I am so frustrated with my job. I think I'm going to go stand in the shower and cry. Maybe with a beer.

Glad it turned out okay, Matt.

Ginger, that's...bizarre. And irritating.

Steph, I endorse standing in the shower with a beer. The crying part is not good, obviously. Is it your boss again?

Is it your boss again?

Yeah. I'm just completely frustrated with the feedback she gives me. One week I get raves and compliments (that I dutifully label with my "work kudos" label in Gmail), and the next week I get so much feedback on everything I did wrong that I have to page down twice just to read it all.

While I know my editing is neither perfect nor precisely the same from article to article (because different articles are more complex/more poorly written/etc., and because I am not an editing robot), I have a very hard time believing that I am SUPER AWESOME YAY TIMES one week and ENGLISH, DO YOU SPEAK IT the next week.

And ISTG she always gives me feedback on things that I did/didn't do because of our style, and so I point out that XYZ is our style, so that is why I didn't change it to ABC even though she thinks I should have. Then she replies "It's true that XYZ is our style, but I changed it to ABC because of [crazy-ass bullshit I couldn't have been expected to know because she just decided it's relevant]." That shit feels like gaslighting me SO HARD. I get bad feedback for following our style??? What the shit.

I was panic-spiraling earlier and I managed to pull out because I realized lunch was a good idea. And now I'm flipping out again because people keep asking me for status updates and I just need everyone to SLOW THEIR ROLL, god damn it.

That shit feels like gaslighting me SO HARD.

Um, I think because she is? Her feedback is so wildly inconsistent that it's useless. There's no way you can improve your performance with feedback like that.

Ginger, it sounds like your former friend is a drama llama who likes to shove emotional labor onto other people.

Ginger, it sounds like your former friend is a drama llama who likes to shove emotional labor onto other people.

He is all of that, yet he complains about other people's drama. I live in fear that during one of these weird fits he'll call my mother.

Steph, do you know any of the other freelancers well enough to compare notes?

He is all of that, yet he complains about other people's drama.

Drama llamas always do that! Only their drama is legitimately dramatic.

I don't know what you are supposed to do with that kind of feedback, Tep. It's like having an alcoholic parent for a boss. Not good.

Steph, do you know any of the other freelancers well enough to compare notes?

Not terribly well, but I suppose I could send a vague-ish email asking how long it took for them to stop getting the long-ass ENGLISH, DO YOU SPEAK IT type of feedback. (Not in so many words. Obviously.)

I get to have a meeting tomorrow with my coworker, who is still peer-reviewing everything I write, 14 months after I was hired. I am generally blase about this, but at the moment, I am failing to be blase.

Oh, and a "career conversation" with my manager on Friday. Since there is pretty much no place for me to be promoted, I don't know what we'd discuss.

Steph, my boss is like that, with the inconsistent and often self-contradictory instructions. The first few months I worked with her, I thought I was losing my mind, until I got to know my co-workers well enough to have a frank "no, she's actually nuts; it's not you" conversation. I strongly suspect it ain't you. Document everything, girl.

In a tangentially related question, can anyone tell me if it might be worth it for me to take a week-long course that would get me a Certificate in Association Management?

I strongly suspect it ain't you. Document everything, girl.

I save all my emails, not just the kudos emails, but also the ENGLISH, DO YOU SPEAK IT emails, so that when she tells me I should have changed XYZ to ABC, I can pull out the old email and tell her the date that she told me we always keep XYZ. Not that it helps.