The Devil Wears Loafers

I recently saw the movie "The Devil Wears Prada" and was surprised to discover that I too, at one time in my career, had a boss from hell as did Andy Sachs in the film. It wasn't in the field of beauty and fashion, but rather in the field of medical equipment. The company I worked for produced blood analysis machines. Of course, this was back in the 70's when I was just starting out in the business world.

I worked for a woman who headed the department that produced the plastic tubing apparatus of these highly critical and in-wide demand machines. Since I won't mention names let's call her "Madam Loafers" since that was the choice of shoes she always wore. This lady was smart, dedicated to her job but created an insane, pressure-cooker atmosphere as an outrageously demanding boss from hell. She was also downright mean that while in her presence, she'd let you know in-no-uncertain-terms how insignificant she thought you were to the company.

I was young, naive and ambitious back then and the idea of taking the position at this company was solely to advance my career goals. Needless to say, like Andy Sachs, I put up with a lot and cried many nights in bed, convincing myself that it was all worth it and in some ways it turned out that I was right to persevere.

The company was growing so much so, that it came to a time when their small production rooms, which had to be sterile with a personnel capacity of only 30, was no longer adequate. I was assigned the task of researching the assembly procedures and report any ideas that could be implemented to not only speed up production, specifically the blood tubing, but do it without hindering the safety precautions necessary in making the tubing for capable mass production.

I got right on it and actually went into one of the the production rooms and worked side by side with the assembly team. As I got to know the procedures used with the help and support of the great people I worked with, it wasn't long before I came up with a solution . . . a tubing board. The problem stemmed from hands on assembly of one tube at a time that needed to be glued to several separate narrow tubes that connected to the full machine. The tubing board allowed for 8 to 10 to 14 tubes to be glued at the same time, while adhering to the strict safety precautions. Not bad, for a rookie, Hay?

While on my last day in the production room, Madam Loafers walked in with two manages and demanded, in a load voice,

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