Love Meryl Streep…she’s really brilliant in everything and does a great job in this. I think it’s one of her best comic roles yet.

As to the demonic boss, the more I watch this movie – and I haven’t read the book – the more I admire the boss and loath the worker (Andie-character). I’ve had a bad boss, at least one, but my job, like Andie’s/LW’s came with some perks. If you decide to work for some one, you damn well do what they ask or quit. You’re only boundaries are legal ones. If your boss asks you to do something illegal, you don’t do it. Everything else, you do or quit. What really gets me: in the movie, Miranda Priestly isn’t ‘evil’. She’s ruthless and unsentimental about work, but she’s also responsible for a major magazine that is worth millions of dollars. Her assistants get great clothes and access to everyone. Not to mention trips to Paris. What the hell is there to bitch about? Do the job or quit. It’s that simple. Andie’s character is weak and pathetic. Particularly since she could, as she wants to be a writer, set up her own business and freelance. At least, dump the whiny boyfriend who’s career is apparently more important than hers (he celebrates her quitting a prestigious job, he never supports her working, and he proceeds to take a job in Boston, I think it is, and make a definite move upstream when his girlfriend goes to Paris). And she doesn’t take advantage of her job to do what she claims she wants to do…who would turn down an introduction to the editor of New York Magazine to go to a birthday party for which they’re already too late???

I hope next time there’s a writer-type featured in a movie script that they have a tougher spine than Andrea Sachs/Lauren Weisberger. Give me a break.

Remember–I fell asleep face down in my popcorn during Prada, so I’ve had to research it since. “Prada” could be “A unit of Sanskrit poetic meter” or a “Proton Radiograph.” I’m guessing it’s a woman’s shoe, advertised as “an America’s cup denim blue suede high top women’s sneakers.” But even when I awoke in the loud parts, I don’t remember the sneakers. And why would the devil wear women’s sneakers?

But everyone talks like they know all along who this guy “Prada” is. I wonder sometimes if we go to movies because they just sound cerebral and we don’t want to get caught at the cocktail party.

Time for my warm milk, even though it gives me the winds something awful.

From Publishers Weekly

“A 27-year-old New York banker quits her job and finds work at a posh PR agency, trading her navy pantsuits for low-slung jeans and skimpy tops so she can hang out with the beautiful people at “in” places like Bungalow 8 (though first she has to find out what Bungalow 8 is). Weisberger’s bestselling The Devil Wears Prada hinged on a similar fish-out-of-water scenario, and while it may have worked then, this time around it feels like a rehash. The book occasionally entertains—as when it makes jabs at the very critics who panned DWP—but not nearly often enough.”

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Thanks, Peter, for stopping by with that info. I also read somewhere that Weisberger is finishing up her third novel.  Good for her.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Good Lord! Let’s hope it wasn’t in a clear plastic baggie! Yuck.

My female boss – we’ll call her Medea – came to work for the company after I had worked there for about two years. At first, Medea was charming and very helpful, enhancing my writing and editing skills greatly.

She told me repeatedly that she had left her former job because her boss constantly took credit for her ideas. Surprise: in a meeting shortly after telling me that, I sat mute and amazed (how do you spell naive) as she presented, as her own, an idea I had suggested to her earlier that week.

She also informed me early on that even though I was the editor of a newsletter our company sent to administrators at the college to whom we provided our computer consulting services, that I was never, under any circumstances, to change a word in articles submitted by her. Roger that.

A few months later, she moved my desk into her office, positioning it so my back was to her – talk about looking over your shoulder!

She continually changed my responsibilities, increasing my work load to a point where I couldn’t possibly keep up. Finally, I gave notice and quit. She immediately hired a close friend to fill my position. (Did I hear someone say the word, “Sucker!”)

Oh, and did I mention: she suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia? Try working with your back to that!

She was fired a year later and, of course, she sued everyone in the company for every form of harrassment known to mankind. I was called to give a deposition – I’m guessing – because her lawyer thought I would have wondrous things to say about her. I did not.

Sign Me,

Liked the Job : Hated the Boss.

Seems a shame that us introverted, peaceloving writers have to step out of our safe cocoons only to have to face mean-spirited witchy poo editors, if we ever make it that far.

Why didn’t they ask your friend Nancy to play the part?

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Funny! Nancy Fay? That poor woman from my previous post? I think she has paid dearly for a momentary lapse in email judgment. 

Viva la corporations and Mr. Welch.
Can we stop being silly? I don’t think my keyboard can take anymore spraying of coffee!

Unfortunately, all these styles and more are found by many in most industries. Can’t we all just get along? No? I didn’t really think so.

If you’re going to be a Witch, then you’ve got to be willing to be called on it somewhere, and do we really think that Ms. Wintour will give a mouse’s behind on this or is she just counting the uptick in sales?

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): I got a call from a friend who read this post and said she felt that people like Miranda Priestly were “very unhappy people.” I disagreed. Their personal lives may be a failure, but if the sacrifice weren’t worth it, they’d make a change. They like being the lead dog, and as the saying goes,” if you are not the lead dog, the view never changes.”