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.

Here's the article, flea: [link]

I'm sorry you guys are having manager trouble, flea and meara.

I am in the middle of another "opportunity" for new manager learning: a contractor (who I didn't hire!) has finally unprofessionally lashed out/not done his work enough that I was able to gather the higher-ups in that area and say "Nope, we're done, here's what my plan is to cover his deliverables, you people let me know when we can kick off the separation process SOON TO RIGHT NOW".

They all agreed with me. Unfortunately the coverage plan at the moment is ... me.

In the course of our little talk my boss called me volatile, said I came in too strong, and said I lacked soft skills. I wonder if he would think I’d say any of those things if I were a man.

I mean, tact is just not saying things that are true. I’ll pass. But yes I am direct and vehement and also the people who work for me feel I treat them well.

Ugh, flea. If you haven’t run screaming by then we plan on trying to vacation near you in October on Columbus Day weekend. We’d love to see you again!

Atropa, that also sounds horrible. I’m sorry.

ltc and I had a very lazy book day. I fell asleep several times because I’m still recovering from our big, fun day with vw and Stitch and all the driving I did yesterday. My body is not used to driving two hours a day, and my arms and shoulders hurt after using the hand controls that long. So ltc and I read a book together and then did some separate reading in tree same room.

flea, I can’t even imagine you being volatile.

{{Buffistas with awful work conditions}} I'm sorry that so much of your day is spent with such stress.

In the course of our little talk my boss called me volatile, said I came in too strong, and said I lacked soft skills. I wonder if he would think I’d say any of those things if I were a man.

I wonder if he'd say any of those things if I dropped a cartoon anvil on his head.