Message #65775

[bellajgw]

Oh be soooooo careful with bosses like this.  Bosses who can't give you concrete examples of what they want or expect are BAD NEWS.

Here is my suggestion.  Schedule your own meeting with her.  Sit her down and say "I am really struggling with your expectations of these meetings of ours and it would really help me if we could use this time to go over exactly what it is you are looking for."  There is nothing wrong with asking for specifics.  Tell her what you THINK she wants and ask her if this is correct.  Remind her that as much as you would like to you can't read her mind and you just can't anticipate what she wants yet as you are still pretty new.  Let her know that you've seen how disappointed she looks when you present your work and would like to figure out exactly what her expectations are.

She sounds like a major micro-manager.  What's worse, a micro-manager who won't even tell you what she wants.  These types of bosses can lead to trouble...bad reviews with no explanation, bad projects because they don't trust you on better ones, you need to iron out any misconceptions between the two of you.

I know it can be scary with her being the boss and all, but how can you assist her if you don't know what she wants?  It's perfectly reasonable to ask her to explain to you.  It's also covering your own butt.