No way to work

Last month, I blogged about a small issue that my boss had with me. She was angry that I didn't know the "correct mark-up" without asking (I still don't think that there was any way I could have known). My boyfriend helped me write an email to her, which suggested that I sit down with her and go through the mark-ups so that I would finally understand the pattern. Her responding email completely missed the point of mine and ignored the fact that I was trying to solve a problem. I forwarded her email to my boyfriend because I was upset that nothing came of my effort to connect with her.

He called her a schizo.

He and I decided that there really was nothing I could do to understand her more. He said that if I try to wrap my head around everything she says or does, then I would make myself crazy. He also told me that she has never been nice to him (he had met her a few times before I even knew him) and that she just wasn't a very pleasant person.
So....
I vowed to myself that I would not let my boss scare the crap out of me anymore. I would make sure that the lines of communication were open at all times, so that the chances of something going wrong were minimized. By making sure that she and I were on the same page all the time, I would also be building our working relationship and making myself speak to her daily. Because normally, I would avoid any kind of unnecessary conversation for the fear that I might catch her at a bad moment. Now, I was informing her of every little piece of news, incoming fax or email from a client.
And things have been going pretty well.
I mean, my boss still tries to make me feel stupid sometimes and she will always be a light-switch of a person, but when she flips- I just brush it off. I do care when there is a problem and I don't always think my boss is out of line, I just don't let it get to me as much anymore. I think it has opened my eyes too. I used to think that I was the only one getting yelled at. I see now that my coworkers are just as scared of her as I used to be.
For example:
My boss is in New York visiting her spoiled brat of an off-spring and it never fails that issues arise when she is out of the office. We had a few small ones come up, but none of them were the fault of my coworkers or myself. But today, my coworkers were jumpy and nervous every time the phone rang. They both thought that my boss was going call, screaming about all the things that had gone wrong and finding things to blame on us. They kept saying that they thought she was going to come home early from vacation, and how nervous they were going to be when she does show up. One of them even said, "I'm so freaked out! This is no way to work."

Um, no shit.

All the worry was upsetting my stomach, which has been a little queasy. So, I just decided that I was going to spend all day tomorrow getting my ducks in a row. Hopefully if my boss does come back as a banshee, I will know that I'm not the one who should be afraid of certain death.