Running head: The Worst Boss in London

Nellie Lovett: The Worst Boss in London

Shalimar Lopez, Sarah Lovell, Brandon Milburn, Preston Page, Anuj Sheth,
The University of Texas at Dallas

The Worst Boss in London

Table of Contents
Introduction..3
Character Profile..3
Character Analysis...5
New Settings
Success.....9
Failure10
Conclusion.13

The Worst Boss in London

Nellie Lovett: The Worst Boss in London

Sweeney Todd is a story of mythic proportion in London. The tale is over a century old,
but his most famous accomplice is a fairly recent invention. Christopher Bond adapted the
Sweeney Todd story into a dark melodrama in 1973 and based Todds accomplice, Mrs. Lovett,
on a grocer near his home (Secrest, 1998). In 1979, Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler
adapted Bonds play into a musical thriller, writing the character of Mrs. Lovett for Angela
Lansbury. Director Tim Burton was fascinated with the musical from a young age and adapted it
into a film released in 2007 starring Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett and Johnny Depp as
the titular character. The film has garnered a cult following and remains popular to this day.
Examining Mrs. Lovetts character and role in the film reveals some interesting traits that reflect
several subjects traditionally studied in management.
Character Profile
Mrs. Nellie Lovett is the landlady and accomplice of Sweeney Todd, the murderous
barber of Victorian London. When Todd returns to London to have his revenge for his unjust
imprisonment and the death of his wife, Mrs. Lovett allows him to operate his tonsorial parlor
above her failing meat pie shop. Todd kills a man who threatens to reveal his true identity, when
Lovett proposes an idea: meat for her pies is expensive. Let Todd carry out his revenge on the
Victorians and she will use their remains to support her ailing business.
The man who Todd first killed, a competing barber named Pirelli, owned a slave boy who
he took from the workhouses to help him run his business. When Signor Pirelli was murdered,
Mrs. Lovett took the boy, Tobias, as her helper. She began to see the boy as her own and as the

The Worst Boss in London

meat pie shop thrived, he helped her run everything downstairs while Todd carried out his
revenge upstairs.
Many of the decisions Mrs. Lovett makes can be blamed on the times. Her choices often
reflect a desire to survive in the turbulent times of Victorian London, but she just as often does
things that, in the end, make her the true villain of the story. Sondheim himself said that she
doesnt have a single redeeming feature about her (Secrest, 1998). From the beginning she is
honest with Sweeney Todd about her situation, stating that her pies are terrible. She even
apologetically offers him a drink to wash down the worst pies in London. The truth stops quickly
there when she leads Todd to believe his previous wife died, when in reality she poisoned herself
but did not die completely. She does this to convince Todd to stay with her in the hopes that he
may fall in love with her, as she loves him.
Once the pie shop is thriving, Lovett tells Todd of her dreams of moving away from
London to a house by the sea. She selfishly places her love and dreams into Todd, neglecting to
tell him the true fate of his wife, all the while benefiting from his murderous doings.
It is clear from the beginning that the success of the pie shop would have to involve something
external from Lovett. She is disorganized and lacks any focus. Her shop is disgusting and she has
no drive to improve her situation herself. She cannot sell her business, considering she is
surprised by the sight of Todd, the first customer in a long while, and yet goes on to tell him her
pies are greasy, gritty, and revolting. Yet, throughout all of the terrible things she does, Mrs.
Lovett still appears to be lovable. Maybe her energy and spunk act as a change of pace from the
more direct and driven characters, who seem to let their dark world control them. She does offer

