GREAT 2 IDEA: Never Work with Anyone Who Gives You a Headache or a Stomachache

This is my motto. Life is too short to work with people who make you miserable. You can't possibly do your best work when the people you have to deal with make you sick.

I know. I've tried. As a freelance writer and producer, I have worked on amazing projects for terrible people, including a greedy, obnoxious celebrity and the campus loony at an elite graduate school. The production company story involved a really famous person who misappropriated production funds raised by a nonprofit organization and is too upsetting to share. (I'll include it in my memoir.)

But lessons can be learned from my most traumatic work experience. In 2008, the Great Recession prompted me to accept what seemed like a dream job at a prestigious business school. I was hired to write white papers and articles, produce audio and video clips for a web site, and coproduce a lecture series on the future of television. Best of all, I was asked to write, produce, and direct a documentary based on interviews with top industry executives visiting the school.

My four-day schedule allowed me to still speak at Bloomberg TV–sponsored small business events a few times each month.

Unfortunately, six months into the job, I was suffering from blinding tension headaches and my stomach was in a twist. Every morning, as I walked past the security bars on the windows in the stairwell, I felt like I was heading to my prison cell. The chemistry between my boss and me was terrible. I knew I was toast when he called me into his office for a performance review.

He shut the door, sat down, and began listing my infractions: I walked too quickly down the hall, creating a “wake” that disturbed his secretary; at a staff meeting, my jacket accidentally brushed against her and I did not apologize. Worst of all—the day before our biggest public lecture (which drew a standing-room-only crowd of 250)—I left campus during my lunch hour to get my hair cut instead of helping her prepare the name tags.

I remember watching his mouth move but not hearing any sound. It was surreal. Not a word about my writing, public relations, or production skills. No mention of the interviews being conducted in the new studio funded by the dean's office. No mention of teaching students production techniques or producing a broadcast-quality film on a cable-access budget.

Of course, things went downhill after that. He desperately wanted me to quit, but I was not willing to give up this job without a fight. Naïve about academic politics, I met with the human resources director, the assistant dean, and an employee assistance counselor. The counselor told me my boss was well known for being “difficult and quirky,” and my days were numbered. He also told me I was toast because my boss was a “rainmaker,” who brought big money into the school. I begged the dean for a transfer to another department—any department where I was not being tortured and disrespected every day. I was desperate to keep the job, having given up all my freelance work.

Magical thinking took hold. Maybe if I worked harder things would improve? Every morning, I was the first one in the office. I risked my life driving to campus in a blizzard. A few weeks later, he called me into his office, reluctantly turning down the volume on the yodeling music he loved. (Yes, yodels streaming live via the Internet from Switzerland.)

This time I was reprimanded for asking a colleague whether she was going to meet an agreed-upon deadline for completing a brochure that had been languishing in the art department for two years.

“Jane, here's the problem,” he said quietly. “You focus too much on performance and production. But my priorities are process and protocol.”

Huh?

Slowly, he took away all my projects. I sat in an empty office for a few weeks waiting for the head of the department to return from a trip. It took sending a detailed letter to the dean detailing my former boss's unprofessional conduct and violations of the academic code of ethics to finally qualify for unemployment benefits.

After that demoralizing experience, I swore I would never work with anyone who made me sick. No amount of money is worth the pain. Success will evade you if you work in a toxic atmosphere. If you have made bad hires and you dread going to work, you need to take action now.

Work with people who admire you, work hard, and make you laugh when times are tough.