Why Martha Stewart can be my boss any day

I’ve only once been tasked with hiring a new staff member, and I was in my mid-20s when it happened and unaware of all the ways a person might blossom or wither in a job. So when a friend recently mentioned how difficult he was finding it to select the right candidate for a role, how he was deciding between two people who were equally experienced and capable, and it seemed unfair to select one based on the vague criteria of “vibes” alone, the only advice I could offer was paraphrased from someone else.

In her 2011 book Bossypants, the comedy writer Tina Fey repeats a lesson she learnt from Lorne Michaels while working at Saturday Night Live, which is to hire people you wouldn’t mind running into in an elevator in the early hours of the morning. If I were offering the advice of a different boss, it might be: never hire someone who’ll sell you out to the tabloids.

That’s one of many things homemaking mogul Martha Stewart went through during her downfall in the early 2000s, a tidal wave of controversy that’s depicted in extreme detail in Martha, the new Netflix documentary on her ascent, criminal fall and digital rebirth.

Stewart has been the queen of the domestic, the paragon of perfection, a model turned caterer turned author of books teaching the American woman to host, cook and live. She’s worked on Wall Street and later returned there when the company built around her finicky, fanatical approach went public and transformed her overnight into a truly self-made billionaire.

And it was the buzzing noise from the stockmarket hive that also put federal prosecutors on her tail and eventually sent her to prison 20 years ago. (Stewart’s anecdotes of getting calls advising her to offload shares before going on a tropical vacation were the closest I’ve ever been to understanding insider trading.)

What came after, in the press, was not the undoing of a businesswoman though: it was the tarring and feathering of a bitch, a woman with impossibly high standards who, to hear them tell it, made her employees’ lives hell.

Credit: Robin Cowcher

Her expectations were higher than the towers of glistening fruit and plump prawns adorning her impossibly perfect holiday tables. The pressure she put on herself to look good and perform at the highest levels extended down to everyone around her. And while watching the film – which was notably directed by R.J. Cutler, who also gave us a glimpse inside the glossy world of Vogue in 2009’s The September Issue, where the similarly icy and difficult-to-please editor Anna Wintour led from behind her trademark sunglasses – I found myself siding with Stewart.

I couldn’t begin to imagine how frustrating it would be to film a cooking segment in a kitchen full of people using tiny paring knives to slice fruit! Rather than silently, (im)patiently waiting for the task to be done, Stewart issues corrections. She makes them work more efficiently. Surely this fastidiousness is a virtue? She is a control freak and trusts few people to execute work to the standards she sets. Each image from her early cookbooks could be mistaken for a work of art, a still life painting or image created with a team of art directors and stylists. Is it not a compliment that she doesn’t allow a stray cherry to sit atop a tart?

I watched her with admiration, understanding the impulse to correct, to direct, to give feedback not decorated with apologies. I’ve often fallen victim to the more passive approach, to accepting the bare minimum for fear of rocking the boat or coming across as harsh or nasty. But in those efforts to be likeable, the quality of my output has suffered. As a boss, unburdened with the desire to be the best friend, Stewart has excelled and achieved. And her reputation as a beacon of taste and style has endured.

It’s because of her “impossible” standards that Stewart gives those of us interested in cooking, hosting, decorating and living well something to aim for. And it was her bitchiness – as her detractors call it in Martha – that got it done. Being polite is important, having a good reputation is a bonus, but having a sure and experienced opinion for doing something well doesn’t make a boss like Martha Stewart a bitch in my eyes. It makes her a force. If she were choosing new staff, I’d put my hand up in a heartbeat, and pray she likes my “vibe”.