How many bosses do you have?

Same.

Thing is, our SE is a pretty good buffer so that I generally get direction just from him or the ASE.

 

SE

ASE

If the publisher tells me to so something, I do it.

And one of my co-workers told to to STFU and do my job because he was al hacked off about something as usual. He doesn't count on the above list.

 

I once was on a news desk with five bosses and that's not including the publisher or the executive editor ... I had three assistant city editors, the city editor, the assistant managing editor and the managing editor ... all of them were liable to assign me something at any time without any communication with the others ... it was ugly.

 

Five who directly tell me what to do at various times. Though, technically, one of them should be asking the other four to assign things. Then there are five or sex levels above them that I almost never deal with.

 

The worst part about having five bosses was, for me, the fact that they rarely got along. Two of the assistant city editors hated each other so if one assigned me something the other would roll its eyes and assign me something else. Then the city editor and the assistant managing editor hated each other because the ame got the job the city editor wanted so if I did something for either one of those I would often get cursed out by the other one.

I was a pawn in mid-managment hell.

 

You should strive to reach that highest level. Sounds like fun.

 

One which is entirely too much. ;D

 

This is what I'm dealing with. I complained directly to the ME that I wasn't hearing about early deadlines until I showed up for work on certain days and she bristled at having to deal with the underlings, saying "You should bring this up with your immediate supervisor." So I did. And he told me to bring it up with the ME, who sets the deadlines.

 

I have NINE (9) people who at least technically can tell me what to do -- in our building, at least. (Used to be 12, but the head honchos are running middle-management types out the door in an attempt to cut payroll. They'll get to us eventually, but at least for the moment, we have a union contract.)

Then, of course, there are corporate munchkins all the way up the ladder until you reach The Man Himself. Probably four or five more in that section of the food chain.

Then, there are a couple more who most definitely do NOT have the authority to tell me what to do (I rank them in title, seniority and salary) who seem to think they do. They've tried it a couple times, and wish they hadn't.

Funny thing is, of the nine people who technically can tell me what to do, only 2-3 ever actually do in practice. Problem is, whenever any of them get called into the office for an ass-tanning, they usually decide the solution is to start blanketing the entire office with memos. Most go directly to File 13.

 

If you had layered levels of bosses, like a chain of command, that's not necessarily having multiple bosses.

Having multiple bosses is more common in the military, where even though there is a chain of command, you'll have bosses in other divisions and departments that aren't directly related to your immediate chain of command.

If you're an AME and your higher-ups are the ME and the publisher, that doesn't mean you have two bosses. You really only have one.

 

Unless the publisher comes out and stands behind you as you're laying out pages. "Why is that story there?" "I don't like that headline," yadda yadda.

 

Publishers are their own, unique and deranged animal, not even fit for adult conversation between consenting adults.

Publishers are evil.