At some point royal reporters and royal biographers will rehash certain issues over and over again to the point where they’ll actually admit that the Windsors and their people are the problem. That’s kind of where we’re headed. In this case, I’m talking about the whole “Meghan didn’t get along with Kensington Palace staffers” thing. Meghan spent a grand total of about fifteen months under KP’s control, and it genuinely feels like all of those KP morons are *still* crying about it. I think those sad people had never met anyone who told them to their faces that their work wasn’t good and that they needed to do better. It’s been clear from Valentine Low’s book (Courtiers) that those staffers are still completely unwilling to give away any specifics of exactly what they did wrong, so their quotes are always like “something was (passive voice) screwed up and I cried because I knew Meghan would be mad!” Now Katie Nicholl is trying to get to the bottom of exactly what happened When Meghan Met The Palace Staffers.
Meghan Markle believed she was going to be the “queen bee” of the British royal family after marrying Prince Harry, a royal expert claims.
“I think there were culture clashes, there were personality clashes, but I think ultimately, Meghan did want to be queen bee,” royal expert Katie Nicholl told True Royalty TV’s “The Royal Beat,” according to a Mirror article published Friday.
Nicholl explained that the Duchess of Sussex, who was accused of allegedly bullying staffers, expected the Palace to take immediate action at her request, even allegedly sending out emails with orders late at night.
“She expected an immediacy that went with those dawn emails so that she’d hatch an idea, want it executed by the next day, and didn’t quite get that the Palace worked at a different pace,” Nicholl claimed.
The royal expert added that she didn’t think Markle’s early correspondence was “a huge issue” because the King would also send late-night emails.
“But my understanding from the people that I spoke to, many of whom did work for the Sussexes, was that Meghan in particular [would] want everything done now,” Nicholl explained.
I 100% believe that Meghan would send a text in the evening, something like “when you get into the office tomorrow, can you set up calls with Joe and Mildred at SmartWorks?” And the staffer would then cry about the text all night, go into the office at 11 am, tell Jason Knauf that Meghan was bullying her, and the SmartWorks calls were never made. But again, none of that means that Meghan wanted to be “queen bee.” She wanted people to work and they’re still f–king crying about it. Expecting subordinates to complete tasks in a timely manner isn’t “wanting to be queen bee.” It’s called being the boss.
(It’s also become abundantly clear that there was a deliberate and active KP effort to sabotage Meghan, in my opinion, and pretty soon these royal biographies will end up confirming that too.)
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- LONDON, ENGLAND – NOVEMBER 21: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex has a drink as she visits the Hubb Community Kitchen to see how funds raised by the ‘Together: Our Community’ Cookbook are making a difference at Al Manaar, North Kensington on November 21, 2018 in London, England.
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- LONDON, ENGLAND – NOVEMBER 21: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen to see how funds raised by the ‘Together: Our Community’ Cookbook are making a difference at Al Manaar, North Kensington on November 21, 2018 in London, England.
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- LONDON, ENGLAND – NOVEMBER 21: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex talks to chef Clare Smyth as she visits the Hubb Community Kitchen to see how funds raised by the ‘Together: Our Community’ Cookbook are making a difference at Al Manaar, North Kensington on November 21, 2018 in London, England.
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- LONDON, ENGLAND – NOVEMBER 21: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen to see how funds raised by the ‘Together: Our Community’ Cookbook are making a difference at Al Manaar, North Kensington on November 21, 2018 in London, England.
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- LONDON, ENGLAND – NOVEMBER 21: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex greets people as she arrives to visit the Hubb Community Kitchen to see how funds raised by the ‘Together: Our Community’ Cookbook are making a difference at Al Manaar, North Kensington on November 21, 2018 in London, England.
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- LONDON, ENGLAND – NOVEMBER 21: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex cradles her bump as she visits the Hubb Community Kitchen to see how funds raised by the ‘Together: Our Community’ Cookbook are making a difference at Al Manaar, North Kensington on November 21, 2018 in London, England.
truly wild. person expected people to do the job they were paid to do. how is this a headline?!
What Nicholl is basically saying is that royal staffers were lazy. “Palace works at a different pace” meaning they were used to work 3 business days and Meghan probably made them work 4 or 5 and obviously that makes her a queen bee *rolls eyes*
well lol 3 business days is probably giving them too much credit. I’m sure its more like business expensed lunches. And they are mad they actually have to crack open a laptop and answer work emails.
Remember that Kate doesn’t work. So neither does her staff. When someone comes along who is productive and expects her staff to be the same, that is the worst crime in modern history and she must be burned at the stake, drawn and quartered, AND have her head put on a spike for it.
@Chloe This is wrong. One of those insiders interviewed during the funeral said they worked 3 hours a day. So that’s 15 hours a week at best, not counting sick days, vacation, appointments etc. So just under 2 days a week all in. No wonder nothing could ever get done.
With every one of these stories, it’s really clear to me that the royal family wants to be seen as keen to do things, but never actually does anything concrete. Why that is idk, but that seems to be the active strategy.
Meghan made the mistake of thinking that she was supposed to actually have the rubber meet the road and accomplish things. That was in direct opposition to the culture at the palaces.
Exactly- I think Meghan thought she and the Royal Family had similar goals of helping people and trying to make the world a better place. It was a rude awakening for her to realize- actually none of these people care about that at all. They just want to be seen as caring about stuff.
