Dealing with the impossible/mean manager?

Question

i started work about a little over a month ago, and the first day i worked with a certain manager she seemed to hate me for no apparent reason. She glares for no reason at me, makes me do all the hard heavy lifting work that I'm not supposed to do, gets mad when i make a small mistake, acts like ive worked there for about 10 years instead of one month and gets really angry when i dont know how to do something that i wasnt trained to do, just an overall ***** to me.

It's been like this ever since we first worked together, she hates me for no reason and acts like i ran over her cat or something, idk.

She only acts like that around me though. With everyone else she laughs with, jokes around with, and is friendly towards them.

This is my first job, so i have no idea how to deal with this

please help!

Answer 1

Hard to say why she is like this.  Maybe she's jealous, mad about something which you are not aware of, maybe she just likes picking on random people.  

Let me give a quick story from my past which bears a bit on this.  At a former job I had the big boss (who owned the company - small company with maybe 30 employees) was very, very erratic.  One day she was great and complimentary and happy at life and the next day (for no apparent reason) she was mean, and I'm talking really, really mean.  Furthermore, when she was mean she would seem to (probably unconsciously) pick one particular employee out of about 6 that worked closely with her and she would be especially mean to that one, being really vicious in what she said.  She also seemed to slowly rotate who got the brunt of the punishment, though it wasn't exactly a fair rotation.  We joked about it (behind her back) saying so and so was the scapegoat for the week.  We even made up a "scapegoat of the week" award we passed around to whoever was "it" for the moment.  Anyhow, no idea why she was like this and it caused massive turnover and problems in the business, but she was the boss so you could put up with it, or leave.

Anyhow, the whole point of the story is to kinda say how random stuff like this can be.  No idea why your boss is like that but there may not really even be a reason (or much of one).  So, you are just going to have to live with it as best you can, or move on to somewhere else.  There are some things you can try.  First off maybe talk (very covertly) to a co-worker about this if there is anyone you completely trust to keep this secret.  Also, you can flat out ask her.  Put it very nonchalently, just comment to her, next time she is doing this, that she seems to have problems with alot of the stuff you do, but you are doing your best.  Is there any one or two things you could do differently that would help - maybe this will get her to back off a bit, maybe it will make her meaner - hard to say but maybe worth a shot.

Anyhow, best luck, and if you can find no solution to this you may have to just live with it as best you can or move on to something else.