Designer bunny chow.

The next time you want to serve a meal that is easy to prepare, needs no utensils and requires a lick of the fingers for cleanup, you might consider bunny chow. And no, this does not involve carving up and cooking Bugs, Roger or any other rabbit. In fact, in its original form, it’s about beans.

Bunny chow originated in Durban, South Africa. I first experienced it as breakfast takeout. Some of us neighborhood kids would grab our rods and head for the docks early on Sunday mornings to fish. At some point, we’d go to the grubby little harbor cafe and order “a bunny” through the serving hatch. We’d get half a loaf of soft white bread filled with a lethal bean curry that made your eyes water. The bread removed from inside the half loaf was put, like a lid, atop the curry and used to sop up the sauce.

Though nobody is sure of the origins of the name, it is understood that bunny chow was invented by Indian cafe owners and restaurateurs in the days before disposable plates and bowls. The unusual and substantial dish originated partly as a fast food for people who wanted to eat on the fly and, less agreeably, in response to apartheid-era restrictions on who could sit where and in what restaurants.

As things changed and progressed in South Africa, so did bunny chow.

Upscale restaurants began to offer it—with chicken, mutton, seafood or vegetable curry replacing the standard bean. And the option of using home-cooked or takeout curry plus a bread of choice made bunny chow a winner for casual dinner parties.

I prepare the dish with chicken curry from Sabine Indian Cuisine (1628 Webster St., 510-268-0170) and bread from Arizmendi Bakery (3265 Lakeshore Ave., 510-268-8849).

Written for and published in Oakland magazine, December 2006.

Copyright Wanda Hennig, 2010

Step One: Visualization (Audio to go with No-diet weight loss: Three simple steps to success.)

Sit upright, close your eyes (or look down if closing your eyes is uncomfortable for you) and after a brief relaxation exercise, we’re going to visit the future. You in the future. Please click on the audio link to follow the visualization.

And the question is: Who should really be fired?

OK. So the man is getting $33-million dollars and sure, that’s something.

Good for him. His future might be up in the air, just like the George Clooney (movie) laid-offs. But at least he has the means to plant his feet back on the ground. (See back story here.)

And Conan’s staff at the Tonight show are getting a $12-million pay-off. It’s good to know that.

But — is that enough? What about the powers who made the wacko decision to move Jay Leno to the 10 p.m. slot (apparently in part to save NBC a fortune by replacing “real” shows that cost big bucks with a talk show that cost far less).

But who the hell wanted to watch Leno at 10 p.m.?

Who the hell wanted to watch Leno at all — feting Rush Limbaugh  — and doing silly Dodgem Car antics with otherwise intelligent people?

So anyway, Conan O’Brien has been forced out of his role of Tonight Show host after less than eight months.

From March 1, Jay Leno will be back doing the job he did for 17 years before moving to the 10 o’clock slot. And, well, who the hell was ever going to watch him — or any talk show — at 10 p.m.?

The idea was daft.

And how the hell can someone who has done a job for 17 years want to go back to it? Which is another question altogether and not the subject of this blog.

So, Conan’s fired. History.

He’ll no doubt rise like the Phoenix.

He deserves to laugh all the way to the bank for what I hope he doesn’t see as a public humiliation. (He looks like a pretty intense bugger and I don’t believe being fired is easy for anyone.)

But what about the person at the top who fucked up? Who turned Conan into a pawn? Who was there pulling the strings? Who moved him around? Who set him — and Leno — up for failure?

Whose bright money-saving idea was the Tonight Show switch? Who is the irresponsible A-Hole who decided on the strategy in the first place?

Because I’d like to see him go. And sans $33-million. Sans $1-million. Sans a single cent.

It strikes me that this whole to-do is a large-scale and very public manifestation of the way companies in the United States hire people and fire people. It totally dovetails with the at-will
system that operates in this country. (See my link: You’re fired! And — is the ‘at will’ clause the cause of the bad boss syndrome?)

As I say there:

In the United States, it is not necessary to be a good boss. You can, in fact, be a terrible boss. This is because the general practice is that, at any time, you can summon anyone on your staff and say: “You’re fired.” No cause needed. No reason. Just be sure they can’t prove ageism, sexism, racism or something as direct as that, and you’re protected.

(You must know? The employer is free to discharge individuals “for good cause, or bad cause, or no cause at all.” Click on this Nolo link for the full scoop and to learn that, except in the state of Montana, if you are employed at will, your employer does not need good cause to fire you.)