Yep – and that explains the venom towards her too, right? Because, even if they wanted to, they cant have an honest, level-setting conversation with her about the culture at the palace without saying the quiet part out loud. So they had to push her out to maintain the system- like any toxic workplace.
The staffers cant say “Hey, Meg, we don’t actually work here…thats not what we signed up for. This is a pseudo-job” because then they’re admitting they don’t actually work – so they have to turn it around on her and make her the bully for having expectations.
The Royal Family cant say “Hey, Meg, you’re making us look bad because the whole thing is here that we don’t actually *DO* anything” because then they’re admitting its all a scam – so they have to knock her down and push her out.
She really was on another level when she joined the family. And if you’re on that staff and used to being lazy about everything I bet it was a shock when she got married!
I think it’s very interesting that to the best of my knowledge no one from the staff has shared the actual texts. It is completely possible her texts were phrased as “When you have a moment” or “please do this tomorrow.” If she truly was emailing and texting after hours AND demanding the staffers take action even at midnight, I’d think the staff would share those texts.
And still none of these books have details. I’m sick of the “I’m scared of her so I cried” and “Meghan yelled at me in front of others” stories. None of it says anything and certainly doesn’t prove bullying.
She needed to learn that the palace “worked at a different pace?” Are they joking? You cannot tell me that when someone (read that: any Royal) wanted something that there was not a sense of urgency and immediacy. What a bunch of sh&t. It was simple hatred and sabotage.
The circus we can obviously see from outside was probably a worse chaos from behind the scenes. The RF probably set up their lazy staff in a way that employees didnt even know who they reported to so not only they didnt think Meg could give them orders, they didnt even think it was for them to complete the task! LAZY and confused: can you imagine that!!
“Go into the office at 11 am” LOL
Maybe the royal expert is Jason or maybe piers this is absurd after Charles video of his behavior with staff like a modern day Louis the fourteenth
This was cleary never going to work. Meghan was too professional for that set up and another obstacle is the Keens were never going to let someone with more discipline and vision make them look bad. It was doomed from the start.
Exactly @Noki. C the t’ird wasn’t a threat to PW and spouse, but M&H’s work ethic was. So they threw the outsider under the bus (because they still wanted H to do PW’s job).
Wanting the assignments executed in a timely fashion has nothing to do with being a Queen Bee and Nicholl is setting herself up for the Meghan Karma Express with these quotes. It’s annoying how Nicholl has to label Meghan to deflect from the laziness of the Cambridges and their staff.
Now Meghan should consider doing a podcast on the trope of the Queen Bee and why grown, confident women in positions of authority still cannot escape from this derogatory label which is based on high school social structures. And we all know that Kate loves to be a Queen Bee so Nicholl is confusing Kate’s need to be at the top with Meghan’s opposite desire which is to be useful and of service.
its always been projecting the Winsors bad habits on the Suxxesses
good ones.
Just like 45s favorite tactics.
@noki – “This was cleary never going to work. Meghan was too professional for that set up and another obstacle is the Keens were never going to let someone with more discipline and vision make them look bad. It was doomed from the start.”
I agree! To add to what else I think the Kkkeens would never allow: someone more intelligent, articulate, poised, caring, etc…. That first panel discussion with the four of them is when the penny fully dropped for the terrible twosome that Meghan far outshone khate.
KP clearly collaborated to slow roll or just not do the majority of what Meghan asked for, whether it was making a phone call or anything else. Although that might just be regular pace too. A little bit of both prob.
Meghan most likely did most or a lot of the work herself. She probably had to pull together a secondary group of staff who would work on her projects and therefore was eventually able to bypass KP’s office altogether (and then move to BP). Meghan completed so many successful, innovative projects despite the slow rolling, leaks, and sabotage. KP & Jason would have been seething that M found a way around it, and they are still putting out lies regarding what happened.
Agree – I lived and worked in Britain for a few years and there is a true 5pm shut off culture, which is great for working from a mental health perspective, but for an American-trained boss? Feels very foreign.
I really like Meghan — I genuinely do! — but I do wish she would have given Britain more of a chance. Ultimately, I too left because I felt too American, which is what I suspect really happened here.
Things are different there and they’ve got their problems (as pointed out often by Kaiser, which is why I love reading CB) but boy, I really feel sometimes like she and Harry didn’t give the country —and their family — a chance to learn from their mistakes. (And trust me, Britain is a very conservative country at heart, which explains, but doesn’t excuse, the media’s behavior.)
A real missed opportunity all around.
I wish that Meghan could have stayed here, but I am so very glad that she valued her safety, mental health and overall well-being to leave along with Harry and Archie when enough was clearly enough.
Have no idea when Operation Oust Meghan as it were was instigated but it’s clear that everything and anything she did and is was deliberately to be found unsuitable/not-above-board/unfitting. Being American may well have been a big strike against her for some, but overall definitely not the biggest reason why Meghan found herself dealing with insubordinate subordinates or people who were apparently allergic to working….
From the sounds of things Meghan would have been stunned if people had stayed in the office until 5pm.
It’s not unusual for Brits to work full-time, care for family, volunteer, and pursue further education, too. I’ve been there, and have current colleagues doing the same and more. The KP setup is something I can’t even imagine…..