The Worst Boss in London

a change of pace from the tone of every other character in the film. She has ambition and dreams
later when her business finds success, something everyone can relate to.
In the end, Todd succeeds in killing the judge who sent him away from London right
after he kills his own wife, who is unrecognizable after the poison she took left her a deformed
and unstable beggar woman. When Todd realizes this and confronts Mrs. Lovett, she confesses
and says she was only thinking of his best interests. Todd throws her into the oven where she
cooked all of her cannibalistic pies and she is burned alive, ending the tale of Mrs. Lovett.
As an audience, we sympathize with Mrs. Lovett. She is a lovable character despite the
fact that almost every decision she makes is abhorrent. When the proper supplies are presented
to her, she can make a good meat pie, which is a redeeming quality about her. She has real
artistic skill as a baker and genuinely loves Toby, despite trying to kill him when he discovered
the truth about the pie shop. In the end, she is not a moral character in any capacity and lacks
focus. Her thoughts are often from left field and she is ultimately the one who gives Sweeney
Todd the idea to use his murders for her own good as a business owner.
Character Analysis
Mrs. Lovett has a traditional management relationship to the boy Tobias while utilizing
an unorthodox management style over Sweeney Todd. Since Tobias was previously a servant
boy he responded well to a strict traditional management style. Mrs. Nellie Lovett could bark out
orders and expect him to work hard for little pay. Even though she began to regard him almost as
her own child she kept him on a short leash and did not allow him to make any decisions.
Instead, she delegated Toby to menial work throughout his tenure.

The Worst Boss in London

Todd has such a commanding personality that she took a very different approach to
managing him. She used deceit and misdirection to convince Sweeney Todd to take actions he
would not have otherwise been inclined to perform. The innovative use of human meat from his
barbershop in the meat pies holds no interest to Todd, as he is fixated on revenge. Throughout
their interactions, Lovett is able to manage Todds actions through subtle ways that lead to great
benefits for her business while not detracting from his primary goal.
Her success is visible through three separate aspects of her business. First, she
successfully convinced Todd to help generate a regular supply of meat for the pie shop. Second,
Lovett transformed the business into a thriving beacon to the local community. Third, she
acquired the employment of Tobias at low cost to meet the demands of the local populace when
business increased. Regardless of her abhorrent methods of achieving success in the pie shop,
she obviously was successful in outperforming other businesses at the time with successful
management.
Norms are essential for the success of the pie shop. Norms develop as members interact.
They are unspoken rules shaped by behavior and attitudes. Rules, however, are formally
established by management or the group itself. In the case of Mrs. Lovett, Toby and Mr. Todd,
their behavior is an important aspect of the norms that develop once the shop begins to take off.
That is opposite of what typically occurs with a group, but because their situation is so
unorthodox it is the catalyst for the formation of the group and the norms. Rules are not
established, as they are unnecessary due to the extremity of the norms that develop from the
situation. The most important norm that is implied is the secrecy required to hide the source of
meat essential to the success of the shop.

The Worst Boss in London

Mrs. Lovett is the glue that holds the entire operation together. Cohesiveness is the extent
to which members stick together. The operation of the pie and barber shop would not occur as it
does if Mrs. Lovett and Mr. Todd did not have a strong bond over their collaborative objectives.
The size of the group is small so the strength of their connection is very strong, until it all starts
coming apart when the truth emerges.
It becomes obvious by the end of the film that the largest failure of Nellie Lovett can be
attributed to the unethical behavior she exhibits. Being cooked alive in an oven is perhaps one of
the worst outcomes any manager could experience as a failure, especially knowing her ethical
failures directly led to her fate. This failure can largely be defined through the theory of personal
moral development. According to research in the Academy of Management Journal, someones
moral development impacts their ability to make ethical decisions (Mayer et al. 154). Lovett is
stuck at the preconventional level of personal moral development because she continues to make
ethical decisions based on self-interest and ignores the expected moral standards of society.
The lies she espouses to keep Sweeney Todd in the dark about the reality of his poor wife
are solely imparted for her own self-interest. Eventually, she also comes to fear the consequences
of what will happen if her lies are ever found out and feels she must continue the lying
indefinitely. Her unethical behavior of using human meat to make pies for customers is driven
more by the situation she is in. With the scarcity of resources she feels trapped into using an
unethical meat source. She works hard throughout the film to distort the consequences of this
unethical behavior that, according to (Bonanos), is the process of minimizing the harm caused by
unethical behavior.

