‘Painful’: Meghan Markle boss truth we are ignoring

Meghan as per usual is making headlines but there’s a reality we’re all missing as the “mean” remarks go viral

OPINION

Television actor turned working royal turned Netflix star Meghan Markle has been hit by rumours she’s a bad boss, but I don’t think that automatically mean she’s a bad person.

Markle, who quit the royal family and then started a podcast, which is what most people do when they drop out of their Art Degrees, is reportedly not very nice to her staff.

Vanity Fair released an 8000-word extravaganza discussing Prince Harry and Meghan’s lives four years on from when they fled dreary Frogmore cottage to star-studded California.

Before the article came out, things were already going wrong. The couple turned up at the LA bushfires to volunteer, but they were roasted on social media and labelled no better than “ambulance chasers” by child actor-turned-director Justine Bateman.

Ms Bateman also called their behaviour “repulsive” and claimed the couple were helping out so they could get their photo taken.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry meet victims of the Los Angeles fires. Picture: CBS

It was not exactly a sparkling start to the year, with one anonymous former employee calling her a “Mean Girl’s teenager” and describing working on the podcast Archetypes as “very painful”.

To be fair if you’ve ever listened to the podcast the word “painful” would spring to anyone’s mind.

Other ex-staffers told the publication they had to take “extended breaks” or undergo “long-term therapy” after working with the former Suits star.

As you can imagine this didn’t endear Meghan to the internet. Someone online said Meghan was a “nightmare” and demanded she return to the UK.

Meghan got her big break on Suits. Picture: Amanda Edwards/Getty Images

Harry and Meghan are having a hard PR time. Picture Emmanuel Osodi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

There’s also just a general response to Meghan and Harry at the moment: people are fed up with them.

Someone online called them “icky,” but there’s also a larger narrative online of people being convinced Meghan’s a “mean girl,” and some ex-staffers sharing their experiences finally proves it.

It would be impossible to know without meeting her or working for her, but does being a bad boss make you a bad person?

There are so many people I love and like that I wouldn’t want to work for, not because I think they’re objectively horrible people, but because, as Meghan’s ex-staffer put it, I know they’d be “painful.”

I have friends that are very type A and need everything to be organised and the idea of them being in charge of me would drive me to the point of madness. I sometimes come to work wearing mismatched socks! I couldn’t stand that level of scrutiny.

It isn’t being a good boss! Picture: Backgrid

Meghan and Harry stopped being working royals in 2020. Picture: Emmanuel Osodi/Anadolu via Getty Images

I have mates who are the other way, far too unorganised, who jump from one idea to the next, and I know if they were my boss, they’d be the type to demand one thing, then change their minds when I’m halfway through a project and drive me mad with their indecision.

I also have friends who regale me with stories of how good they are at work at not working, and if they were my boss and I knew they were definitely getting their nails done while pretending to be in “a meeting”, that would also really annoy me.

I may even need to book myself into a therapy session just to vent about how “I’m the only one that does anything around here!”

Of course, the allegations in The Vanity Fair article sound more severe than that. Ex-staffers are basically saying Meghan was “mean” no one wants to work for a mean person?

But sometimes the word mean gets tossed around too often especially when it comes to women. Was she mean? Or just indecisive? Was she mean? Or scattered-brained? Was she mean? Or did she just have high standards? Was she mean? Or did she just not what she was doing? And therefore, it was annoying.

Look, who knows? I couldn’t say until I’d served a stint as Meghan’s employee, but I just don’t think calling someone a “bad boss” is the ultimate dig. Not everyone who is a good person is a good manager.

If you’re a boss, I would also avoid going too hard on Meghan because chances are that along your girl boss journey, you’ve mortally offended an employee.