So..

That conversation (If I'm Hubski-ing correctly) has borne some ugly fruit. My manager pressed one too many buttons and I swore at her. It was fleeting, I tried to leave the situation initially, but she followed and pressed the point.

Cue a meeting with her later that day where I hoped she would apologize, give me a chance to apologize, and we'd continue on as normal.

Nope. She went straight into HR, policies, my reputation. It became a battle of "Who has the most to lose" in as polite-but-passive-aggressive terms as possible. I explained why I was so wound up, and she avoided apologizing but did suggest she had misread the situation. Essentially she always comments on my appearance in a negative way, and as I'm the only male in her staff I often feel a bit attacked. She realized that HR would 100% back me in this situation and suddenly there was no mention of performance management etc.

Since then we've had another meeting where she was glowing with praise and encouraging me to look at opportunities elsewhere in the organization. I played along, if it means she'll give me a good reference I'm happy to take it and run.

Turns out she has a.. difficult.. reputation trailing behind her; so I'm confident that if push came to shove, my reputation isn't tarnished by her thinking poorly of me. I'd just be another person who "crossed" her, in the eyes of other people.

So the hunt begins for a new role, got a few interviews lined up within the area.

On the plus side - my groups DnD campaign is picking back up, and I've been writing for the past.. 6 months? 80k words into one big project, and completed lots of smaller projects. Even if they never see the light of day, I've had so much fun creating them.