WASHINGTON--The title of a new biography of Michelle Obama is simply "Michelle" by Washington Post Magazine writer Liza Mundy, and an excerpt running in the Sunday edition tells of her discontent as an associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley, Austin, a "challenge to manage."
Barack Obama met Michelle at the firm Michelle joined after Harvard Law School. She was part of the marketing group one of the "fun" practices at the firm--dealing with entertainment, after all, but there still was routine second year associate work Michelle Obama was not crazy about.
excerpt......
"But Michelle could also frustrate her supervisors. Quincy White, the partner who helped recruit Michelle and who headed the marketing group, remembers finding her a challenge to manage. White, who is now retired from the firm, says he gave her the most interesting work he could find, in part because he wanted to see her advance, but also because she seemed perennially dissatisfied.
She was, White recalls, "quite possibly the most ambitious associate that I've ever seen." She wanted significant responsibility right away and was not afraid to object if she wasn't getting what she felt she deserved, he says.
Too monotonous for Michelle, who, White says, complained that the work he gave her was unsatisfactory. He says he gave her the Coors beer ads, which he considered one of the more glamorous assignments they had. Even then, he says, "she at one point went over my head and complained [to human resources] that I wasn't giving her enough interesting stuff, and the person came down to my office and said, 'Basically she's complaining that she's being treated like she's a second-year associate,' and we agreed that she was a second-year associate. I had eight or nine other associates, and I couldn't start treating one of them a lot better."
SNIP
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/10/michelle_obama_book_tells_of_h.htmlSharp Shelley
