My boss is being a total asshat to me. The person in my position previously did no work for the last six months she was there and absolutely hated him, so she filed things in the wrong places, didn't submit over a million in accounts, lied about doing things when she didn't, and tried to mess his business up as much as possible. Probably because he treated her for 6 years the way he's treated me for a month.
He blames me for some of the things missing or wrong and says he handed them to me. (In MARCH? When I was gainfully employed elsewhere? I insist that you didn't.) If we find them in his office, which is a total wreck made entirely of paper skyscrapers and wobbly folder piles, I get blamed because he handed them to me and I must have put them back in his office in the middle of a pile. WELL OKAY THEN. This happens 1-2x a day. He gives me incomplete or incorrect directions and expects me to follow them, yells at me for asking questions and then yells at me if I don't. He gets mad if I do exactly as he told me to do. I have started documenting everything, and when I read back to him word for word what he told me to do (which I did do), he gets even madder and insists that I'm basically lying. He places blame elsewhere for anything he does wrong, going so far as to blame me for things I can document I didn't do or can document that I did correctly.
I talked to my other boss about him a few weeks ago, as did two other employees who observed his behavior towards me. She verbally ripped him a new one. This resulted in weeks of eyerolls and stomping around, even throwing papers off a desk. Twice. I finally asked her to lunch and talked with her about him. She apparently had a come to jesus talk with him (that night, I believe), and he changed his behavior the next day. He's been nothing but polite and supportive and complimentary. ALL I hear now is "good job! You really saved my butt on that one! I like your idea!" etc etc.
I shouldn't even be complaining about this, but a) it's super fake and ridiculous, even if he did really feel that way; and b) I know he'll be back to the status quo soon. This is too sudden and fake to be a real change. He went from eyerolling and yelling at me in a meeting over something he insisted I didn't bring (I had it in my hand while he was saying this), another thing he insisted I shouldn't come to meetings without reading (it hadn't been sent to my inbox this morning, or to his), and blaming me for losing a client's paperwork that she sent in before I was employed there to THIS in a day.
I'm grateful I have a job, but they KNOW they're underpaying me for the level of performance and hard work I'm putting in. I could be paid $3-5 more an hour in this industry and lots more bar-tending. I'm perfect for this job in both natural inclinations and skill set, and I'm so good at it I'm putting their office back together after a year of bad help or no help. My meeting with my female boss was basically her going "OMG WE CAN'T LOSE YOU BECAUSE HE'S AN ASSHOLE" deep down inside. Today, after our discussion last week, I had a multiple-hundred-dollar bonus that she more or less told me was for dealing with him.
I just don't know what to do. He's not going to get better, and every single person who worked there previously had the same issues with him. My commute is only going to get worse. She's awesome and I love working for her, but her other half is just awful. I'm not being paid competitively. I don't want to quit, but I don't see this being a long term thing any more.
I loved it so much when I started, too. . .