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Geraldine Hughes

in my work and pay close attention to my work quality. For me,
it was fortunate that my work quality was exceptional and that
often gave me favor with the savage beast. I did, how-ever, have
a few conflicts with Mr. Rothman. It was mainly over small,
insignificant things. He would find one little error and storm all
the way to the back of the office like a Trojan warrior, just to
yell at me for an error in which you needed a magnifying glass to
see. I would simply appease his tantrum and nod at the
appropriate time to get him off my back. It re-quired that you
not argue with him at all. That would only serve in increasing
his wrath. You could get rid of him quickly if you simply said
nothing but, "yes... uh hum... I understand...okay, I'll correct it."
Working for Mr. Rothman, however, was a true test to
even my own intestinal fortitude and philosophy. All of my
perceived notions and remedies did not prepare me for
dealing with Mr. Rothman's character. For the most part, Mr.
Rothman would play it pretty cool with me because I was a
good legal secretary and he had run the gambit of good
secretarial support. He appreciated my work quality and my
level of professionalism.
One year prior, Mr. Rothman was located on Sunset
Boulevard. He apparently had so many secretaries that he did
not remember that I had temped for him once before. Mr.
Rothman told me upon starting that his prior secretary had
just quit and stole a lot of office equipment from his office,
such as a typewriter, dictaphone, fax machine, etc. On my
first day of work he told me about the incident and I thought
it was strange for a professional legal secretary to do such a
thing. However, after working for Mr. Rothman and
observing his employer tactics, I could understand why, even
though I do not condone that type of behavior under any
circumstances.
According to public records, Mr. Rothman filed bankruptcy
in 1992 with debts totaling almost one million dollars. He
moved from the Sunset Boulevard office owing Folb
Management $53,000 in back rent, claiming that the
building's security was inadequate and caused him a loss of
$6,900 worth of

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