Imagine being hired to work and having your employer EXPECT you to work? These racists never rest.
I have had the feeling for a while that there was only ever one early morning email sent by Meghan and that was to Jason about her Mother’s security. We have never heard what these 5am emails were meant to be about apart from that one. It’s my opinion that Jason thought he was going to be the boss of Meghan and tell her what to do (aka make HIS name famous by HIS splendid advise to Meghan). So when it didn’t happen he got nasty.
Was Jason wanting to be Queen Bee?
That’s a pretty solid theory. Jason probably had a lot of control over how things were run at KP and when Meghan entered the picture she might have wanted to take some of that control back (as the boss, nothing wrong with that at all), and Jason might have resented it. If W&K were never there, then he probably got to run the show and was the queen bee, so he was probably ticked that Meghan was “usurping his position” or whatever.
@Becks: I think that was the source of the problem, Jason Knauf had too much control over the running of KP. He saw Meghan, not as one of his principals but a threat to his position in KP.
Great theory!
As a general rule, I don’t send emails to my staff outside of work hours because I believe in work life balance; that said, sometimes there is a need to do so. If any early morning emails were sent, I suspect they were related to events happening that day.
The 5am email was due to a time difference as I think it was on the Australian tour. And she apologized when she sent it in the email itself. All that came out when Jason tried to smear her more.
so I am of two theories with the 5 am email or text or whatever:
1) the only one we have proof of is the one she sent to Jason when she was on tour and apologized for the time difference, related to her mom’s security I believe. My guess is this is the one she sent and that’s been used as the basis for this ongoing story that she was sending emails at all times of the day and night.
2) its completely dependent on work culture I think. In general I don’t think emailing or receiving emails for work at all hours of the day and night is healthy and shows that someone does not respect boundaries (I work for the govt, I’m all about boundaries, lol). But I also think it depends on the expectations and the nature of the work. For example my husband will email his assistants at 8 or 9 at night (never later, he’s asleep by 10 lol) but its more so that he doesn’t forget to ask them something, it has nothing to do with expecting a response, and they’re never checking their emails once they log off anyway. I get the impression for the most part that any after-hours communications from Meghan were more like that.
@Becks – In total agreement, but one of the things that I had to learn to do (because ADHD I needed to text as soon as I had the thought or *I* would forget) was learn/remember to “schedule” the text to be sent. That really helps all around as I need to do it immediately, but my team doesn’t get it until the start of business the next day.
One of the best bosses I ever had would email me all the time – day, night, weekend. But – and this is part of what made him great – he had no expectation I would even see the email if it was outside office hours. And if he sent one a few minutes before I was due to leave for the day, he made sure I knew he meant for me to tackle said task the next day. He also rarely said please or thank you. But that worked for me because a) I knew he really valued my efforts and b) it saved time.
One of the worst bosses I had also emailed day, night and weekend, but they assumed I would be awake at 3 am to tackle their completely mundane and unimportant request and were surprised (and not pleased) when it wasn’t done within an hour of the email being sent. They were also super effusive with their gratitude over even the tiniest of things, but I knew they didn’t mean it, at all.
Guess which one I worked harder for?
Emailing only during work hours impossible to maintain once you are working across a mix of time zones.
Just send the email, and trust that staff will pick them up in their working hours and prioritise appropriately.
That is if they are competent, of course.
Agreed KT. What I’ve never understood with the 5am stuff is why not explain to your employer, Meghan in this case, that your phone is off to work calls between so and so hours and that you will not pick up or respond to emails until this time of the morning blah blah, ie as soon as the agreed working hours begin. You could talk about work life balance and/or you could just explain your understanding of your contract. Rather this than moaning about it after the fact.
My boss will email at any hour of the day or night, weekend or not, with the expectation that we will read it/deal with it when we begin our next workday. Just because you send an email at 5 am doesn’t mean you expect the recipient to be reading it then!
Liar Nicholls explanation still doesn’t make her a bully and i am sorry but if i was the boss, I would also expect my employees to work at my orders is that not how business works? Because Meghan was in fact their superior.
In the Royal family the courtiers are the bosses. And that’s what everybody is forgetting. The courtiers are the ones who say what the protocol is. Usually by making it up. They are the ones who stop you or get you in to see the King now. They are the ones who say how many and which charities you can work with. They are the ones in charge. Charles and William really only get to pick out what clothes they wear each day. I doubt they even get to pick what food they eat. And I think they are the ones who are actually terrified of Harry’s book and the netflix series. Because if Harry goes after anyone it will be them.
@Robert:
“And I think they [the courtiers] are the ones who are actually terrified of Harry’s book and the netflix series. Because if Harry goes after anyone it will be them.”
^ BOOM! Exactly.
The courtiers and the PiratesWithPressPasses are the ones who will feature BIGLY in Harry’s memoir. They know it, which, of course, is why they keep saying that H will trash his “family” in his book.
As we all know, the gutterpress in britain use the cowering RF as cover and proxy for their one-sided war against H&M, especially M.
This makes me wonder about Harry and Invictus Games and Sentabale because that must have been done outside of the KP, William and Kates staff. What prompted him to work outside of the Firm? Did he get the same obstruction and decided to work outside of the system?
This is simply a response to the comparison made about the different descriptions used for Meghan and King Charles for supposedly similar behavior.
