0816_TOEFL-Test-and-Score-Manual-1997

Management Strategies ● 5
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.
GREAT
IDEA
Don’t Be Afraid to Reinvent
Your Business
In the late 1990s, anyone wanting Sandra Nunnerley’s
elegant, custom-designed furniture had to have deep
pockets as well as good taste. Long accustomed to serving the upscale
market, with a single chair tagged at $10,000, Nunnerley said she was