Karma is a bitch

So, I’ve always thought everything happens for a reason and been a strong believer in karma, particularly when it comes to work. Having been a part of the proper “full time working world” for about ten years now, I’ve had my fair share of highs and not so highs…starting with my first job.

Growing up I’d dreamed of writing for a magazine like Vogue or Tatler . So, I couldn’t believe my luck when just two weeks after completing my last university  exam, I landed a job as an Assistant Editor at a regional parenting magazine. Okay, not quite Conde Nast, but still pretty damn cool. And for the first 12 months it really was cool. I got to interview interesting people like Emma Willis and Katie Price (look I thought they were  interesting!) I travelled to London for for fun events, but most importantly I worked with the nicest group of people.

Sadly, my cool job wasn’t to last. I’m not sure why or how, but after about a year my relationship with my boss completely changed. She criticised my writing and said my attitude to work was awful. Things got so bad that simply the sight of her car in the morning left a painful sinking feeling in my stomach. My confidence got so low that I couldn’t even write a couple of lines without being petrified of what she’d say about it.

Things came to a head on the 13th May 2011. The fact I remember the exact date shows how horrible the day was. As part of my role I was responsible for choosing the competition winners for the magazine and sending out the prizes (ironic as now anyone who knows me will know that I’m now addicted to entering competitions!) Anyway, on this day I’d accidentally addressed some of the prizes incorrectly to the wrong winners. I realised what I’d done before anything had been sent out and just needed to repackage them. All set to correct my mistake, I thought I’d better let my boss know what had happened just so she was kept in the loop. However, by this point things had got so bad with her that she didn’t even want me talking to her, so to let her know I had send her a message on the work instant messenger.

Clicking send, I took a breathe and within seconds her angry footsteps followed as she stormed into my office. She then went on to literally scream at me, saying this was just f*ing typical of me, I was so f*ing lazy and she couldn’t believe I had done it. Hearing the chaos, her partner and joint owner of the company came in and tried to calm her down. He said he would take her out for lunch and by the time they got back the prizes had better be sorted.

As they left, I sat there frozen, stunned by what had just happened. Thankfully, while the owner was a psycho, the other girls I worked with were absolutely lovely. They not only reassured me and checked I was okay, but helped me repackage the prizes correctly. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t long after that my time at that job ended. Luckily, my next role was at a different magazine, with a COMPLETELY different Editor, who totally restored my confidence and made me believe that I could actually sort of write.

So, where does the karma come in? Well a good few years after that first job, my career took a slightly different path when I decided to swap journalism for the world of PR and marketing. Working for a luxury fashion label, I managed our advertising budget. Soon after starting, I got forwarded an email by a colleague from a random luxury regional magazine. I was all set to delete when I took a double take at the name at the bottom of the email. Yep, it was my old boss! She’d started a new magazine and was now trying to get our business. I then took great pleasure in replying letting her know it was me, the girl she’d bullied and whose life she’d a misery, that she was asking money from. She quickly replied saying how nice it was to hear from me and we should meet up for lunch to discuss collaborations. Thinking I’d probably rather go to lunch with Donald Trump on a nudist beach, I declined saying unfortunately I wouldn’t be free for lunch and we wouldn’t be able to advertise with a title like hers as we tend to go for national titles such as Vogue and Tatler *mike drop*