They now have to explain how Meghan’s behavior was the same ..but worse.
These people……why are we now heaing this from Katie. Lowe wrote a whole booked sourced from the Courtiers and I didn’t hear these supposed details.
They are reprehensible.
Yes! This is what I came here to say. We’ve just been hearing that Charles is always on and you can’t rest working for him and isn’t that wonderful .
When your racism and misogyny are showing this much you might want to tuck them back in.
My boss expects me (a subordinate) to do tasks all day. Every day. In a timely manner.
These RR really aren’t doing the British public any favors, putting forward that it’s British culture to not do the job you were hired for, to not meet a deadline, or to not even put in any effort. Just show up for a few hours and expect your boss to coddle you and celebrate the fact you came in at all.
Well i hope this isnt British work culture and more so the Royal establishment work culture. In an environment where jobs are given out based on connections and not merit this is what happens. I am just curious at how so called real professionals that have been poached from the Govt or serious organisations handle the work culture shock and the famously low pay.
They mostly last a year or so then run for the exit
Also, some of the ones poached from government will be officially ‘on secondment’ which means they get their old salary plus a guaranteed job to return to
I’ve said it before and will say it again… what is being described here isn’t typical of British work culture, it just isn’t.
This supposed look behind Palace walls is the first time I’ve ever heard of shirking work being a normalised work practice. I’m used to being employed to simply do what employees around the world do…show up and work!
I was pretty sure it wasn’t the actual culture. The RR are definitely trying to push through that it is the culture…at least when it comes to Meghan. I’d be disgusted and angry if I were a member of the British work force.
Well, isn’t that the idea of work, that your boss gives you a task and you fulfill it? What is this, the royal version of quiet quitting? (I personally dislike that term but it’s in our culture now and l understand the concept behind it.) Obviously when Charles does it, it’s fine, but Meghan is the upstart, female and a WOC, so that just won’t do.
I don’t think it’s British work culture to not do work in a timely fashion but as a foreigner you should learn and respect the local work culture. I’ve worked in both countries and each has its own style and both have their strengths. If you want to build long term relationships you need to adjust to them and their culture. I also suspect the staff was also reporting to KP or BP and Meghan/Harry had a lot less authority than they thought because things had to be signed off on a higher level.
One would think the adjusting would go both ways, but forget long term relationships – H&M weren’t married even 6 months before it was decided to split the KP office (even though the actual split happened later), Meghan was already pregnant, she was doing projects, she was traveling and she was trying to adjust to a completely different way of life. Even the British don’t have a life and work culture like the RF. So, during those 6 months, the staff in the KP office couldn’t try to adjust to her? Supposedly, they liked Harry – they couldn’t make an effort to understand his wife’s situation? This story doesn’t make sense when I look at it from a purely work culture point of view.
At the risk of sounding very American, I really don’t know what the problem is. Meghan is an American and she has worked her entire life. I understand that the UK has a class system, but don’t Aristos work too? Why is it unheard of to do something and do something well? This baffles me. This girl is not only a hard worker, she is competitive. You don’t come out of an academically rigorous high school, go to one of the best universities in the country, and become a successful working actress without a lot of drive, ambition, and competitive spirit. To me it’s just showing how classless and lazy the aristos are over there. The more I read about them, the more I’m disgusted. I never really had an opinion before, but I do now.
It also couldn’t hurt if they actually PAID these folks better. I’m A firm believer in ‘You get what you pay for’. My understanding is that the jobs are (for the most part) poorly paying and that they are supposed to accept that since they then have the “prestige” of working for the royals. Can’t eat prestige.
Excellent point, but it’s been said that a lot of their employees are aristocratic, trust fund babies who don’t really need the money. It’s just busy work that keeps them adjacent to power. And the ones that DO need the money supplement their income by selling stories to tabloids.
But, yeah, the pay is absolute shit and the kind of people it attracts is basically the worst of the worst.
There’s a saying here “Pay peanuts you get monkeys……” so yep attracting people who aren’t a right fit for the job/born idlers sounds about right in this case….
I bet a lot of those aristos or aristo adjacent types are daughters or second sons who get peanuts compared to the heir who gets the big house and all the bills that go with it.
Thank you, Nicole, for saving me from writing exactly what you said! All the amazing qualities you describe seem to be what the RF and their flunkies can’t stand.
What’s really nuts is that they’re expecting us to side with them after learning this.
How long will these stories continue for? We get it M was not liked in the royal family or by staff. Now give us stories about how KC is running the show.
I’m tired of this messaging being shoved down everyone’s throats. It’s the same stuff every week. It’s not clever, original, or true. I know it sells papers but I just wish the press would stop this and move on.
It’s the melanin content which determines if someone is a boss or a bully. I would add absence of a y chromosome will do it too.
100% this. If you’re white and male, you are confident and a go-getter. If you’re neither or a especially a woman, you’re a bully, emotional, and aggressive.
100%. I’ve just been hearing from a very senior woman about the man in a project group she is part of who is fine with his male colleague chipping in with ideas as he downloads but as soon as she tries to add anything its ‘excuse me, I hadn’t finished’. Every time.
Person with staff expects staff to do their jobs.
They need to quit with this narrative. Everyone who has worked with Meghan directly on these projects had nothing but wonderful things to say.
