The heat -- and the fires -- are all so crazy and awful. The whole "world burning" thing doesn't seem like a joke at all.

This summer has either been hot as hell or torrential downpours. I’m done with it and ready for sweaters and pumpkin spice.

I cannot honestly imagine being as graceful, eloquent, and loving in such a painful situation as you have been, David.

Dana has the right of it.

My coping today has been making a video appt with the doctor about my cough and head, sleeping a LOT, and setting up with a new therapist for an appt on Friday, because I really need someone to talk to.

That's actually fantastic coping, Amy. Good going.

I am mostly reading and nodding and sending waves of love out to everyone.

109 even with AC is bad, without AC it’s horrific!!

I am so over my job right now. But I know any other job would be similar. But there’s just too many things to do and I can’t do them all and I’m so close to just giving up on doing ANY of them.

Dad's cousin died last Friday after a long bout with breast cancer, and while we weren't close (what with a 31 year age difference), we were simpatico, and I am more bummed than I might otherwise be what with everything else going on. She was nine years Dad's junior, the product of a wartime encounter between my great-aunt and a soldier when her mother was in England during said war (though I am told that the soldier was Canadian as well), and one of us who was interested in the family tree and history. She was also a hoot, and she'll be missed.

Agh. My boss sent a really wild email on Friday reaming someone out (when nobody asked her to). And it caused a shitshow. And she sent another one Monday that was the exact opposite (thanks so much for all you do). And this was supposedly on my behalf. I ended up calling her boss and sharing them and saying I don’t see her being productive with this team any longer and can I have a new manager (she is my people manager but isn’t actually involved in my projects, so it’s really interchangeable). Her boss has now set up a meeting where we are supposed to discuss for 10 minutes each what we want the other person (me and my boss) to do more of/less of/etc, per her agenda. I would rather gnaw off my own arm than have this meeting. What the duck.

I feel you meara. I had a deeply unprofessional crying meltdown about my idiot boss in a department heads meeting last Thursday, talked to HR Friday, apologized Saturday, and tried to have a reconciliation meeting yesterday which sucked almost as much as the original meltdown. I was really hoping to live this job and spend the rest of my career in it but it’s so dysfunctional and the guy I helped hire to be my boss is so so so bad at being a leader.

I mean, he spent February to May acting like he and his other direct report were having an affair (the whole workplace was appalled) and I get called unprofessional for getting visibly frustrated with him? He thinks he’s doing a good job and meanwhile half the staff is coming to me asking me to save them from him and I hate it so much. I think I need a new job.

I mean, he spent February to May acting like he and his other direct report were having an affair (the whole workplace was appalled)

Did you write to Ask a Manager, by any chance? Because I read that one.

I did think of it and actually texted a friend “you will not believe the Ask a Manager nonsense I have going on at work.”

What was her advice? I documented and actually got up my nerve to say to him “I think you need to be aware of the optics of your friendship” to which he did nothing, and finally told HR and finally they cut it out and everyone pretends it never happened except, you know, I hate everything now.

Both of those sound terrible! I remember you mentioning the weird intimacy between the boss and your coworker, flea, that remains super weird and it's awful that you are the one getting stress dumped on you. And the meeting sounds awful in a completely different way, meara. Ugh.