Personal Errands
Verbal abuse was not the only unpleasant part of working for Orren, office workers say.
The former assistant says she was asked to perform duties unrelated to Orren's professional work: to "do very, very menial chores, run personal errands."
"That was not the way the job was advertised," she says.
The co-worker also recalls being asked by Orren to work on non-professional activities.
"He would get into these moods when he was very abrupt. He called me up late one day and demanded I do some kind of errand which was not for his research but for some kind of consulting he was doing," the co-worker says.
The co-worker recalls incidents of others receiving non-professional assignments as well.
"I remember one of his secretaries being hired with the expectations that she would be running programs and being asked to get him coffee, get him lunch," the co-worker says. "His son was in Little League and he wanted to send out a letter to all of the other kids on the team. I remember he asked his secretary to do it. I think he told his secretary to do it."
Orren, who did not respond to repeated requests for an interview, did not address the subject of assigning personal errands to support staff in his written statement.
Professional Work
Orren, an expert in media and politics and a public opinion analyst, is the associate director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.
He has served as a political advisor in election campaigns and has authored and co-authored a number of books, including The Electronic Commonwealth: The Impact of New Media Technologies on Democratic Politics.
Orren teaches classes at the Kennedy School on political management, public opinion, politics and the press.