**Big thanks to Denise, a fellow Deadly Diva and fabulous author, who on very short notice agreed to fill in for me while I’m on vacation to Vermont this week. I’ll be back next Monday–cross your fingers I don’t fall off a mountain. ~heather**

Speak of the Devil By Denise Swanson

Since I turned in the manuscript for Scumble River #9 June 30th (thank goodness—my deadline was July 1st) and my new book, Murder of a Real Bad Boy, doesn’t come out until August 1st, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks taking a much needed break (nine books in six years while working a day job has been a teensy bit stressful).

Mostly, I’ve been doing two things during my vacation, going to lunch with friends and going to matinees. Last week I did both, and both reminded me how thankful I am that I retired from my day job in December and now am able to write full-time.

My lunch was with a friend who works at the school I retired from, and after hearing what had happened to the school psychologist who took my place, and the fact she had already quit, I flashed back on the movie I had seen earlier in the week.

It was The Devil Wears Prada. I hadn’t read the book the movie was based on, but I had an idea of the plot from the myriad of commercials showing the hellish boss, Meryl Streep aka Miranda Priestly, torturing her naïve assistant, Andrea Sachs. After nearly two hours of watching Miranda deal out cruelties as if they were playing cards, I wondered why Andrea didn’t just quit—after all it wasn’t as if her parents had refused to give her money to live on or that working for “Runway” magazine was her life dream. But then I worked for my most devilish boss for over ten years, so who am to say Andrea’s behavior was nuts?

In spite of everything, I had a hard time feeling as sorry for Andrea as I’m sure I was supposed to feel. Sure, her boss expected her to know everything about the job the minute she started, but haven’t you had similar experiences with new jobs? My first job as a school psychologist was a thousand miles away from where I grew up, both physically and culturally, yet I was expected to fit into seven schools (every school does things a little differently) and “fix” their problem students. These schools were spread out over fifty miles and my boss sure didn’t lend me his Porsche to drive to them, heck he didn’t even give me a map.

Okay, Miranda treated poor Andrea like dirt, not even remembering her name. How many of you had at least one boss you wish didn’t know your name? My second boss called me Diane, Debbie, and once in a while even Duchess (his basset hound’s name). Was I scarred for life? Twisted maybe, but not scarred.

Yes, being on call 24/7 was a bit much, but at least Andrea didn’t have to worry about what to wear or take time to do her hair and makeup since she was given loaner designer clothes and shoes and had makeup and hair stylists to keep her looking good. For me, half the stress of going to work was getting ready to go to work.

Then, to top off all the cruelties, Andrea was forced to go to Paris and accept designer clothing as gifts. The best business trip I ever got was to a facility for the criminally insane and no one even bought me lunch, let alone a new outfit.

One of the scenes that had me nearly laugh out loud (and not in a good way) was when Miranda “explains” to Andrea how meaningful and important her work in fashion is because otherwise we, the world, would never have a particular shade of blue. After twenty-two years fighting for the rights of children with special needs, I had a hard time with that concept.

The ending also made me giggle (though I won’t tell you why, in case you want to see the movie for yourself). Suffice to say, that for most of us who have had bosses from hell, the ending would have been very different indeed.

-Denise