The Firm: Meghan, now that you are married into the Royal Family™️ you are expected to represent the Royal Family™️ at a very high level.
Meghan: I understand and accept this new role.
*Meghan immediately sets up an office, creates plan after plan to to represent the Royal Family™️ at various charities as well as creating plans to actually enrich the charities. Meghan gives instructions to her staff so they can accomplish the Big Damn Plans in a way that reflects well on The Queen and the Royal Family™️*
The Firm: Umm, not like that.
Exactly. I am also sure that Meghan was fully aware of all the potential traps and smears an one of them was that if didn’t work enough she would be called lazy, that she left her job to be kept by Harry an BRF. And this is probably courtiers&co plan, that’s why they were sabotaging her projects and got so mad that Meg managed to be successful anyway. Then the narrative changed to “she’s a crazy, workaholic bully”.
I’ve been thinking they were mad that they couldn’t call her lazy so the narrative switched up, smh how exhausting, no wonder there is a cost of living crisis there, they spend way too much time trying not to do anything else about it and go after others who are trying at least.
The real problem is that she works at a faster pace than Will and Kate and that is what is unacceptable. She works harder and would have gained more respect without their interference to force them out.
Yep! Definitely.
Remember that scene in Big when the new guy is typing away and the old staffer beside him says “hey hey slow down, you want to make us all look bad?”
I think almost anyone can work faster than the turtle pace the Willnots set.
A drugged sloth going BACKWARDS would work faster than those two.
My youngest granddaughter loves to pretend she’s a sloth, but in actuality she’s so much more ambitious and productive! She’s not even four, yet I bet she’s accomplished more than anyone in KP.
I believe it!
“I think there were culture clashes, there were personality clashes, but I think ultimately, Meghan did want to be queen bee,”
No, Meghan expected competency from her staff, and got a rude awakening that these people, who she expected to be top notch since the worked for The Crown, were actually lazy, incompetent morons.
“Palace to take immediate action at her request, even allegedly sending out emails with orders late at night.”
That’s how most places of employment work. But, as Omid Scobie said, KP staff were used to their bosses showing up once a month at best, and who barely did anything. They were not prepared or skilled enough to handle a regular 9 to 5 gig with a boss who had clear plans she wanted executed.
“She expected an immediacy that went with those dawn emails so that she’d hatch an idea, want it executed by the next day, and didn’t quite get that the Palace worked at a different pace,”
Worked at a different pace is code for, barely did shit. I have no doubt that KP staffers complained to Will and Kate (via Jason Knauf) and they were instructed to slow walk and sabotage Meghan’s every effort. And when Meghan refused to give up and held them accountable for their fuck ups real or intentional, they cried white fragility tears.
I might have had a SMIDGE of sympathy for staffers who were clearly stuck between two sets of bosses giving them opposing directives. But these little bitches had RRs on speed dial briefing against Meghan and calling her every name under the sun. So fuck every last one of them.
Snuffles, there’s something that I’m missing. Late night emails aren’t even an issue. I had a work email and my personal email. I didn’t check my work email when I wasn’t at the office. I would get the email first thing in the morning when I got to work. Why would that be an issue? Were the staff using their work emails for their personal email?
The staff are making themselves sound quite incompetent. They were also upset that they got 6 or 7 emails from her in one day. Wow, you poor babies. As a paralegal, I worked for more than one attorney, and I assure you I would have been celebrating if I only got 6 or 7 emails in one day.
The brf wants to come to the US and what? Dazzle us? Get our devotion? I don’t know what their end game is, but I guarantee you that letting everyone know that the US is full of bullies because the people here WORK isn’t gonna do it! I thought they are supposed to be concerned for their “subjects”. All this does is give people a very skewed idea about their work ethics. That’s not fair to all of the people in the UK who work hard. Way to go.
Nichol is not doing KP any favors. She’s proving William is running a sloppy operation at KP and the bullying investigation proves KP (William) was at fault and that’s why the results were sealed.
So again the problem was that the Black American duchess expected her staff to actually work. I “love” how KN has to add that Charles sends late night emails too BUT ITS DIFFERENT. And honestly it probably was different bc Charles’ team didn’t interpret those emails as bullying not just bc he’s a white male prince but also because his team seems at least somewhat competent, at least when it comes to his royal work. (family PR messaging is a different story.) but in terms of his schedule, his projects, his interviews, magazine editing, whatever – his team seems on top of it.
I think it really was a KP problem, they didn’t want to work and H&M expected them to work.
For me, it’s the “6 or 7 emails a day!” horseshit that really blows my mind. I’m an attorney and receive more emails than that in AN HOUR, lol! And I send probably twice that many during the same time frame. Who in the hell works in an office setting and is just overworked to the bone from getting 6 whole emails in one day?!? These people don’t seem to understand that they’re exposing their own lazy-as-fuck attitude on the world stage. And seeing as how their primary bosses are William and Kate, they’re inadvertantly exposing how little those two assholes actually work. If anyone at KP was capable of rubbing two brain cells together, they’d alert their bosses that, “uh, hey guys, this actually doesn’t make us look so good..” lol
Serious question Brits: is it not normal to send/receive messages late at night? I wouldn’t even question a 3am email at my job. Someone could be in another time zone or just anxious about a project.