The Worst Boss in London

Although the use of humans for meat pies is extremely unethical, it is a great example of
Mrs. Lovetts ability to innovate. The textbook Management Fundamentals states that while
innovation is the implementation of new ideas, creativity is a way of thinking that generates new
ideas. From this description, it is clear that Lovett has capacity to innovate but is not focused on
creativity. She could have been creative and introduced new products into the market when the
supply of meat for her meat pie shop ran out. There was even an opportunity to focus on making
a living through supporting Sweeney Todds barbershop, but she did not have the creativity
necessary to delve into these new products and markets. Instead, she excelled at innovating on
her meat pies using the new meat from people Todd would kill. This innovation transformed her
shop into a vibrant, thriving business that could outperform the other shops shown in the film.
When it came to using techniques to determine the best course of action Mrs. Lovett
should take, it is clear she was not able to use quantitative techniques or the must and want
criteria of the Kepner-Tregoe method due to the difficulty of gauging the value of a human life.
Instead, she likely used a cost-benefit analysis with subjective intuition and judgment. Lovett
assumed the benefit of using Sweeney Todds kills as meat in her pie shop would outweigh the
risks of being caught and the costs associated with those risks. Her feelings led to the unrealistic
expectation that a wonderful life with Sweeney Todd in a house by the sea would be the ultimate
benefit of their successful meat pie shop. These dreams of a wonderful life are supposed to be the
benefit of their dark affair but they are based entirely on her feelings and intuition. As a wholly
subjective analysis technique, Lovetts intuition is unsuccessful in resulting in any long-term
benefits. Instead, the fanciful subjective analysis results in a toasty outcome with Mrs. Lovett
residing inside the oven.

The Worst Boss in London

Success Setting
A career that Mrs. Nellie Lovett would be successful is taking the occupation of a car
sales position. Selling vehicles takes interpersonal skills to succeed. Mrs. Lovetts interpersonal
skills are excellent. Highly concentrated on her communication, she knows how to convince
people into taking her advice. Her ability to convince would perfectly follow being a car sales
woman because when showing a car to your client, you need to make sure you can fulfill their
needs and make your potential buyer feel that the car is perfect for them.
Throughout the movie Mrs. Lovett is operating a restaurant selling meat pies that are
made of human bodies. This idea is what leads her to operating a successful business since she
was having trouble allocating the correct resources previously. The customers have no clue about
the ingredients.
As a car sales woman she would succeed at displaying a vehicle to be a fullyfunctional car with no issues, but in reality she is hiding details from her client. If the car is used,
it might have a Carfax that shows it has been in an accident and Mrs. Lovett would still show the
car as being perfect and be able to convince the buyer that from how the car looks and drives
there are no known issues or previous damages. Her ability to manipulate individuals would also
help her sell not only the most expensive vehicle, as well as extra packages that the dealer
provides. Mrs. Lovetts lack of morality would give her the ability to sell vehicles that are not in
the best interest of the client and feel no remorse.
Mrs. Lovett is an unethical character. Im not saying that all individuals that work in
car sales are bad people, but the position has earned a negative image such as a legal con artist or
scammer. In the movie she lies to Todd about his wifes death just so she can increase her

The Worst Boss in London

10

chances of him falling in love with her, a classic con artist action.
Mrs. Lovett is primarily focused on herself, Todd and Tobias. As a car sales woman
she does not care about customer satisfaction, she only wants to get her commission check and
make sure her loved ones are taken care of.
Since Mrs. Lovett has no primary focus, she would adapt to this change of
environment quickly. She has worked for herself before as a sole proprietor, so many of her
previous responsibilities carry over when working in sales since her pay is all evaluated on her
performance. She will have to carry her own weight and be intrinsically motivated. The
environment of working car sales can be dynamic due to the objective of Sell as many as you
can. Mrs. Lovetts ambition and energy would provide her with the capability to meet the
standards of this job.
In sales, you will see hard times and good times just like a business owner would so
the pattern of ups and downs will travel over to her new job. She faced competition as a business
over against Mrs. Mooney who she assumed was making pies out of cats. With her new job as a
car sales woman she will be competing against individuals in her own workplace as well as other
dealerships.
Mrs. Lovetts ability to communicate would be her key skill that would bring her success
at her new job as a car sales woman.
Failure Setting
While Mrs. Lovett could successfully sell used cars, she would be awful at counseling
and therapy. So perhaps at the end of Sweeney Todd, Mrs. Lovetts character isnt hurled into an
oven, but instead she parts ways with Todd and decides to open an independent practice and

