Thread by @ABustedBoomer

On #nationalbossday, I'll offer some tips, learned from a 25 year long mistake, by which I refer to my employment as Staff Counsel at Free Speech Advocates, as Litigation Counsel at Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism, and from 19 years as Senior Counsel at @ACLJ.

First things first:

If your boss talks badly about EVERY SINGLE COLLEAGUE behind their backs, he's talking badly about you to them.

In 2012, when Jay #Sekulow was preparing to endorse Mittens Romney, he ordered the Washington DC office to absent themselves. He expressly stated

that he was afraid of what our office manager, Glinda Corbin, might say if a TV news camera would be put in her face.

No wonder.

Sekulow and the Confederation of Dunces managing @ACLJ had once circulated a memorandum, when our $5Million office opened on Capitol Hill. T

The memo set out rules for conduct in our new office, which was to be a showcase for fundraising on wealthy donors. Of course, every office can, and maybe should, have settled expectations about office conduct. But tucked into the ACLJ's rules for our 201 Maryland Avenue office

was this beauty:

Female employees may not discard feminine hygiene products in bathroom trash cans. Such products must be placed in the kitchen trash can or deposited in the outside garbage.

Imagine being confronted by news media

after nearly a decade of carrying your used feminine hygiene products from the bathroom to the kitchen or to the garbage in the back alley. What might you have said to the media?

I can think of some things.

None of them would flatter #Sekulow.

Would Jay have enforced that rule against his sainted mother? Against Pam, his wife and partner in crime?

Now, when I came across the memo in my email, I reacted immediately. I sent an email back. "Are you seriously about to issue a rule that would only apply to two employees?

"Two employees who happen to be the only female employees in the office? Two employees who happen to be the only female African Americans in the office?"

Although they lacked the sense to omit such a rule originally, when I reminded them of a race discrimination lawsuit against

the Christian Coalition then pending in the federal district court in DC, that rule was withdrawn.

But, of course, by then, our entire staff knew exactly with what level of regard #Sekulow and his Gaggle of Evangelical Fleecers held the DC office staff.

So, rule 1, never work for an ass, even if he tries to convince you that you're doing God's work. God never told a woman that she would be required to cart her used hygiene products around the office.

Rule #2 is like rule #1. Like so many #horriblebosses, #Sekulow leans heavily on his "bubby," Stuart Roth. In our office, we had a saying, those who can, do, those who can't, are Stuart Roth. Roth's only apparent job requirement was to suggest bad personnel policies to Jay.

For example, in the mid-early 1990s, I received a disturbing phone call from Roth. "Associate X has been assigned the task of drafting up a complaint, TRO motion and brief, and supporting documents. Her deadline is Monday. She is not to be given any assistance at all."

"We need to know whether she is up to the task."

Why would Roth, #Sekulow's court jester, make that call to me?

Because I was regularly in the practice of assisting younger @ACLJ attorneys. I provided them guidance, sounding board opportunities, and plenty of document examples.

I complied with the instruction. I wish to God I had not.

On Wednesday of the week when the documents were due, I received another disturbing phone call. This was a whispered call from the Associate, telling me that she had to whisper because the CIA and the FBI were listening.

As it turned out, the intense pressure applied by #Sekulow toadie, Stuart Roth, resulted in the Associate suffering a nervous breakdown.

So rule #2?

Never work for a boss that employs a cruel and stupid, but terribly incompetent, consigliere!

Rule # 3?

If your boss refers to #JordanLorence as the kind of guy you can dress up, but cannot risk taking him anywhere, then your boss is an unregenerate ass. Quit, and don't walk, run!

Rule # 4?

When your boss is screeching at a 64 year old Bolivian American women for an honest mistake made in cleaning the @ACLJ's "guest house," throat punch the fucker, because maybe life never gave him the valuable lesson that you don't screech at the elderly!

Rule # 5?

If your boss has confused himself for God, RUN.

#Sekulow was angry at Michael Hirsh for trying to manipulate the ACLJ into representing subsequently convicted abortion doctor killer Paul Hill. Rather than simply firing him, #Sekulow ordered Hirsh to relocate to

Phoenix Arizona. Michael objected that, with his family, he couldn't afford to do so. (The Hirshes had a large family, maybe a dozen kids). Sekulow's reaction? "I never told you to have so many children!"

And that's the moment when you either throat punch the little fucker, or

leave.

As faithful Catholics, and many other Christians believe, marital love should be open to the transmission of life. That is bedrock sexuality doctrine in the Catholic Church. Apparently God hadn't consulted #Sekulow on that one.

Mind you, Sekulow was in his rights to

change, alter, or withdraw employment from Hirsh. But he was never entitled to cross the boundary into the intimacy and fecundity of Hirsh's marriage.

So Remember Rule # 5, if your boss has confused himself for God, RUN!

Rule # 6 is an absolute rule, but an amusing anecdote.

I was in our Virginia Beach office getting ready to teach a lecture course at @RegentLaw on the First Amendment. I stepped down the hall to the restroom. While standing at the urinal, a younger colleague entered and stood

at the next urinal. He had his cell phone with him.

"What's with the cell phone?"

"Stuart told me I'm required to have the cell phone with me at all times, including when in the restroom."

So, Rule # 6, if your boss forgets your human dignity, RUN!

And yes, such a rule is

just that, an attack on human dignity. It says to the one ordered, "Your bodily functions shall not interfere with my needs or my wants."

If your boss is as shitty as the shit you take while holding the phone his shittiness compels you to keep with you, then RUN!

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