I work in Germany and e-mails outside working hours are discouraged. That said, I open my mailbox when I start workday and unless someone is calling me frantically or texting to answer asap, I really don’t care when the email got sent. I’ll answer when I’m at work.
An email at 3am is ok. A call or text wouldn’t be.
That’s my feeling. A 3am “while I’m thinking about it” message is not a demand or expectation of immediate action. I mean, it can definitely be annoying to start the work day with a message reminding you to do something you’d fully planned to do after a cup of coffee, but that’s a far cry from bullying.
Commenting as a Brit and outside of the royal environment I would say this: You could email whenever you wanted, but if you expected me to pick it up before the start of the working day that would be a “no”. (I am not referring to M’s alleged intentions – I believe she sent her messages but didn’t expect them to be picked up until the working day.) Also, I suspect that if my boss continually emailed in the early hours I would be worried he/she was having a problem with their own work/life balance and therefore possibly heading up to wanting my work/life balance to be as intense as theirs. I speak as someone who has worked largely in the public sector, some of it high level, where behaviour like this would cause a certain degree of alarm; I’d want to know why work was spilling over so much into someone’s personal time and whether they were sleeping OK. The intensity of continually emailing out of hours seems more of a private sector thing, or a self-employed business thing, sectors I stay well out of. You’ll never work as hard as the person who set up their own firm wants you to work, and it’s tiring.
I think one of the biggest problems is that they (W&K) were used to Harry. He was passionate enough about his work that he didn’t care if he got credit as long as it was done. So if everything feel under the Fab Four Umbrella with no personal recognition he didn’t care. However, once they started smearing Meghan (and he knew it was them) he was like duck that and wanted to make sure she got the credit for her work to counteract the smears. And her work was so dynamic that it made those two look terrible. So I think there were tensions with the staffers. Not bc Meg was bullying them but bc they had one principal (w, higher in ranking) directing them to go against their other principals request. Plus racism and laziness.
In the Royal family the courtiers are the bosses. And that’s what everybody is forgetting. The courtiers are the ones who say what the protocol is. Usually by making it up. They are the ones who stop you or get you in to see the King now. They are the ones who say how many and which charities you can work with. They are the ones in charge. Charles and William really only get to pick out what clothes they wear each day. I doubt they even get to pick what food they eat. And I think they are the ones who are actually terrified of Harry’s book and the netflix series. Because if Harry goes after anyone it will be them.
I would be *fascinated* to learn more about the courtiers. Who are they? How do they get selected for this role? Why do they have so much power? Season 1 of the Crown covers it a bit, but Liz is portrayed as young and naive and easily manipulated. That’s not the same thing as having more power than the elderly Liz, or intimidating Philip or Charles. I need answers!
Interesting perspective, the admins are the bosses. And the royal family are just staff (kind of like actors in a movie).
I think there are some parallels with the Imperial Household Agency over in Japan. They basically function the same as the BRF’s courtiers. And more or less made Empress Masako’s life hell for a long time.
@Robert Phillips: I’ve long suspected this. The courtiers work in the system, whether by merit or connection, and know ‘how things are done around here’ which is to say, we devise schedules, strategy, and messaging and you, Royal family who live in an otherworldly bubble, simply sign off on this and go/do what and where you’re told when we tell you. It’s like the old BBC series “Yes Minister” where the minister has all kinds of ideas but the bureaucrats, the political assistants, and the system writ-large prevents him from following through on any of it. I’m convinced that’s that happened re: pink-slipping the Queen’s long time employees during the official mourning period. The King wouldn’t have authorized that: someone in the system (stupidly) did.
A job with the RF sounds like a sinecure, obtained through familial or social connections. High turnover among the younger staff is probably because the pay scale is ridiculously low. Unless one can see the way to being a top dog pretty quickly (Knauf, Angela Kelly) it’s better to get out & start a career in the private sector. A stint with RF will always look good on the c.v.
vertes, they must go into shock when they get to the private sector and find out how you’re supposed to work for a living. What a waste of time for someone to spend with the brf, because it might look good on a resume but what do you really learn to take to the next job?
She’s a queen bee bc she asked the staff assigned to her to do tasks? What’s the point of hierarchy ( and royalty is nothing BUT hierarchical) if the black woman gets no authority or respect in her rightful position in the hierarchy (higher than her staff at the very least). Sexist and racist.
Not to bag on Harry but I have questions. I have to wonder what Harry’s working relationship with KP staffers before Meghan came on the scene. Did he actually think they were up for the job? Seeing as that for most of his projects like Sentebale and Invictus Games, he developed largely outside of the palace system. But those were huge projects that probably needed more manpower.
Maybe he thought Meghan’s ideas were small and local enough that KP staffers could handle it. And maybe in the past they were always cooperative with him because he’s a blood royal and he’s charming Harry. And maybe Harry rarely bothered them because he spent the bulk of his time working on outside projects.
I dunno, I still wonder how much Harry was surprised by their behavior.
Well @Snuffles, Harry said he was gone a lot of the time, he was the one they shipped around the world on tours instead Lazy One and Two. Plus like you said his big projects were on the outside. He did move to get away from KP and they set up Sussex Royal. I think the Fab Four was more a media concoction more than anything, there never was going to be any real joint work. They probably intended for Meghan to be some type of quasi servant/diversity hire.