When I was going to hire a senior editor on a publication and was concerned that while he was a good writer, he might not be a good senior editor, my boss said, “Well, you can just fire him.”

Earlier, when I accepted the job there, someone said to me: “Do you know, he hires people — and as quickly, fires them?”

At the time, I’d lost jobs — because a nonprofit folded in one case and because a magazine closed down in another.

But I was new to the “Up in The Air” phenomenon. And let me say, Clooney and company (namely, the writer) do a great job showing firing like it is, by which I mean: No joke.

Day after day I hear stories of bad bosses. And why should you be a good boss, as in communicating well, relating to staff, incorporate principled leadership practices (check out Stanford School of Business dean Garth Saloner talking about principled leadership here), when you can just fire someone on a whim?

This very week a friend who is doing the job of four creative directors for a magazine group where she gets paid less than she should if there was only one magazine: “These bosses on the surface are friendly and smiley. But they cannot say what they want. It’s all about ‘Just do it,” then, ‘This is not what we want (moron).’ Very tricky to work with.”

But she’s hanging onto her job, for now. Because if there is one job worse than a really bad job, it’s looking for a new job.

Go, Conan! And good luck.

If you want support getting the employment laws changed in the United States in the interest of making companies and bosses responsible and accountable, give me a buzz.

AT SF Moma yesterday, on the Fourth Floor, listening to museum curator Gary Garrels tell us about the art in the Focus on Artists exhibition. He mentions that at some point, he returned to SF MOMA (from where, I don’t know, and the back story is not of consequence to where my thinking went — but inexcusable not to google the scoop).

Anyway, he had returned to SF Moma, and why he returned, he says, was because of “the collection,” meaning the art collection. And he talks with passion about some of the artists, like Clyfford Still.

And he says, to explain his return and his passion, that “The collection becomes an extension of who you are.”

And, he says, “It’s like your children.”

And this gets me thinking about my “You Are Not Your Job” blog.

And yes, I know there there is a difference between a job and a passion.

And I know that when your job is your passion, then you are your job, and you want to be your job.

So, there are the people who stay in “jobs” they don’t especially like, or have become accustomed to tolerating,

• because they’re afraid to move,
• or tell themselves stories about why they can’t move,
• or don’t even think of moving from despite, or because of, all of the above, if you really got down to it,
• and yes, I think that there are people who don’t have choice, as in people from low socio-economic backgrounds, without an education, and who haven’t been brought up with choice as part of the conversation,
• and there are many people who stick in untenable or at least lackluster situations because they lack self-confidence. And so on and so forth.
  

But when what you do reflects your values and is your life’s work, then it’s not “a job.” And yet, if you work for someone else, you are still vulnerable to being downsized, or fired, right?

So there is the “you are your job,” as in your job gives you your identity and you don’t develop a life outside of it. And you go to work each day and the people at the company are, perhaps, your family; and your work is the center of your life because it’s what you put your focus on, and so on and so forth, and I don’t mean to be glib here.

And then there is “you are your job,” because it aligns with your values and it reflects what’s important to you, and what you want to study, and what you want to share, and the difference you want to be and make, and so forth.

And either way, my question is — if you are an employee, don’t you still need to address your own life, and not just live through what you do? I would say, yes.

You get fired, for whatever reason and downsizing is a good one, or you need to retire because you reach that age, and even if you can still read about your passion and be vicariously involved, or peripherally involved, you lose the power of position and the associates and control and life direction that comes with it.

So indeed, it is where one wants to be and what one wants to be doing in a job, but — there is still the whole person and the whole life.

I don’t know Gary Garrels or anything about him. He just happened to spark the stream that resulted in these thoughts. Part of an ongoing conversation.

How to eat exactly what you want, never diet again, lose weight, and be slim, sensual and happy with yourself.

A couple of days before the New Year, I’m staying with a South African couple in Sonoma. “I had a terrible night. Felt ghastly. Couldn’t sleep. And my numbers are right out of the box.”

My friend, I’ll call him Mike, is looking pretty gruesome making his morning report. He has diabetes, hence the numbers comment. He’s been pricking his finger regularly, monitoring his count, as we’ve engaged in the whole holiday overindulgence bit.

I’ve also heard him say, at least a dozen times, “I shouldn’t really have (eat or drink) this, but I’m going to. My New Year’s resolution is to cut out all the shit and be good.”

