Things have been getting worse at my job. Twice my supervisor has had a sit-down meeting with me to scold/question me over something where I am not actually in trouble. That is, I have not done anything wrong, but she wishes to make me feel as if I have done something wrong. I have been able to retain the presence of mind to ask questions such as “Have I broken a rule?” and “Did I violate a policy?,” which helps, since she has had to say no.

In the most recent meeting, I said THREE TIMES that I did not understand why were were having the meeting. She “just wanted to understand” why I was “so upset” about a policy. “So upset” means that the other day she said something was fine, and I said I was not fine with it, actually; that was me being “so upset.” She added that she just didn’t understand why I was SO EMOTIONALLY INVOLVED. I explained some, and she kept shaking her head like it was all so weird to her, and that’s when I said I didn’t actually understand why we were having the meeting to talk about this again. We already had this meeting about the rule, and I understood that she was the boss and that she gets to make the decisions, and I was obeying her rules even though I didn’t agree with them. She circled back to exaggerating how “emotional” I’d been, and downplaying the negative effects of her rule. The third time I brought it back to BUT WHY ARE WE HAVING THIS MEETING, I said again that I understood she was in charge, and that I was obeying her rules; but that if she wanted me to agree that they were good rules, or if she wanted me not to resent having to follow rules I consider foolish, that’s not something she can have. That’s where we ended the meeting—except as we stood up, she said I should come to her with any other rules I didn’t feel were right. I said I had thoroughly learned that there was absolutely no reason to bother doing that.

Overall I felt I held my ground pretty well. But this brings things more to a head than they were before. She diminished my concerns, diminished my role. She said I wasn’t looking at the bigger picture—the things people who were there 40-60 hours a week would see. I said I didn’t see how micromanaging the page’s work priorities were bigger picture, and she swerved and said there’s no such thing as a page, we’re all library assistants. (Okay? But I am the library assistant assigned to the paging shifts, so.) She used Gotcha arguments: “If you care so much about customer service, we can make sure you get plenty of time on the desk.” (I said “That is not what I meant, and you know that’s not what I meant.”) She has implied that I want to do things a certain way because I am selfish and want to hog all the fun parts of my job for myself. She tried to blame the library’s director for these decisions, but I already talked to the director and the director says it’s all up to my supervisor. She tried to blame ME for the decisions, saying I came to them with the problem. (It’s true, I did, but the problem was my supervisor’s bad system, and I hadn’t realized they would “solve it” in such a ridiculous, senseless way that breaks more than it fixes, and then would not care when I gave feedback on those changes.) She has shown me that she will not budge, even on foolish rules where she gets lots of feedback explaining why they don’t work. She makes bad decisions and she sticks to them no matter what. She has lost all my respect. She is bad at her job, and apparently no one is going to stop her or get rid of her.

So the question is, can I continue working there. I love the work. I love most of my coworkers. I have never liked a job for more than 6 months, and I’ve liked this job for well over 6 years. The schedule and flexibility work for me, and it’s within walking distance of my house, and it’s all indoor work with climate-control. I am very good at the work, and the work is good for me both mentally and physically. It checks my preference for a Richard Scarry Community Job that everyone understands and likes the idea of.

But I’m starting to spend a fair amount of time outside of work agitating about work stuff. I have been documenting the way my supervisor is treating me—but I realized I don’t want to work for a company where I have to document how my supervisor is treating me. Plus, so much of it is these tiny things where it’s hard to explain why I’m even documenting it. An example: every other Friday, she hands out the paychecks to everyone who’s there; she puts mine in the drawer with the ones for the people who aren’t there. So tiny, right? Who even cares? But she’s doing a LOT of these little who-cares things, directed at me.

I think I have to leave. But I hate hate hate that this is how things are. I’m so resistant to the idea that I am the one who has to lose my job, when it’s someone else who is behaving badly.

I am remembering, too, what some of you have said in the past and I have found so extremely useful: “a decision needs to be made” doesn’t mean it needs to be made RIGHT THIS MINUTE. I can continue to coast. But it feels at this point like I am circling the inevitable.