@msiam
But, like you said, he went on a lot of trips on behalf of The Crown. Diplomatic visits that by all accounts went extremely well. So the staff were clearly capable if they were motivated. I guess the common denominator was Harry. Harry inspired loyalty and effort. Or, maybe Harry coddled them. I dunno. 🤷🏽♀️Because we can see when Harry wasn’t around and they are just doing stuff for the Cambridges, their diplomatic visits are shit shows.
Maybe Harry was a leader that the staff respected enough to listen to and follow his lead. Maybe Harry believed they would do the same for Meghan but they were instructed to sabotage her.
@Snuffles: Valentine Low writes in his book that Harry had a similar working style as Meghan before he met her.
@amybee
Ok. Then we are back to intentional sabotage and refusal to take orders from an American black woman. Because if they could do a good job for Harry, they certainly could do a good job for Meghan.
I’m guessing that these visits were run and planned by the Foreign Office, with details handled by KP when necessary.
Also the option of “run” by KP, but with the Foreign Office basically handed them completed work as suggestions. As one does when partnered with an incompetent organization. And the KP staffers were so used to dumping on Harry that they thought they were being clever just using the Foreign Office material as is, instead of learning from it.
@concernfae
Thanks. That’s a possibility. So, foreign visit details handled and coordinated by the Foreign Office with simple tasks given to KP staff when on the ground. Harry’s passion projects outsourced to organizations that could handle major undertakings. Or more like Harry set up individual organizations for each project because they were permanent operations.
And the other stuff Harry did with Will and Kate were shallow, show up to take pics for 40 minutes then leave.
During the engagement interview, Harry stated there was a lot of work, believing Meghan is incredible for the job. He was thrilled to have a mate with a solid work ethic.
Invictus 2021 was a huge success, and Harry, Meghan, Archewell staff, and Invictus team worked to make it happen. In her introduction, Meghan gave Harry kudos for working late nights and early mornings to make that event as perfect as possible. They are a team; teamwork makes the dream work. The palace staff may have provided limited assistance with the Hubb Community Project. It didn’t take her long to realize she was in a social club environment. I believe she tried to motivate them to be actively engaged, but that was not their interest. They were part of the “Royals,” and royals don’t work hard. Will and Kate have not presented a project where one can see it took hard work and organizational skills to bring it to fruition. They show up, chat, wave, smile, and leave.
Beyonce is Queen Bee. Recently, someone wrote an article saying Meghan wanted to be the Beyonce of the UK. Nicholls took the Beyonce statement and created another story for clicks. They are so predictable, and the stories are illogical.
We can all agree that hard work, as we know it in America, is not part of the work ethic in British royal households, so I’m moving on.
The rota must comb through social media for story ideas and then just make up the rest. Rinse and repeat for clicks in the absence of facts
As someone who has worked in many different work environments, the culture of a place really does matter. I could see the train wreck happening in real time with Meghan and the courtiers. I don’t think what Harry and Meghan wanted to do was ever possible within the current setup of the palace system. Glad they found a way out.
It’s an old saying, but management does get the workers they deserve.
I too have worked in many cultures and some were so bad (e.g. CEO having an affair with his EA, both were married, and she was off *sick* more than she was in the office) that I basically bounced after a few months. Other senior staff members were downright toxic and got away with it. Other companies did it right — they were inclusive, had regular meetings with ALL the staff to update them on everything, and had an open, transparent policy for resolving difficulties with a mediator. Clearly KP was a breeding ground for lazy aristos to faff around doing the bare minimum just to be royal adjacent and couldn’t handle being told what to do by a professional who (GASP!!) believed they should be doing their job.
As usual it starts out with a nasty reading of Meghan’s mind. “She wanted to be Queen Bee.” Before, it was “She wanted to leave England from eh very start.”
Here, she comes across as a perfectly normal boss. And if you were good at your job, you’d want to work with her to get a successful result. Instead, Meghan was left hanging in the wind, somehow getting it done.
Hired subordinates are supposed to work.
Oh I am sorry, Meghan a biracial woman is supposed to be subordinate to the subordinates and do all the work…
I really think her Americanness and class was more of a problem than her race. A biracial upper middle class Brit would have naturally understood the shibboleths.
Shibboleths!
Oooh, you just taught me a new word and I know LOT of words! 😂 I can’t wait to break that out in a conversation.
A biracial upper middle class Brit would still have run into some of the unresolved, unacknowledged Empire related issues around race and class that are persisting out here……
Nah. It was definitely her race. People just know better that to say it outright. If the UK work pace was as slow as royal reporters believe it should be, their empire would’ve collapsed long ago.
I’ve heard some of the salaries at the palace aren’t very good.
Maybe they should pay better and then they’d get more competent people?
B, more competent staff would never stay.
Competent people want to get stuff done. If they have the competence, education and drive to work hard, why go into an environment where the courtiers hold all the power and won’t let anyone change the culture. Meghan tried but even she couldn’t break the mold.
I remember reading right before the Sussexes created their first foundation, Sussex Royal that some courtiers complained that Sussexes wanted to “do” instead of just “be”. Both Harry and Meghan wanted to get stuff done as opposed to the other two. Look at the Kate stories, one about her wearing a yellow dress and the other holding a baby. SMH. The Sussexes wanted more and they moved on to get it.
