I had to psych myself up to walk into the edit suite because I felt so uncomfortable.

I had a terrible time working with an editor who was extremely aggressive.

He wouldn’t let me watch any of the sync pulls with him so we could collaborate on ideas. He insisted that he cut it the way he wanted and then he’d let me watch. Any suggestions from me led to him shouting, and any time I disagreed with him led to an argument.

On one occasion he was so aggressive that I told him I was going to leave the room until he calmed down, he screamed at me to stay inside the suite. On a day-to-day basis I had to psych myself up to walk into the edit suite because I felt so uncomfortable working with him.

I arranged a meeting with my exec two weeks into the edit, to explain the editors aggressive behaviour but I didn’t get much support. My exec was nice but ineffectual, he didn’t want to interfere and make things worse and having never had this happen to me before I agreed.

The exec never once followed up and asked me if things had improved. I really wish at this stage that he had intervened on my behalf and taken the matter out of my hands. Things only got worse, and eventually I had to complain again, this time to my head of production who was much more helpful – but this time, it was too close to our deadlines to replace him.

I think that’s a real problem with the industry. There’s so much pressure to deliver that it’s sometimes beneficial for execs to bury their heads in the sand about bullying behaviour. As a freelancer myself I guess they considered this a short term problem. I think there needs to be much clearer complaints procedures, and freelancers need to be made aware of them. think much better training needs to be given to execs who don’t necessarily have great management skills.

I do feel that the experience has had lasting impact on me. It really knocked my confidence and has left such a sour taste in my mouth about the production.