Around the same time, I have a conversation with my Aunt Kate. Her story is about cream scones and all those delicious holiday desserts. How she’s overindulged.

Then, similar story: “My New Year’s resolution is to lose weight. I’m going to cut right back on all these things that I shouldn’t be eating.”

If these stories sound familiar, it’s not surprising.

The top New Year’s resolution, according to the website USA.gov, is to lose weight.

It’s a resolution people make over and over, year in and year out. And d’you know what?

Sure you do.

It’s not working better this year than it has before, and it’s still January.

Fact: Committing to a deprivation diet, as in cutting out things you enjoy eating and things you want to eat, does not work. And if you go “on diet,” sure as nelly, at some point you’re going to go “off diet.”

Trying to lost weight that way is all about exerting will-power. (Yuck!)

Will-power is hard.

Think of it this way, will-power is about you or me pushing against an accumulated mass of what we like to eat, want to eat, and what we’re in the habit of eating; plus all the emotions associated with what we like to eat, want to eat, and are in the habit of eating.

The good news is:

It’s possible to lose the weight without going “on diet” or setting ourselves up for the failure and hell that are core ingredients in the will-power recipe.

What Your Resist persists

Ponder this: When you’re thinking, “I am not going to eat sugar,” where is your focus? On the sugar you’re trying not to eat.

Now think of the Law of Attraction — namely, focus on what you want and you get more of it.

Ponder this: “I am fat and I’m going to lose weight.”

Where is your focus? On your fat and on the weight.

The term “what you resist persists” makes sense when we think of it like this, doesn’t it?

You’re focused on what you don’t want. On what you’re resisting.

If you’re focus is there — well, you get my drift.

Try this approach instead

Eat exactly what you want, never diet again, lose weight and be happy with yourself.

How?

Follow these three simple steps:

Step One: Visualization

Please click here to listen along to a full audio version of the No-diet Weight Loss visualization on podcast. Then return to this link for Step 2 and Step 3.

Sit upright, close your eyes (or look down if closing your eyes is uncomfortable for you) and after a brief relaxation exercise, we’re going to visit the future. You in the future.

Breathe in and out three times. Experience the breath in the body and the nose.
One, two, three.

Now, on a scale of zero to 10, with 10 being extremely relaxed, and zero being hyped and anxious, make a mental note of where you are. (If we had time, I would do a tension-releasing body scan with you to get you to an extremely relaxed state. I will record a visualization and put it on this website so come back soon for that.)

Now, project forward five years.

You’re walking on a beach or in a country area — let your mind choose somewhere you like. Somewhere you feel relaxed and safe and happy.

You’re walking with a spring in your step and feeling energetic and alive. Notice your surroundings. It’s a perfect day. You’re at exactly the right temperature. How does the sunshine feel on your body? What vegetation do you see around you? Notice the color of the sky. Notice if there are animals or people in the distance. Breath in the feeling of relaxed energy, enjoyment, happiness you’re experiencing.

And now, become aware that why you’re feeling so good and happy and energized is because your body is feeling so good and healthy and alive.
And you know that why you’re body is feeling so good, healthy and alive — your vibrancy and sense of well-being — is all due to how you’ve been nourishing yourself. It’s because you love to eat food that feeds you well.

Now, begin to think of the foods that you know are fresh, natural and delicious. Think of farmers market fare and hmmmm — think of how delicious the freshest of fruit can be. Think of aromatic coffee with a dash of cream. Think of a piece of delicious dark chocolate. Think of yourself feeling sensual around food. Think of sharing a big fresh salad or a picnic with good friends. Think of food that you can taste sunshine in, and rain, and the flavors of passion when something has been cooked with love and attention.

Know that you can add to this visualization, and you will. Know that the more powerful you make this visualization, with delicious foods you want to eat and know are health-filled, the more you’ll be attracted to eat these foods. The closer you’ll be to the health-filled energetic person striding out in your visualization.

OK. On the count of one, come back to the present.

Step Two: Focusing on Delicious

Indulge your love of food by immersing yourself in food.

You know how good you feel when you nourish yourself well (you experienced it in the visualization). And Step Two is about making these foods your focus.

This is the opposite approach to “What you resist, persists.”

This is about “Law of Attraction” eating. Here you do what it takes to focus on — to the point of obsessing on — the delicious, nutritious, energizing foods that emerged during your visualization. (You can refine and add more of them to your visualization as you continue to practice Step Two and Step Three during the coming weeks.)