The Worst Boss in London

11

offer counseling. Her clients would be in for some interesting sessions. Counselors offer therapy
as a service where other businesses sell products to consumers. In this business, Mrs. Lovett
would not be able to provide the expected service to her clients, because of her inability to
perform as an effective therapist. She lacks listening skills, self-control, concern for others, and
reliability. With manipulation as her only tool for success, she would be a failure in helping
individuals.
Therapists are great listeners. They hear not only the words their clients are saying but
the feelings behind them and even the non-verbal messages that are shared as well. Clients trust
their counselors deeply and share very personal matters with them. Clients can share so openly
because they know that their counselor values and respects them and, most importantly,
considers their best interests. Mrs. Lovett cannot be trusted with anyones honest feelings
because it will leave them vulnerable for her to use their weaknesses for her gain. She will use a
way with words or plot deceitfully to take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself.
Throughout Sweeney Todd, Mrs. Lovett lies to Todd about his wifes death. She knew how
much Todd loved his wife, so she told him that she had drank poison and died. She says this in
hopes to have a future with Todd. This displays her dishonesty and manipulation. Confidentiality
is also very important and strongly emphasized in a counseling office, but Mrs. Lovetts meat pie
shop wouldnt pass any standard test of sanitation or regulations regarding food handling. It is
just not in her nature to follow rules or procedure.
Therapy is entirely one-sided because it is, for the most part, the client talking while the
therapist listens and occasionally offers feedback or guidance on identifying how experiences are
making the client feel. It is also one-sided because it is entirely focused on the client. Counselors

The Worst Boss in London

12

does not talk about themselves or involve themselves in any way. Counselors are extraordinarily
giving and selfless. They have high integrity and a high stress tolerance. A day in the life of a
counselor is long and emotionally draining. Counselors see numerous clients in a day, each with
unique problems, and counselors must assess the individuals issues and help them come up with
life strategies. This process of personal growth is tedious and doesnt happen in one session, so
Mrs. Lovett would have to be patient and not blow up when she had heard enough.
Counselors work independently and have to make decisions about clients on their own,
but Mrs. Lovett seems to work better in a team with people she has affection for. She found
Sweeney and made him fill every need she had in the meat pie shop and then used Tobias to do
the grunt work. Because counselors often work independently, they need to be very responsible
and dependable. Their clients rely on them and they need to follow through.
Mrs. Lovett is not mentally sound herself, so she could offer very little stability or
rational thinking to individuals who already struggle with their own mental distress. Therapy is
provided to help individuals learn coping skills and strategies, which she herself has not
mastered. A client could come in very vulnerable and need to hear the right type of
encouragement where Mrs. Lovett could potentially give the worst advice or feedback. For
example, when Todd kills his first victim, Signor Pirelli, she acts shocked until he explains that
Pirelli recognized his true identity, and then Mrs. Lovett agrees with his decision entirely.
The success of her counseling center would be dependent on the effectiveness of Mrs.
Lovetts therapy sessions. She would have to provide a safe, non-judgmental environment where
clients could share openly. Mrs. Lovett would need to change everything about herself in order
to do well as a counselor. At the core of her being, she is not the type of person to act to serve or

The Worst Boss in London

13

help others, even the ones she claims to love. Her clients would not return for follow up sessions
and there would be no business success.
Conclusion
It is hard to find many qualities about Mrs. Lovett that make her good for any career.
Victorian London was a dog eat dog world and she took full advantage of the atmosphere around
her in the worst way possible. She is indeed the true villain of the story. As a manager, she
reflects many traits, often poorly, that are studied by management professionals. Despite her
quirkiness, humor, and likeable personality, when really examined with a critical eye, in most
circumstances she really would be the worst boss in London.

The Worst Boss in London

14

Works Cited
Bonanos, C. (2013, January 31). Why We Tell Lies at Work. Retrieved November 26, 2015,
from http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-01-31/why-we-tell-lies-atwork
Mayer, D., Aquino, K., Greenbaum, R., & Kuenzi, M. (2012). Who Displays Ethical Leadership,
and Why Does It Matter? An Examination of Antecedents and Consequences of
Ethical Leadership. Academy of Management Journal, 151-171.
Secrest, Meryle. (1998). Stephen Sondheim: A Life. Knopf, 289-292.