How working as a high-flying female executive in TV turned ME into a monster quick to sabotage other women: As a female BBC star is accused of bullying, a brutal confession from SAMANTHA BRICK

I closed the glass door of my office and told my assistant to sit down. He had ruined my weekend and I was about to let him have it with two kegs.

I asked him to find a boutique hotel for my 30th birthday, a cozy place with a four-poster bed next to a Michelin-starred restaurant.

What he found would give Fawlty Towers a run for its money in terms of facilities and service. My then-husband and I eventually laughed about it, but I decided at the time that it wasn’t good enough.

Poor Maggie (not her real name) sat there while I committed character assassination. I told him how much he disappointed me, how disappointed I was, and that he should have known better.

His eyes filled with tears. Did I feel sorry for him? NO.

The fact that organizing my personal life wasn’t exactly part of his job description was neither here nor there.

I had just turned 30 and was head of entertainment at Sky One. How had I allowed myself to become such a monster?

If you had met me in a restaurant back then, you would have seen me as the personification of charm. Yet when you put me in a corner office with a flashy job title and an assistantship, I was essentially Cruella de Vil with a million-pound commissioning budget.

After working in television for nearly two decades, she became a journalist and has written for publications such as MSN, Perth Now and the Daily Mail.

I thought about this ugly truth after reading 63-year-old broadcaster Kaye Adams’ reporting on her treatment at the BBC. The former Loose Women presenter, who was sacked by her BBC Scotland female boss earlier this year over bullying allegations, reportedly thinks she is a ‘victim of a witch hunt’ and is considering legal action.

Newsnight presenter Victoria Derbyshire, 57, was also reported to be the subject of a complaint at the BBC, but the bullying allegations, which she vehemently denies, were not supported.

Frankly, I don’t know what happened in either case, and I’m not suggesting that they acted like I did. But I do know this: When all three of us were starting our publishing careers, female-on-female bullying was a huge problem. I know this because it’s a behavior I recognize in myself with shame.

I won’t advocate bullying, but I understand how women’s egos can run riot in an industry that rewards toughness, cockiness, and an almost unhinged willingness to work day and night.

When I started as a current affairs researcher at LWT in 1993, there were only a handful of female producers around me. I had just graduated from college; I was young, working class and ambitious. I naively imagined that senior women could show me the ropes, but no, there was no sisterhood or wise female mentor.

On the contrary, the atmosphere among the women was quite cold. One female producer was so disorganized that she routinely insisted that her crew stay until 9 or 10 p.m. They caught my eye as I was walking towards Waterloo Station late one night. Their requests to leave at a more normal and safer time were ignored.

And there were women who were only a few years older than me. They saw me as an opponent to be undermined and stabbed in the back, and in the end I saw them too.

If you wanted to survive in the television world, you learned fast: You swallowed the discomfort, forgot about the (sometimes) disgusting behavior of other women, and refused to make a fuss.

Kaye Adams, who was sacked by her female boss at BBC Radio Scotland earlier this year over bullying allegations, reportedly thinks she is a ‘victim of a witch hunt’ and is considering taking legal action

Newsnight presenter Victoria Derbyshire, 57, was also reported to be the subject of a complaint at the BBC, but the bullying allegations, which she has vehemently denied, have not been confirmed

When the three of us were starting our publishing careers, female-on-female bullying was a big problem. I know this because I shyly recognize this behavior in myself, writes Samantha Brick (pictured with models posing)

A senior female boss sent another young woman and me to work with much older male colleagues in the middle of nowhere, with no locks on the bedroom or bathroom doors, and couldn’t understand why we didn’t like the idea.

I stood my ground and refused. My colleague took the company to an industrial tribunal for sexual harassment, an act of professional suicide. The case was resolved without going to court, but he never worked in television again.

For me this was a lesson. I filed a complaint for the last time. Later, another female boss withdrew the flexible working arrangement that allowed me to leave early on Fridays. Remember, I was at my desk by 8 a.m., rarely leaving before 8 p.m., and answering transatlantic calls at all hours. Editing has never been a problem. From what I can see, he took it off just because he could.

Yelling, rudeness, high standards, and impossible hours showed that you were truly determined. Tears in the toilet? Weakness.

When I was 29 I was offered a role as commissioning editor at Sky. This is where I really developed my management style. Or rather, it’s where I learned to be the kind of boss everyone fears.

I left answering machine messages for assistants late at night and told them what to do as soon as the morning arrived.

I expected the subordinates to read my mind. I infuriated my development teams by confusing urgency with importance. I postponed meetings at the last minute without thinking about others.

I had spent my 20s being bullied, and now I was doing the same.

Yelling, rudeness, high standards, and impossible hours showed that you were truly determined. Tears in the toilet? Thinness (image created by models)

The atmosphere got worse as we climbed higher. It’s all very well encouraging women to ‘get tough’ in the workplace, but in reality it was more akin to cage fighting than corporate sisterhood.

In my 30s, I became a programming director for a large production company. There I saw more competition, more ego, and more women pulling the ladder behind them and using it to hit the next woman in the head.

A senior female boss discussed my six-figure salary with colleagues behind my back and questioned whether I was worth it.

Until then, I was recruiting women myself. My criticism of their shortcomings was often delivered with a smile and a garnish of concern. ‘I’m not angry, I’m just surprised you think it’s good enough’ was a common expression.

I’m sure I even shouted: ‘I need solutions, not emotions!’ to a poor woman on the verge of tears.

I told myself that television was cruel and if people couldn’t handle it, they were in the wrong industry.

I thought I was being meticulous, but now I see that it made me rude most of the time.

As far as I know, no one has made a formal complaint against me. But that doesn’t save me from this situation. I’ve seen emails shared between employees calling me of all kinds. I was angry then. Looking back now, with more wisdom and less ego, I wonder if some of them were right.

Television strengthened the worst parts of my psyche. He took my ambition, my perfectionism, and my insecurity, then rewarded the parts that needed softening, not sharpening.

And yes, women in authority are judged more harshly than men. I’ve seen men behave awfully and be considered ‘a bit old fashioned’. A woman who raised her voice was more likely to be called difficult, emotional, or a bitch.

This double standard is real. But being judged unfairly does not allow any woman to mistreat staff. High standards are no excuse for humiliation.

Don’t get me wrong: Television is smart, fast and full of wonderful women, but it can also be a pressure cooker where bad behavior is excused because someone gets ratings, brings in commissions or makes headlines.

As for my assistant? I can see now that he never respected me, he was afraid of me. If I met him today, I would apologize.

Women of my generation were taught that the path to success was through resilience, perfectionism, and incredibly high standards. But I know that these features also make it very difficult for me to work.

I don’t know if Kaye Adams would recognize any of this. Just looking back, I know a lot of women would have done this.