I worked in the publications department of a non-profit organization, as the production manager for a weekly newspaper.
A new CEO was hired who turned out to be a micromanager. He had worked on his school newspaper when he was in university, which made him an expert in graphic design and advertising, so he decided that he would revive the newspaper, which had been suffering from declining advertising revenue (along with every other newspaper in the world).
He kept imposing new “design ideas” which invariably looked ugly and made me embarrassed to have my name on the masthead. The weeks that we were allowed to operate without his input, he would take a hard copy of the newspaper and scribble all over it, writing things like “NO!” and his own set of proofreading marks which meant nothing to us.
Because it was printed on a web press, it had to be a multiple of eight pages, which meant that sometimes we had to use filler pages, and he didn’t understand that and would fly into a rage because those pages had no revenue. He actually argued with the press foreman at our printing company, a man with 40 years’ experience in the industry, insisting that we should be able to do multiples of two pages.
I spoke up against some of his ideas because I thought they would mean less paid advertising rather than more. I became part of a large-scale, multi-department layoff shortly after that.
After I was gone, some of his ideas were implemented and indeed the advertising kept declining rather than increasing. The newspaper folded a year and a half after I was let go.
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