Angry editor: How not to run a newsroom, Part Five.
“I don’t care! I don’t care! I don’t care!”
The managing editor shrieked this at me over the top of the partition that formed my cubicle. I sat at my desk, looking up at the out-of-control, bright red face glaring down at me, its mouth spewing a seemingly endless stream of furious words. I knew any further attempt at stemming their flow would be futile.
The managing editor of this Phnom Penh-based news website, for whom I had been working about three weeks, had already been yelling at me for some minutes. Exactly why escapes me – probably since these tantrums had grown commonplace and were set off by any number of causes, big or small – but I vaguely recall that in this instance he was angry because I deigned to have my own opinion about some editorial matter. This managing editor, as was usual with people who had hair-trigger tempers, often misinterpreted discussion as argument and disagreement as insubordination.
I had tried to weather out the storm in silence, hoping it would soon blow past and let me get on with my work in peace, but the managing editor had difficulty shutting up once he whipped himself into a fury. When he exhausted the topic at hand he switched o
nce again to harping over what he apparently considered my greatest crime: Crafting a sentence he saw as unforgivably long.
“One hundred and thirty-seven words!” he shouted, among other things.
I should have stuck to my strategy of staring at him dumbly as he bubbled and boiled, but I finally lost patience, if not yet my own temper.
“Have you seen…?” I started to ask.
My intention had been to throw one of his own mistakes back at him: The horrendous hatchet job he’d done on the opening paragraph of a story about a typhoon in the Philippines. It was, in fact, the worst edit I’ve ever seen anyone do anywhere, but I hadn’t brought it up before then – even though he had published it online as is – since I knew he would react poorly to the criticism.
However, I was not able to raise it on this occasion, either. All I got out was: “Have you seen…?”
That’s when, without waiting to learn what I was inquiring about, he shrieked: “I don’t care! I don’t care! I don’t care!”
This finally seemed to satisfy his demons and he stomped away, muttering to himself.
Despite having had too much experience living with an anger-prone person – and, to be honest, having needed to learn to control my own sometimes unwarranted temper – I was nevertheless unable to deal with my new boss. None of my ideas worked. Being respectful and doing my job to the best of my ability certainly had no effect.
At first I thought that a rational discussion might do the trick. I had my chance early on when the managing editor was for once contrite and receptive. One day he opened up, admitted to his fits of anger and explained them off as symptoms of a post traumatic stress disorder he picked up while taking photos in an African war zone. I knew angry people don’t really need a reason to be that way, but I was willing to be sympathetic.
“Listen,” I told him. “I don’t need to be yelled at to learn something. I learn better when I’m taught calmly and quietly.”
He said he understood, so I thought my approach might have gotten through to him. I was wrong. That conversation took place before the “I don’t care!” incident and others like it.
My next idea was to employ humour to defuse any tension. I tried to come up with something funny to say in response to a future bout of anger. I finally settled on: “Sorry, what? I can’t hear you over all the shouting.”
It probably would not have worked, but I don’t know for sure because I never used it. The more I had to listen to the managing editor rage at me and the other staff in the office, the less humorous I felt. In fact, the more he yelled, the less interest I could take in my job.
After my first few weeks all the plans I had to put my stamp on the editor’s position, the one I had been hired for, had evaporated. I no longer wanted to instigate morning editorial meetings, set firm deadlines, establish a publishing calendar, or encourage the reporters to explore their personal strengths and come up with story ideas of their own (rather than have everything assigned by the managing editor). Under the near daily onslaught of vitriol all I could manage was to concentrate on getting through each week with as little contact with my boss as possible and without losing my own temper.
I had wanted to do a proper job. In fact, I had been eager to be an exemplary editor on behalf of my new employer, but he made it impossible. That level of angry toxicity sucked all the creative energy and professional joie-au-travail out of me and out of every other member of the staff.
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