A dog has her day: Worst Boss contest winner

Lots of employees complain about being treated like a dog, but the winner of our Worst Boss contest ("Good Boss, Bad Boss," Oct. 16) may have been the only one forced to walk like one.

Colleen Lynn, a graphic designer in Seattle, received nearly 40 percent of the online votes with her tale of the boss from hell.

"I showed it to a couple of my friends and they thought it was a [fiction] story," says Lynn, 36. "I'm like, no no, this is true."

Today, Lynn is her own boss, running a graphic design business called VainNotion.

"I can really look back on my career and say, I've never done that again. I take myself out of all situations like that."

Here's her submission in its entirety:

Beastly workplace

"Sit!" she screamed.

"You are a dog. As a dog, you do what dogs do — simple things. You also do everything that I tell you to, and when I tell you to."

"Stand!" she shrieked.

My hands and legs are shaking. I slowly stand and lift my head. Facing me is a woman who looks like a large rabid animal. Tufts of hair stick to her wet forehead; a longer clump clings to the edge of her mouth. Her cheeks are blown up like red balloons. One hoof paws the carpet threateningly.

"Get down on your hands and knees and pick up the tape! I want to see you crawl around like a dog. Do you understand?"

I obey without hesitation. It is safer on the ground. If I need to, I can remain hidden beneath the tables, where the majority of my work lies. I comb the floor in front of me with my hands.

I am in the art department, a place where thousands of tiny pieces of tape glue themselves to the carpet fibers. I start picking them off with my fingers one at a time.

I work at an alternative weekly newspaper in Houston. I am an unpaid intern. It is day 14 of my first job.

Earlier in the day I had been asked to assemble several cheap drafting tables. I put together the first one incorrectly. This is when the dog metaphor took root. I was too incompetent for such a task; I needed to do simpler ones.

Earlier than this, I craned over the classifieds table and manually pasted ad after ad onto a blue-lined sheet. The rabid woman habitually came by and said things like, "You don't have talent!" And, "You don't have what it takes!"

I continue to work and ignore her taunting. I don't know what else to do. I say to myself that design talent has nothing to do with placing classified ad boxes into rows.

The hours creep by. It's now past midnight. The tips of my fingers are raw. I rise up from the four-legged humiliation and survey the clean floor. The three other workers in the room stare at me in silence.

The beast is returning from the bathroom. We can all hear the approaching hooves. In about two seconds anything might happen. She swaggers in, like she is towing an extra hump, in addition to her sizeable hind-end.

"I didn't tell you to stand," she sneered. "You are F-I-R-E-D!" The last sound erodes into a low-pitched growl.

Fifteen years pass. I become a seasoned and well-received designer. Once, though, just a few winters ago, I wander out of Pacific Place. As I walk down Pine Street, I hear an unmistakable voice. I stop in my tracks, as still and solid as the trunk of a redwood tree. The beast, who drags her hooves a little now, is ahead of me and moving away from me. I pray to myself that she has not moved to Seattle.

Colleen Lynn can be reached at colleen@vainnotion.com.