KN’s has Middleton sources right? So it’s safe to assume that Kate and Carole interpreted anything Meghan did as wanting to be Queen Bee. Bc that’s the childish and petty way they interact with pretty much everything. That’s how they’ve interpreted the world: who is the queen bee, who wants to be, and how can we take them down. Sadly, what this middle school perspective doesn’t get is that Meghan wanted to do work. She wanted to do good work for the community; a true queen bee. Their version of a queen bee is an entitled mean girl bc that’s who they are. Meghan’s version of a queen bee is a hard worker trying to better the hive. She wasn’t even trying to be the queen; she was just trying to be a worker bee but they couldn’t get in formation bc of their jealous and insecure ways.
Something’s not adding up because according to Valentine Low, Harry had the same work ethic as Meghan before she joined but they never accused him of bullying or wanting to be the King.
Because Harry is the son of the FFK, now King. He’s untouchable. He’s royal, white and male. Yes he had a good work ethic that the Windors used to the max, he was the family workhorse while Keen and Mean just coasted. The fact that his choice of bride was biracial, American, divorced and an *actress* tainted their appreciation of her talents and enthusiasm. They saw only bad in her when there was only ever good.
So essentially the complaint (stripping away the false narratives about Queen Bee-ing etc.) is that the Royal institutional system can’t handle doing anything at a real world pace, certainly not an American pace. But there’s plenty of hustle and ambition in the UK, the Royals just can’t handle that concept. All the pomp and unnecessary protocols has turned them in a bureaucratic mess worthy of Kafka.
These salty, lazy, racist bitches just didn’t want to take orders from a black woman. It won’t have mattered when or how or what she asked them for, they were just not going to be happy doing it for her because she wasn’t white.
This “queen bee” nonsense is dumb – if you work for Meghan, you work for her! That’s called doing your job. I can understand why this would be difficult for KP staff that think of their careers in the palace as more of a brief, undemanding stepping stone into a nice government job because they went to the right schools, but that’s what being an “assistant” or “on staff” literally means.
But we know from other sources that many KP staff refused to recognize Meghan as their boss, and would routinely slow walk, block, or try to go over her head to William. They did their absolute best to ensure she got nothing done, and even with all of that she just used all of her own contacts and worked in spite of them.
In using Queen Bee, the — i-t-c-h is silent here. It always is.
Meghan was seen as arrogant and rude because she had high standards for herself and those working for her. As others have said, the racist and entitled palace layabouts didn’t want to take orders from an American woman of color.
I would have loved to work for Meghan. She seems to set clear expectations (which is far better than having a boss who can’t explain what she wants — she only knows she wants it). She seems enthusiastic about her work and, best of all, she’s willing to work hard herself (nothing worse than working for someone who doesn’t put in her own work). I’m a boss, too, and these are the characteristics I aim to have.
I remember a comment that Harry made earlier on, he remarked how surprised Meghan was at the machinations behind the scenes.
I will build on that remark and add that she decided to use the tried and tested work ethic of story telling with moving images.
Waking up early enough to get the best light, using the time available to get as much accomplished, since time is money.
Time can also be “hurry up and wait”.
The Duchess is used to long filming days unlike the KP staff, whereby some are paid for the day but allegedly worked 9 to 12 (3hours).
It is a misunderstanding, not culturally necessarily but unique to KP.
KP was not the norm, nor representative of a particular organisation.
It would’ve been clearer if this didn’t look like an exercise in ‘covering one’s ass’.
If the Duchess didn’t fit it, it is simply because someone important enough did not want her to fit in.
They made it impossible for her to do so by mental and emotional abuse.
This book and the recent books, now add to it by implicit blackmail.
These stories never, never, never come with specific examples, which is telling. I wonder if the “reporters” even ask for examples or just take everyone’s word for it that the demands were so unreasonable.
Chuckie the Third has a letter drop accidentally from his desk to the wastebasket beside it, while he is sitting at the desk, and he actually calls someone to come into the room and fetch it for him, but yes, let’s criticize the Black Duchess for… *checks notes* … actually having a work ethic AND expecting her staff to do their jobs.
I still can’t get beyond C3’s need to have someone pre-paste his toothbrush for him. How far in advance must that be done? Immediately, as someone’s right there in the bathroom? Or no more than x minutes ahead, so the gel / paste doesn’t dry out?
She has been working for years, if she’s so awful how come none of her costars or the crew have anything to say? I mean if they went so far as to try to pay people to say something, surely someone who she actually did something to would speak up, right? All they can do is keep the same tired, made up stories on repeat. Boring. My Boss texts me at night sometimes, most times it’s entirely goofy stuff she wants me to laugh at and sometimes it’s something that she wants me to do the next day and she doesn’t want to forget. No one is traumatized.
The productivity of British workers is o,e of the lowest in the modernized world. Case in point.
I watched a tt vid a few days ago about this where this creator said that all these leaks never actually said what exactly that MM did that make those whiny lazy crybaby staffers feel bullied. It always they ‘feel’ this and that. If MM really did something, pretty sure minute-by-minute details are already on daily mail months ago.
Exactly. Just say what happened.
Simply state what happened, how it made one feel is secondary to actual facts.
Feelings maybe an indication but they are also subjective.
This is why it took Kkkate 10 years to put together a 5 question survey that asked nothing and found nothing groundbreaking.