I once had a total nutcase of a boss. He was so disliked that his peers (some from other companies) made a special point of sympathizing to me when we met at social events. One of his peers told me that his current wife used to work with my boss. He had to come up to give his apologies to me, and to let me know my boss was a "nut job." Just like your boss, my boss was a control freak .... but punched walls (literally). Make a tiny mistake or do something a little different, and he went on a tiraid. In one of his yelling fits, he sat in my office for more than an hour with a strange look in his eye and was claiming I had ADHD. Yes, he was condescending and abusive. I have been through alot of schooling, jobs, all exceptional, no one said I had ADHD. . . until I met him.
I was planning a vacation, put in for it, and had talked about it alot . . . when he decided I needed to stay the entire weekend. I asked him if there was someone else who could do the project because my kids were hoping to go on vacation. So, he did. The secretaries were like, "You did a career limiting move." I was like, "Oh well. So...."
In my case, he was super high up in the company and I was the low guy on the totum pole. I realized that the company preferred to keep an arse in power. There was no fighting it. I bought some books, "How to get along with annoying people" to no avail. He needed a shrink. Even his wife hated him, and she told me! She told me that he hated their kids and her too. That was the first day I met her, the first conversation I had with her!
So, one day I had enough. He yelled at me at 8:00 a.m. for 15 minutes in the hallway becuase I supposedly wrote two sentances in the same memo differently. The summary sentance was a "no" and the detail sentance was a "yes" answer. When I got back to my desk, I read the memo. He fricken read it wrong. Both sentances were "no" answers. I decided to leave just then. At noon, he came to apologize for me. The next day, I gave him my resignation. He was like, "But I apologized yesterday." I said, "So."
Keep looking for a new job. Don't pin your hopes on this one, open job. Play the game at work, and give her no reason to fire you for insubordination. Compliment her a little, and she'll ease off. That worked a little for me, all the while with each compliment I was filling out applications....thinking, "This too shall end." When I quit, my boss was apologetic. He didn't want me to leave! I did. I told him that he was a very unhappy person. I never looked back.
Keep everything in e-mail as much as possible.
Skeeter