Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Falling off Shaps' summit

I noted this week that Simon Shaps has left his job as something important at ITV. I was once interviewed for a job by him and found it a wounding and humiliating experience. It wasn't the fact that I didn't get the job in LWT's press office, which was only a temporary job anyway, but the gleefully nasty way in which he derided my modest CV. I was thinking of this experience when I interviewed someone for a job recently. There's just no need for bad manners or bullying. And when some of the people I'm interviewing are closer to the ages of my children, than to mine, I remember too that these people are somebody's children.

I've subsequently never heard anything since about Simon Shaps, the son of Mr and Mrs Shaps, that has caused me to put that experience down to bad luck, or just the way of the telly business. I just hope he can learn from his own chastening experience at the hands of Michael Grade and emerge a better person.

I interviewed Grade once. He was tough, but fair.

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