of work….. Fred took the bait each time and made his obligatory correction and then left the rest of the work intact.
So next time we have a boss who insists on stroking their ego by making unnecessary changes …. maybe we just need a hairy arm.
Just some thoughts…
Walt
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Good stuff, Walt. Thx for taking the time to share these thoughts of yours with the rest of us!