My No Nonsense Boss Lady

I had just joined a multinational food company. It was my first job after university, and I was eager to enter the world of food marketing. Elizabeth was my first boss in the corporate world.

Elizabeth had grown up on a citrus farm, and she had risen to a prominent position within the company at quite a young age.

Elizabeth was short in stature with dark hair, green eyes and her ancestry was from the Shetland Islands north East of Scotland. Just looking at the location, I thought only tough people braved the rigours of that environment, and Elizabeth had that ancestry.

To give you an idea of Elizabeth’s strength of character, I recall once when a director of the company had parked her in, claiming that she was in his parking space. Elizabeth was far below this man on the company organisational chart, but she knew company policy. The company policy was that only the CEO and one other director had assigned parking spaces. This director had no claim to any parking spaces. All other parking spaces were up for grabs based on the ‘early bird catches the worm’ principle. First to arrive, can choose where they will park.

This director, who had been with the company for over 10 years, had always parked in that spot and everyone just sort of knew that. Elizabeth, however, did not agree with this and decided that they set company policies up for a reason, and so she parked in ‘his space’ one morning.

He parked her in. Parking his shiny executive model Mercedes Benz behind her. That was, until lunchtime, when she discovered what he had done. She immediately called him and had him on speakerphone. We listened with excitement, as she asked him if he could show her where in the company policy it states he had the right to an allocated parking spot. After listening to his excuses about how he always parks there, she asked him if he was beholden to company policy or not? The result was that he sheepishly walked downstairs to move his vehicle and never said another word about it, for fear of embarrassment.

Elizabeth was an instant legend. News of her metal spine reverberated through the building. Elizabeth was an extremely hard worker and overachieved on her projects in terms of timely delivery and profit numbers, so there was little push back about the incident from our superiors.

On another occasion, we were leaving for a meeting with an advertising agency, and the CEO greeted Elizabeth and the two of us, her juniors. He was entering the building as we were leaving. He then asked her where we were all off to at 10 am on a Monday morning.

“To the beach Nick, we’re off to the beach.” She said smiling, and turned to us and said, “Come on, let’s go. Got the umbrellas?”

He just shook his head and continued on his way.

I asked her about why she said that, and she said that it had nothing to do with him where we were going, we don’t report to him and he could ask the marketing director where we were going as we reported to the marketing director; she said CEO’s shouldn’t worry about staff that they specifically appoint managers to manage, or what is the point of those managers, and what is the point of the organisational chart if they do not adhere to it ?

A few weeks later, Elizabeth asked for two of us in her marketing team to attend a course, and the message came back from one director that one of us could attend the course, and on returning to the office, could tell the other about what they learnt on the course.

Elizabeth would not stand for this. She thought it was petty and ridiculous.

As her juniors, we both sat in her office as instructed and she called the director. She knew he had three sons, so she had a simple question for him.

She called us into her office to listen to the phonecall. The two of us were wide eyed with expectation. We already knew this would not end well for him. This is how the call went.

His phone ringing. Then he answered.

“Hello”

“Hello Peter, it’s Elizabeth.”

“Morning Elizabeth, what can I do for you?”

“Quite a lot actually, I sent a request to you about my two marketing brand managers, asking about an advertising finance course and I received a notification from your secretary that one could attend and then tell the other what they had learnt?”

“Um yes, we are a little tight on the training budget this year because of the conference.”

“I have one question for you Peter, you have three sons, correct?”

“Yes”

“Okay, which one are you sending to university to come home and teach the other two ?”

“Um, hmm, Ahem, I see your point, not to worry. I will approve both of them attending the course. Is there anything else?”

“Yes there is Peter, you have a lovely day.”

She turned to us, “And that folks is how it’s done!”

We thanked her and attended the course.

Elizabeth was short in stature but full of dynamite. It’s true what they say about dynamite and small packages. She taught me to stand for what is right but not to go outside the rules. Elizabeth worked many more years at that major food company before leaving because her husband was very successful and she no longer needed to work. She still sends me a letter every Christmas, a three-page letter informing me of her family and all that is happening in her life. She was a great mentor and friend.

I will never forget the many lessons I learnt from her.