Love My Job, Hate My Boss

I really do not know what to do about this. I actually thought this issue was resolved months ago, but just yesterday she has gone back to being really mean.

If it weren’t for my attachment to my coworkers and the kids I work with, I’d be all for an internal transfer, but I really don’t want to have to do that..

My boss who I’m talking about took to making my life difficult the second I got there with no exaggeration. I’ve never had any difficulty with a coworker, nonetheless a BOSS, in my entire life. The first couple months, I let it brush off and just assumed she was being hard on me so I could improve faster, but it never stopped.

She withheld a pay raise from me that people from my same cohort got within the first months by refusing to complete my competency exam for nearly 2 months because I “wasn’t hitting minimums in every session” for specific things even after she signed off on those items.

Eventually, in an attempt to get extra guidance because I assumed I was just shitty at my job, I asked a higher up what to do and within the next couple days, they allowed me to complete my comp and signed off on the LAST THING that had nothing to do with why she was refusing to complete it for me.

It got to the point where even my coworkers noticed her blatant dislike towards me and also told me it wouldn’t be her first HR complaint for the exact same behavior towards others.

I’ve never reached out to HR and did not want to do that, so I just continued to try and improve. Until one day where she accidentally messaged in a group chat I was in something nasty about me after just having talked to me in person.

I took a screenshot and sent that to a higher up absolutely devastated.

I have perfect attendance, I’ve never called out, I care a lot about providing consistent and high quality care to the kids I work with, I’ve taken extra shifts constantly (which she loves when I do, by the way…).

After that HR complaint, she apologized to me and things seemingly became perfect. She started to give me constructive feedback and would answer my questions without seeming beyond frustrated that I have questions at all.

Also, to eliminate this possibility, I do everything I can to find answers to questions myself before I ask her. Especially if she seems irritated.

But yesterday, out of the blue, it just felt like day 1 again. Out of nowhere, she told me to do something I was expected to just know despite being something very new and something SHE NEVER EVEN OFFICIALLY UPDATED. She never posted anything and I look at updates all the time. She was being super unhelpful and just kept saying “read the updates.” And it wasn’t there! Even after the fact, I asked several of my coworkers if they could help me find it and no one could!

I just took the brunt of her rage at me seeming incompetent and lacking in being on point and didn’t want to tell her she didn’t post it. Someone will tell her eventually, but then it’s like, because of her not actually posting, this kid isn’t going to get consistent care because no one knows about this change!! It’s so frustrating. But, yeah, she was really pissed at me for this.

Then later on in the day, I worked with a kid I hadn’t in over a month. Her written updates were again not up to date, but I knew from work of mouth that his plan had changed.

Due to her already being mad at me for not reading an update she didn’t post, I didn’t want to get even more on her bad side for not knowing everything about a kid I rarely work with.

She then confronted me at the very end of my session, when I was about to switch off, interrogating me on how I conducted the session and low and behold, I did not do everything up to date with what is in her head. After checking everything she asked, I actually did run the session correctly given he didn’t have the supplies to do what she wanted me to do, but I didn’t even know to check.

Then throughout the rest of the day, she either ignored me or if I talked in her presence even to someone else, she’d be like “yeah, yeah, yeah” and stuff like that.

I reached out to her apologizing for dropping the ball and said I’d do better to pay more attention and all she said is “Thank you for recognizing. Now read the updates for this kid you’re with now” which I already had. I read the updates all the time.

I’m just frustrated. I don’t understand why she hates me seemingly. A previous coworker before me apparently literally quit the job because of her. I just love this job and try to do my best as I really care about these kids, and things were going so well up until yesterday and now I just dread going in to see her.

She’s probably going to have a passive aggressive huddle regarding what happened yesterday, as she has done before within my first month for making a mistake.

I just get that I messed up, at least that second time for sure, but honestly, if she hasn’t already been pissed at me, I would have been inclined to ask for clarification to make sure I do everything correctly. I just didn’t want to rock the boat any further and then I guess I did anyway…

Any advice on how to deal with this situation? I have to brush it off and try to improve for my own sanity, but it makes me question if I’m actually a good employee, which I’d never doubted before as I’ve always gotten on great with my bosses.