I'm in a pickle.

I have this thing, I'm not sure what to call it, where I hate being hated. To be more specific, I hate being hated or profoundly and repeatedly misunderstood, particularly by someone who I am constantly around. My new job in Detroit seemed like a dream job: after a year of service with AmeriCorps where I served as a team leader with projects all across the upper midwest, I landed a job with an organization I served where I will be acting as a project manager and liaison for another AmeriCorps team. Yay! What a cool thing, to use my knowledge of the program, what being on a team is like, and knowing what Detroit is like and what the organization will expect, all for the team's benefit. I'll even be making (a little) money this time, too! What could possibly go wrong?

Well, this new team leader is a stone cold bitch. To say it a little more objectively, she refuses to communicate with me unless I hunt her down, and even then it's begrudging and curt and I'm made to feel like I'm inconveniencing her with my very existence. She accuses me of power tripping and treating her team like they're "slow children" when I teach them how to paint properly. I've tried having conversations with her where I try to get to know her better, explain where I'm coming from, make myself available to her as a resource in anyway, I respect her authority over her team entirely, and so far, I haven't gotten anywhere except a crazy tense environment where we're merely tolerating each other, and I feel terrified of doing something that could in any way be construed as... I don't know, ammunition for her to complain up the rank about me.

I fucking hate it. I dread my day. Normally, I'd be content to let the universe teach her a lesson and be on my merry way. Yet I'm very well stuck in this situation. The organization really needs the team's assistance, as well as me to direct and coordinate the work. There's another 6 weeks left. There's no way I can "fire" her, they're volunteers, and plus I don't think that's really a solution. I just don't know what to do. And I hate being irrationally misunderstood and despised. So pubski, *clinks glass* hope you're day's been better.