It Helps To Have A Great Boss
The time I got chewed out by one of the best men I ever knew and a Los Angeles icon
I just read Henry Blodget’s lengthy reminiscence of his early working career. Blodget is a career columnist for Business Insider and this was a year-end missive intended to motivate young aspiring Wall Streeters, attorneys, or finance professionals to work hard, lose their egos, etc …
Back in the day (early 90s, I believe), Blodget landed a CNN internship working for Lou Dobbs. Blodget was assigned to rip and read, and I guess analyze other business information to put on the air and he got careless, hasty, and lazy. He disliked getting up at 3:30 a.m. to get to work by 5:00 a.m. and thought he was smarter and better than his coworkers. He wrote down wrong stock market numbers and these were put on the air at CNN, causing harm to the channel’s reputation.
Lou Dobbs eventually called Blodget in and chewed him out. The whole experience inspired Blodget to leave TV business news … I think he went on to Wall Street … now he works for BI.
So, one Monday morning in 1982 I drove to my internship at the Los Angeles Times Book Review, thinking nothing was amiss, and my boss, Art Seidenbaum, called me in to his office.
He held up the Sunday Book Review, a fat, thick monster of a supplement with the crossword on the back and said in his gravelly, deep voice, “____________________ (reviewer) called me Sunday morning and said he hated this book.”
The book?
A giant biography of Charles Dickens that had been the featured review in the prior Thursday Calendar (the section that included book reviews not published on Sunday).
Had I read the book? No.
Had I read the review? Also: no.
And why would that have been important?
Because out of all of the Book Review interns over all of the years, Art Seidenbaum had trusted me, Amy Sterling Glasband, to read every book review over the course of the prior week and pick the top five for the “Critics Commend” list in the Sunday edition. A tiny column, but an important one.
“This went out to 3.5 million people,” Art said, drawing out every word and lighting one of his “light” Merit cigarettes.
I sat, silent.
“I didn’t read the review, Art,” I said. “I like Dickens so much I assumed it was a good review.”
“Don’t lie to me,” he growled.
I’d only partly lied. My main reason for picking this book was its giant review (that I hadn’t read) and yes, I was a big Dickens fan. I honestly judged it by its large picture.
“I was so tired, Art,” I said. “I was up until 3:00 a.m., I skimmed the article and didn’t even understand it. I shouldn’t have done it, I was careless and hasty.”
“Three-point-five-million people,” he said, blowing a massive smoke ring.
Art did not fire me. But Art did take the “Critics Commend” list away from me.
I completed my internship and at the end, he gave me a copy of In Praise of What Persists edited by Stephen Berg. It was a series of essays on writing novels and short fiction by many fine writers, including Ray Carver. I still have this book and it is in my box of signed first editions from the people who I cared about, and who cared about me, from when I was younger.
“Sterling,” he said one day. Sometimes he called me Sterling, my mother’s name, the middle name I chose for myself.
“My dad was an ad man. Never go into advertising. It’s a dirty business.”
I always remembered that, and even though I sometimes work for or with marketing agencies, I never did go against his advice.
The reason Art didn’t fire me that day was that I’d been honest with him as quickly as possible. I’d been at my usual bad habits and while my body had shown up at work that day, my mind was somewhere else entirely.
There was no greater champion of Los Angeles than Art Seidenbaum. He was really involved with Cal State Dominguez Hills and wanted to boost the new school, built in an area not known for higher education, made to serve students who wouldn’t have gone to college at all in prior generations.
I had visited Art’s beautiful house above the city on Mulholland Drive but had no idea of how special it was.
Art’s house is considered one of the “gems” of mid-20th Century architecture. It’s certainly in the coastal modern tradition, one of the most beautiful styles ever created. The AIA says it’s one of the greatest such houses ever created.
I was so young when I worked for Art that some of his pithy, wise sayings only now make sense to me.
I was very fortunate, not only not to have been fired that day, but to have learned the many good lessons he imparted to me about hard work, having ethics, and doing my best. He truly did not fire me that day because I had readily admitted my failure and I guess, he understood that college kids stay up all night partying and — I’m pretty sure he realized he shouldn’t have given me the responsibility for those articles —
Because I hadn’t understood the seriousness of it.
Three-point-five-million people.
A gigantic book review of dozens of books every week. A newspaper read by nearly everyone in the city.
Los Angeles Times is now owned by a pharma billionaire, is no longer located on the corner of Second and Spring in DTLA, and has 20% of its former subscriber base, mostly digital. Any friend I ever had there has either died or been fired in the many purges of writers, editors, and copyeditors over the years.
Art had chosen me (me?) over 250 other applicants for the internship I almost lost due to heedlessness and carelessness. I was only the second student from my college ever chosen: most LAT Book Review interns were from UCLA, a few from USC.
What had he seen in me?
Well: maybe something not so bad since he got one of the greatest LA houses of the 20th century built for him by one of the best architects of the time.
And In Praise of What Persists?
That’s right. Never stop growing, never stop working, never stop learning.
And always tell the truth.
Thanks for the book suggestion! One on my list.
It's fantastic how lucky you were, and you didn't take it for as granted as a University of Spoiled Children student might have.
My first real video post-production job boss selected me out of 80 or so applicants. I still refer to him as my Alternate Dad.
There have been so damn many, it's hard to keep them all straight.