Backstory The Word-of-Mouth Marketing Department is eight people strong, including Sheppard and her new colleague Woodward , the newest and least qualified recruit Woodward shares the boss's family name, and presumably feels she shares the boss's default authority, too. She came to the company six months after leaving her job as a museum curator. Only one month into her new career, she is already dictating her own workload and that of others ; she dumps work onto Sheppard and is bullying and inappropriate In the last two weeks , Sheppard's desk has been littered with unfinished work originally assigned to Woodward , including design layouts , annual report figures copyright disputes , and print schedules Twice, Sheppard was left with design layouts to complete within three hours of their deadline . On one of those occasions , Woodward had done barely more than sketch text boxes , leaving Sheppard with more than a day's work to accomplish within an hour and twenty minutes When asked to obtain the copyright to publish a particular photograph (featuring a celebrity's home), Woodward skipped over the details (not even filing the request ), almost trashing a print -run of 70,000 brochure covers as well as leaving Word-of-Mouth open to possible legal action. Luckily, Sheppard picked up on Woodward's oversight and gained permission from the relevant parties before any damage was done Woodward point-blank refused to write the annual report figures, saying that as an "Artistic Consultant " it was insulting to ask her to file facts and figures . In fact Woodward doesn't have a job title, which is something Sheppard cannot address. The print schedules, which Woodward was supposed to deliver a week before the commencement of the Approval Stage , arrived on Sheppard's desk with one day to spare , and , as with the design layouts , were so incomplete , they required Sheppard to put aside her own work and concentrate on getting the schedules out in time . During a recent meeting with a photographer, Woodward undermined Sheppard continually either by contradicting her suggestions or through disrespectful gestures and sighs