Charlie was not quite at his worst today, but close, wavering between chumminess and martyrdom. Any sign of an employee thinking for herself infuriated him. He tried to prevent me from checking a board to see if the correction I was running out would flow properly onto it.

I’ve been given a fairly meaningless nudge “up.” Charlie told me to change the colophon to reflect, not only Trevin’s departure, but Shelly’s promotion. She is now “Associate Manager.” This means one who goes with Charlie to conventions, helps him deal with people, etc. Perhaps out of fear that I would object to remaining lowest on the masthead, he has changed my title to “Production Associate,” a term that sounds marginally better than “Production Assistant.”

Shelly took off with the issue at about 3:00. I spent the rest of the day getting out the invitations to Charlie’s two parties next week and later, driving him down to Montclair to run some errands.

“The board” meant the paste-up board. Charlie literally tried to prevent me from walking into the front room and looking over the paste-up board. Among the many nutty behaviors I’ve encountered in insanely controlling male employers, that’s the nuttiest.