My Favorite Boss

I have worked for a lot of jerks in my time in journalism, most of them men, most of those white and most older than me. 

There was my first job out of college with the sadist who used to bring his leather-boy friends to the office. When he allowed me to take the day after Thanksgiving off and then rescinded that after I had made family plans, he said I could take the day off but don't come back. I didn't.

There was the editor of a weekly community paper who kept the police scanner on all the time, loud. When I turned it down he came out screaming. When I came back from getting a story from the police blotter about an elderly woman mugged in her building's elevator I wrote it, he read it and then called the woman as I sat across from him. Through a combination of fake sympathy, gile and pressure he got her to give him details, including of how she felt going through that frightening experience.

I learned two things that day: Speaking to a person is better than getting a report from a written police blotter, and journalists can be real bastards when they want a story.

I left that job by mutual consent.

There was the jewelry magazine where the editor, a man of size and ego, dumped his work on a shy young woman at the next desk who was a graphic artist, telling her his time was more important than hers. I pulled out a thick volume of employment case law - I can't remember why I had it in my desk or how I got it - and slammed it down. He took one look at the cover and got out of the area. He didn't bother her again but he never forgot and got me fired.

That came at a bad time because my mother was dying. Luckily, not long after I answered a small ad in the New York Times - which hasn't run classified ads in decades -  for an assistant editor on a weekly insurance publication and was called in for an interview. I met the editor, Emanuel Levy.

It was the best thing that would ever happen to me in my career.

Manny was a year older than my father but acted far younger. He had been editing the weekly Insurance Advocate for decades. The Advocate had a small staff but editorially he did everything with one other person, who had taken another job. I was hired. 

Unlike other bosses I would have who were continually put off by my loud, opinionated, unladylike self, Manny took it in stride. He explained that "insurance" could cover a lot of things. I wrote bylined news articles and short items, I helped him put pages together for when he would go every Thursday to the printer. I covered Insurance Department hearings, industry groups, Lloyd's of London and got to write the occasional feature, such as my piece about the composer - and sometime insurance agent - Charles Ives. While the staff never grew, I was eventually promoted to associate editor and then managing editor.

But what I'll always love Manny for was his allowing me to write the way I wanted and, with some editing, let it go out in the world.

Some examples:

When one thinks of major insurance centers in the United States, Montana is not mentioned. The state has only two domestic carriers - one life and one [property/casualty] - and both are under some form of receivership with the state Insurance Department...

But Montana, fourth largest state in land mass...has become the litmus test for those still smarting from the defeat of HR 100, the measure which would have outlawed insurance rating based on gender nationally.

Or this:

If you are a major insurance broker and you have some major clients, call them up or give them a hug. You'll both probably need it.

Or this:

The governor's Advisory committee on Liability Insurance was in the midst of laying the ground rules for its task at its first meeting on January 23, starting at 4 P.M. when it came on its first test - where, when and if to hold a public meeting.

You get the idea. If Manny hadn't been forced to sell the Advocate later to a guy who moved it to his home base in Westchester County from Manhattan, I might've worked there longer. As it was I spent about a decade there, learning my craft, gaining confidence -  maybe too much confidence considering the run-ins I had with bosses later on.

Like a lot of print periodicals, the Insurance Advocate now only publishes online, and apparently not regularly.

Manny eventually retired and moved to Michigan to be closer to one of his sons. He moved into a home for seniors and wrote opinion pieces for the weekly newsletter. Manny died in 2013 at age 95. 

He truly was my favorite boss.