Casey Jones, You'd Better Watch Your Speed

Sometimes, I think the only reason my temp supervisor hasn't tried to get me fired yet is because he'd hate to miss out on the chance to be a dick to me. I emailed him this morning to alert him to the fact that I'm going to be out of town on Wednesday. I let him know that I'm going to be spending seven or eight hours on the Acela train, which has wireless internet access (the only thing I need to do my job), and requested permission to work remotely. He sent me a response email just saying, "You cannot work remotely." No explanation, no reason. Just no.

I understand that working remotely is a privilege and not a right. But I have asked to work remotely only once before, and I don't think it's unreasonable to work remotely once every couple months. I'm going to be stuck on a train for the span of a work day, and I thought it would be beneficial both to me and to my employer for me to use that to work. Apparently, he prefers to be petty and vindictive than to make money for the firm by having an employee do billable work. I also think that unless you are a parent telling a child to do something, "no" is not a sufficient response. It needs to be no plus a reason, like, "No, because we're not allowing anyone to work remotely." Right now, I just feel like he's saying no to me because he doesn't like me.

I really don't understand what this guy's problem is. I get the sense that I offended him or pissed him off somehow (as opposed to the possibility that he just doesn't like me because our personalities don't gel) to his petty, unprofessional behavior. Whatever I did, it was unintentional. I hate confronting problems directly, but if I thought it would help, I would ask him what I did to offend him in the hopes of clearing the air and moving on to a more productive relationship. With his personality, I think that would do more harm than good.

I feel so frustrated. I can't really leave this job right now, but I am constantly panicked that he's going to try to find a way to get rid of me. He's the only supervisor-level attorney who works with the temps, so if he bad-mouths me to his superiors, there isn't anyone to stick up for me. Also, everyone else in the firm adores him. Every single day, at least one person tells me how nice he is. It's like I'm living in The Emperor's New Clothes but instead of the emperor being naked, the emperor is a colossal dickweed. I'm putting a lot of unhealthy pressure on myself to knock Wednesday's interview out of the park just because I'm desperate to move on to a new and (one hopes) better position. Until I can find something else, I guess I just have to tolerate him.