How can you focus on delicious?

• Make cook books and magazines featuring fresh and delicious foods a regular part of your life.
• Start going to the farmer’s market to do your shopping.
• Read food labels. “What am I buying if I purchase this Safeway muffin?” You can eat the Safeway muffin. Indeed. This is not about depriving yourself. This is about focusing on delicious. It’s about being aware.
• Read books and articles on seasonal eating. Why would you eat seasonally? How does it support and farmers and the planet?
• Read about Slow Food and how it sustains the environment.

For some people, this will be a totally new way of being. For others, this will be refocusing and reinforcing.

Many of us know about nutrition. We know how we’d like to eat and what nourishes us, even if we don’t always follow that route.

But some of us think we know, and we don’t really.

So, keep an eating journal to raise your awareness about what you eat.

And makes friends with these three sites:
1) The U.S. Government dietary guidelines site.
2) Clueless about calories? Check out the Calorie Control Council site. (It talks about “healthy eating and exercise for life” and does not get into the “weight loss” perspective. And we want food to be about nutritious, deliciousness and good health. Weight loss will happen as a by-product.)
3) The Mayo Clinic site on calories.

Step Three: Mindful eating

We have the visualization.

We have our focus on the ingredients of a delicious that are integral to the visualization.

And now we add mindful eating.

Know this: You can eat anything you want and as much of it as you want. So, for example, if you love Mars Bars, know that you can eat 20; or 30.

HOW you eat is the focus in Step Three.

For the sake of this exercise, here is the practice to follow when you’re eating alone.

Note well: Follow the guidelines when you’re alone, and when you’re in company, until it becomes your new habit. Some people say establishing a habit takes 28 days. Other say establishing a habit takes 60 days.

• Whenever you eat and no matter what you eat, sit down to eat it and use a plate, knife and fork.

• Ask yourself these three questions before you start eating:

On a scale of zero to 10, how hungry am I?
On a scale of zero to 10, how much to I want to eat this particular food now?
On a scale of zero to 10, how does this food align with my visualization?

• Look at the food. Smell it. Spend a moment or two appreciating it. Note: If it’s something you bought that’s fresh, think of the earth it grew in (even if you don’t know exactly where); the rain and the sunshine that helped it grow; the food’s journey to the aisles of the grocery store or the farmers market. If it’s not fresh, this won’t be so clear. If you look on the label, maybe you won’t be able to identify some of the names. Notice this. Perhaps you want to look up some of the names if you don’t recognize them as foods you know so that you become aware of what it is you’re eating.

• Then bite in and savor the flavor. Just eat. No talking. No reading. No TV. Just eat and relish. Enjoy. Immerse. Savor each bite. Eat whatever you want and as much as you want. Just keep your focus on the taste and your enjoyment. When your mind wanders and when you want to rush off and do something, stay with the food. Come back to the flavor. The sensations in the mouth. Chew. Enjoy. Swallow. Chew. Enjoy. Swallow.

Recap

You have the three simple steps. Do them every day.

• Do the visualization at least once a day, in the morning. Perhaps while you’re lying in bed, before you get up. If it helps, do the visualization several times a day.
• Focus each day on deliciousness and what you’re introduced in Step Two.
• And eat according to Step Three.

Have fun practicing your new habits. Because yes, establishing these new habits is going to take a bit of practice. And — practice makes perfect.

I am willing to guarantee that if you integrate these behaviors into your life; if you do them daily, weekly and monthly; then by the time 2010 becomes 2011, you’ll have given up any thoughts of old-fashioned diets and time-wasting resolutions.

You will have given up on trying to exert will-power.

In place of these waste-of-time preoccupations, you’ll have a healthy, sensual relationship with food and you’ll be happy with your body, your weight and with yourself.

© Wanda Hennig, 2010

Harriet, center, with fellow journalists and a kiwi bird in New Zealand.

Continued from Part 3 of When resigning is harder than getting the boot.

Baskas is well aware there are a lot of people working jobs they hate — and that common for people to be have their identity so invested in their job that they stay there.

“I know some people don’t have choice. But many, I think, have more choice than they think.”

What would she advise someone not happy in a job and thinking of leaving to freelance or run their own business?

“I’d tell people to stretch their day. Start doing what it is you love. Moonlight a bit, even if you’re up all the time. If you love it and want to explore it as an option, try doing it.

