They Were Asking For It With Comic Sans

(I work in a small print and design shop inside of an office supply store. For whatever reason, from the day I was hired, the supervisor of the shop immediately hated me. No one else at the location has a problem, and I even built a customer base of folks that will specifically request me when they come in. One such client is employed at the church down the street, and needs help setting up a basic newsletter design for weekly printing. After a week of work and numerous proofs, the client is happy with how things are progressing. I have two days off, and when I come back in, I see the newsletter is changed around entirely. Since none of the other shop employees would have touched a customer’s file without the customer’s permission, I assume the customer requested these changes while I was gone. I review the changes, send an updated proof to the client, and make my recommendations, as usual. Some of the recommendations include advising AGAINST some of the changes, like switching random blocks of text to Comic Sans, among others. Later that day…)

Supervisor: “Would you care to explain to me what’s going on here?!”

(She angrily shoves a sheet of paper at me, which I see is a printed copy of the email I sent to the client.)

Me: “Uh, it’s my recommendation to [Client] for the most recent version of her newsletter.”

Supervisor: “I’M the one who made those changes and I don’t appreciate you trash talking me to other customers! Those were just ideas I had for the newsletter and you didn’t need to send them to her!”

(She storms off and interrupts the store manager in her office, to show her the printed email and complain about me. The two spend some time in the office, and then the supervisor storms out. She won’t look at me or talk to me for the rest of the day. I go find the store manager when I have a spare moment.)

Me: “So… what on earth is up with [Supervisor]?”

Manager: “She brought me a copy of that email you sent and accused you of talking s*** about her to customers. I pointed out that you never once mentioned her name in that email, AND that I have a degree in graphic design and everything you recommended to the customer is legitimate. Mostly, I think she is pissed off that we both disagreed with her choices. I told her you handled the whole situation in a very professional way and that I didn’t see anything wrong with it.”

Me: “Wow.”

Manager: “You know, when [Other Employee] said he thought [Supervisor] was jealous of you, I didn’t really believe him. But now? Now I see it.”