From hell, I tell you. We have hired the consultants FROM HELL.

For those of the two of you unfamiliar with the background, let me set the scene.

For eight years I worked for the Boss From Hell, the Terminatrix, a disorganized, chaotic maniac whose only saving graces were that, (1) she produced sales, and (2) she honestly had no idea how abusive she was and would have been shocked to the soles of her feet had any of us been able to actually get her to see her behavior objectively.

I liked her, honestly, on a personal level. We always enjoyed having dinner or whatever. It's just that she created the most dysfunctional work environment I've ever seen, and I've seen a few. Seventy people in the building and some days it took almost every single one of them to keep her from coming apart at the seams.

Another saving grace of that job situation was Feisty Frieda (not her real name). Someone I worked with well, who was easy to get along with, good at her job, understanding, and one of only about four people in the world able to get in the Terminatrix's face and make her back down.

So, eventually I quit. (Okay, I quit at least eight times, once for each year I worked there, but finally, after the Terminatrix had moved on herself, via selling the company and raking in a few million dollars for her stocks, I managed to make it stick.)

Anyhoo. I took a six month sabbatical to regain my sanity, then started job hunting. Feisty Frieda, with whom I'd stayed in touch via having lunch about once a month, came forward and announced there was a perfect job for me at the company she'd moved on to, and with the nicest, kindest, least-chaotic boss in the world. All of which proved to be true, okay?

I don't blame Feisty Frieda that the company, a start-up, closed almost exactly a year later. All of the management were nice guys. Mostly too nice to survive in the cutthroat world of start-ups. Also, they'd made the mistake of building the core of the company around a really innovative technology idea and when the Investors realized what they had on their hands, they sold the company and recouped their investment, plus a healthy profit.

Anyhow, Feisty Frieda got me a job when I really, really needed one, and I love her double just for that.

This job? Guess who recommended me for this one? The Terminatrix herself. Praised me to the skies until Alvin had little choice but to hire me. (Heck, if I'd heard her glowing review, I'd have hired me, and I know better.)

So, the two women with whom I worked (and learned much) for eight years, each of whom has been instrumental in getting me another job since that time, get together, form a company to provide marketing and sales assistance to small companies. My new firm is one of their two clients.

And they're screwing up right and left.

Not content with refusing to treat me like a client, instead of like the gofer she bossed around for 8 years, the Terminatrix lays down the law to Alvin right and left, and frequently refuses to do things the way he wants things done.

Feisty Frieda is almost as bad. She treats me fine, but for some reason, she's really rude to Alvin, who is a nice, easy-going kind of guy but who can be pushed too far.

They both get pissy about being asked to re-write marketing material when it's inaccurate or just not well done. When we re-write it ourselves, to make it, you know, actually talk about the products we're selling, they get mad and complain about the work we create for them.

Neither of them listened to our version of what we wanted the new website (still under construction) to look like or what we wanted to say on it. We finally gave up and decided we could re-write the text ourselves at any time, so we'd just do that once they were out of the way.

Is this any way to treat a client? I don't think so.

The latest is the Print Job From Hell where we received a pink, orange, and black, pixilated vinyl banner with grommets to mount it on free-standing poles or maybe hang it from street lights at a craft fair when we wanted a black and red, silk-screened, matte plastic banner with velcro on the back to stick it to a trade-show booth. I won't even get into wondering why in the hell one of the letters in the middle of a line is clearly in a different typeface and about ten points smaller than any other letter.

Nor will I rant and rave about how she tried to blame it all on me, when my only contribution to the project was agreeing to pick the completed job up from Kinkos so she could leave town for a long weekend. (I did not, actually, pick up the job because I had a hair appointment. Alvin did. I did, however, spend the entire weekend on the phone between him and the actual designer, trying to figure out how to fix the mess.)

I had more bile to share, but they should be here momentarily (for a meeting that Alvin asked them to show up for at 11:00 this morning) and I want to get this posted.

Maybe tomorrow I'll have time to do a follow-up and even write about some important things, like my diet, my new haircut, and my opinion of the direction West Wing is going to take this year.