“D” – The Drunk and The Busy Little Diva
“D” was a director of marketing overseeing a large cadre of marketeers—a bodybuilder, CMO wannabe and Olympic caliber drunk. It took awhile for me and my colleagues to come to grips with his incoherent, rambling, pointless conversation and e-mails; his outrageous braggadocio; the alarming absence of short-term memory; and his inability to manage anyone or make decisions. I noticed the problems intensified in the afternoons and that he often went MIA after lunch. No one could find him or knew how to contact him. We had to fend for ourselves and, in truth, were better off in his absence.
“D” caused further exasperation and chaos throughout the department by allowing a diva in a key position to select the projects she wanted to work on to the exclusion of everything else. Because of the nature of our work, I and my colleagues scrambled to do both the diva’s job and our own, while a rumor circulated that the diva was spending her days planning her wedding. I was skeptical. That’s simply not possible, I thought, so one day I visited her office unannounced, on the pretext of seeking advice about a job she should have been doing in the first place. One entire wall of her office consisted of an enormous 4-month planning calendar, ordinarily used to track the stages of various firm events. I stood directly in front of the board for a full 5 minutes reading the entries while she ignored me. Each day on the calendar was filled with entries related to planning an engagement party, bridal shower, rehearsal dinner, wedding ceremony, reception and honeymoon, along with all the attendant details the modern bride obsesses over like place settings, chair covers, flowers, centerpieces, invitations, menus, tastings, fittings, deposits due, etc. etc. Not a single firm-related item over the entire 4-month period. The office was strewn with samples of tulle, invitation mock-ups, and an impressive collection of wedding tzotchkes while her bulletin board overflowed with clippings from bridal magazines. She was indeed a busy little diva.
Shortly after the wedding, the diva landed a job as the CMO of another firm. “D” was discovered passed out on the floor of his office and dismissed.
Lesson Learned: Sometimes it’s better to just wait things out until the bad people go away, or pass out.
