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What can you learn from 'The Devil'?
Looking for an excuse to see a movie while working on your career? Last week I popped for a double-header, watching "The Devil Wears Prada" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" -- plus countless previews -- in a five-hour celebration of air conditioning.
You won't be surprised to learn that, of the two, "Prada" would be the more instructive in terms of career management. It is, after all, a first-job story. Andy Sachs (played by Anne Hathaway) studied journalism in college and wanted a job at a literary publication, such as The New Yorker. What she got instead was a position at a top fashion magazine, as the assistant to its famously demanding editor (played to good effect by Meryl Streep).
As she is told constantly by her co-workers, her new job is one "a million other girls would kill for." Wanting to make contacts, Andy persuades herself to stay a year, fetching coffee and everything else under the sun for the boss from hell.
It sounds like a good plan, but, if you've ever had an impossible boss, you know how difficult a single day can be, much less a year. On the other hand, if you can remember your first really intense job, you'll also recall how much you learned from it. And how much the job changed you.
The question is, when the job is so different from what you had envisioned for yourself, do you want to be changed by it? Do you want to become more like people you never would have chosen as role models? That's the question Andy is forced to answer.
To go further, I'll have to risk letting you in on the ending. So put down the paper and go to the movies if that's an issue. In the meantime, for those who already have seen the show, here are a few thoughts related to career management lessons in the film.
First, about that issue of being changed by our work. Is this a phenomenon reserved for youth? Probably not, but it's hard to deny that very few middle-agers would put up with the abusive conditions Andy's boss imposes on her. This raises a question: Does so much growth happen in our youth because we have so much growing to do or because we are more willing to pay its price when we are young? If the latter is the true answer, it means we are capable of enormous growth spurts at any stage of life -- if we will allow ourselves to pay the entry fee.
In Andy's case, the fee was exacted from her while she was chasing other goals. She put up with the abuse because she wanted contacts. As it turns out, the contacts she got weren't the ones she valued.
This would look like a double loss -- bad job, pointless contacts -- if it weren't for the things she gained that she hadn't counted on. Like a chance to test herself and toughen up. The truth is, working so closely with a terrible boss gave Andy job skills she never would have gotten in more genteel circumstances.
This is not to say that bad bosses who help us grow should be excused for their behavior. Nor can we assume that a person could survive so much trauma at work without sustaining at least a few scars. It's a movie, after all.
But what if we could take a lesson or two from this Hollywood version of a first job? I like the emphasis on sticking things out, but I also like the fact that she eventually leaves. Every job has an expiration date, and bad jobs turn sour faster than most. Andy comes to a point where she has to weigh the costs of the lessons she's learning. She also realizes that she's very close to accepting as normal what was once abhorrent to her. She is forced to answer the question: Is this the person she wants to become?
The answer is blurred by the fact that she changes so dramatically in physical appearance during the film. Proximity to high fashion transforms Andy into someone who cares about style. Does that make her more shallow or more sophisticated? When we "become" our jobs, are we changed permanently or only until the paychecks stop coming?
I'll leave you to ponder those and other questions over your tub of popcorn. Unless you go to "Pirates" instead, that is. Not a single career lesson in the whole darn thing.
- Amy Lindgren owns Prototype Career Service, a career consulting firm in St. Paul, Minn. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice. com or at 1071 W. Seventh St., St. Paul, MN 55102.