“I know people who have used vacation time to try out other jobs.”

And sometimes it takes losing it and then the person goes and gets a certificate, for example; and becomes a teacher [for instance]; and then they’re really happy and wish they’d done it sooner.

Her husband loves radio. When she left her job, he was in management.

And he stepped back down. “Sometimes you give up a little bit of money and get back happiness.

“You give up earning that extra $10 000, make a change to live on that much less, and live happier.”

Her identity now?

“I’m a writer, a radio producer and a creative person who manages my own business. And I can be very supportive of the person who took my job. Every time he calls for advice, I say ‘better you than me’.”

These days, among other things, Baskas writes her personal blog / column stuck at the airport “for my own entertainment;” she is the well-mannered traveler at MSNBC and she writes a monthly “at the airport” column for USA Today.

Onward and upward! How did you cope with job loss?

Harriet, center, with fellow journalists and a kiwi bird in New Zealand.

Continued from Part 2 of When resigning is harder than getting the boot.

Shifting gears — and the Big Question plus the answer that directed her new career.

“After I finished the one big deadline project I had when I left the radio station, I sat down and thought: ‘If I didn’t have to work, what would I do?’ I did the fantasy thing.”

What she came up with was this:

“I would go to museums and do radio stories about things that museums never show you.

“I wrote a grant [to do this] and got it.” A grant to do 24 such stories. “It took me two years.”

What she did was give herself permission to pursue her wish list.

“And I’m very lucky. That thing about ‘follow your bliss’ worked for me.

These days, Baskas writes about airports as well as the museums.

“I sometimes think, when I don’t have enough work, that I should get a regular job.”

But she doesn’t let herself get stuck there. “It would be too life consuming and I’m more selfish about having my life now,” she says.

“You get so tied up in a job, you don’t do other things. A regular job can be incredibly limiting. I know it happened to me.

“I didn’t leave time for my family. My husband and I were both working all the time. We were both coming home complaining about the irritations of our work.”

Shortly after she left her job, her husband made a switch in his job.

“We both switched to things we liked doing better and had to find new things to talk about. More pleasant stories.”

Please continue to Part 4 of When resigning is harder than getting the boot.

Harriet, center, with fellow journalists and a kiwi bird in New Zealand.

Continued from Part 1 of When Resigning is harder than getting the boot.

Baskas says it took her a year to leave. “It was hard,” she remembers.

Looking back, she says she can see that she was afraid to walk away.

What nagged her was: “If I don’t have that structure, the title and the authority, then what do I have?”

My identity was “Hi, my name is Harriet, I’m the manager of [the radio station] and the person would say, ‘Oh, I listen to that radio station.’ [Your job is] how you introduce yourself.

“Like, what am I? I’m a wife, I’m this, I’m that, and I’m the manager of this station.

“If I let that go, was there going to be enough to fill that big space in my income and my identity?”

She had some projects lined up and knew that financially she would be OK.

For health benefits, her husband was her cushion. “But that in itself was an identity issue. I had never relied on someone for something like that.”

It took about a year until finally, she was ready to walk away. On the plus side, “Taking that time was a good thing in that I made a plan for the next manager so he could step in easily.”

And soon as she left, the question of who she was resolved itself.

“It quickly became pretty clear than managing my own new life and career was as big a responsibility and job as what I’d left.”

Baskas had a couple of transition projects that would be challenging and take up time.

What has stayed with her is the fact that, “I left and — do you know? — I forgot my phone number within 24 hours. I had to go and look it up.

“That made me realize the door was closed. I was more ready to leave than I knew.”

Please continue to Part 3 of When resigning is harder than getting the boot.

Harriet, center, with fellow journalists and a kiwi bird in New Zealand.

Choosing to leave your job can be tough when it’s who you are and not simply what you do.

I met Seattle–based journalist Harriet Baskas in New Zealand. The pair of us, along with four other journos, were invited guests on a media trip covering an Air New Zealand promo (see Sex, Social Media and New Zealand — Part 1).

Sitting swopping stories in the back seat of our mini-bus during one of our jaunts around North Island with our Air New Zealand and tourism New Zealand hosts, Baskas — when I told her that “you are not your job” was the title of one of my blogs (among other things, Baskas blogs on being stuck at the airport) — told me about her personal confrontation with “you are not your job” syndrome.

It happened when she wanted to transition from full-time employment to freelancer some years ago.
At the time, Baskas was general manager running a radio station licensed to a community college in Bellevue, Washington. “I was the one salaried staff member, working with about 120 volunteers,” she says.

She had taken over a flailing radio station at a time the college was thinking of giving up on the license and closing it down.

Nearly a dozen years later, “it was thriving and successful in the sense that it was operating effectively and growing. It wasn’t an NPR, but it was stable and respected in the community,” she says.

“I’d built and fixed radio stations before that one,” she continues.

“What I’m good at is projects. But my work was done in terms of the personally challenging part.”
She was doing some freelance writing and some producing outside of her job at the station. “And I was getting cranky and irritated with the day-to-day things.

“I knew it was time to go.”

Then she discovered a hard truth. “I realized I was scared to walk away,” she says.

Number one, from the benefits.

“It had been my first job with benefits and I was enjoying that.”

And number two, “the identity thing.”

“If I wasn’t the boss of a place, the manager of that radio station, what would it mean to me?”

Please continue to Part 2 of When resigning is harder than getting the boot.

A friend — I’ll call her Suzie (and more about people not wanting their names used around lay-offs in a future post) — fell victim to a recent round of layoffs in San Francisco.

I say victim, but she felt less victimized after she left than when she worked there.

Why?

Simply put, she was not her job. She had a sustainable life. She had balance.

The major part of her life that was not working — although she was too up-close-and-involved at the time to see the effect this was having — was the work part.

Even though she was not her job, her relationship with her job was clouding the rest of her life.

Keep reading and you’ll get it.

On the work front, Suzie was:

1. Bored by her job.

For many, a layoff is a blessing, even when it’s a shock. It can give you the kick in the ass you need when you’re stuck, but not doing what’s required to get unstuck, which generally involves:

• Getting a resume together and starting the hunt for a new job, which as any of us who have worked full-time know, is time-consuming, and the last thing you feel like doing at the end of a long day, especially when you don’t like your current job, which is a debilitating and tired-making place to be; or
• Jumping ship without the anchor of a new job, the prospect of which freezes many into inactivity; or
• Doing what it takes to become self-employed.

2. Suzie couldn’t stand her boss. They’d had a series of confrontations. Suzie had told me stories of her bossy boss; how when she (Suzie) tried to question or discuss things, she (the bossy boss) got irritated and antsy. “It’s like I shouldn’t have opinions or like I’m questioning her authority,” Suzie told me. Several times. “So I just shut up,” she added.

Bad relationship. Passive-aggressive. Walking on egg-shells. Hey, and this was her fucking boss; not her boyfriend.

“Is she from this country?” I asked first time Suzie told me about her work situation, meaning, was her boss from the USA. And sure enough, she was.

Now, I was not born in the USA. And I have not always worked in the USA. But I have worked for a long time in the USA.

And I have a theory about bosses in the USA.

Namely, bosses in the USA are protected by the “at will” clause of US labor law.

If you’re a good boss, then lucky staff, and I’m sure there are a few.

I must have met a couple — and maybe even worked for one or two. Let me think about that …

But — a theory started to make sense to me, thinking about Suzie, and bosses I’ve had, and the number of times I’ve heard people give examples of the bizarre behavior of their  bosses, past and present.

I reckon the “at will” clause was conceptualized, and put into place, by a lousy boss, or several lousy bosses.

In the United States, you are not required to be a good boss. You can, in fact, be a terrible boss. This is because the general practice is that, at any time, you can summon anyone on your staff and say: “You’re fired.” No cause needed. No reason. Just be sure they can’t prove ageism, sexism, racism or something as direct as that, and you’re protected.

(You must know? The employer is free to discharge individuals “for good cause, or bad cause, or no cause at all.” Click on this Nolo link for the full scoop and to learn that, except in the state of Montana, if you are employed at will, your employer does not need good cause to fire you.)

When I was going to hire a senior editor on a publication and was concerned that while he was a good writer, he might not be a good senior editor, my boss said, “Well, you can just fire him.”

More on bad bosses — and this boss of mine — later.

But needless to say, the way things work, with the boss Suzie had, she was caught by the short hairs.

3. Back to Suzie’s termination: She was bored by her job and she had a godawful boss.

On top of this, while she liked the focus of her work in that she handled environmental issues for the city, and while sustainability was a value and where she wanted to be working, given the constraints imposed by the bossy boss, (which were contributing to her boredom), she knew she was making less of a difference and having less of an impact than she wanted.