This is going to be a long rant, but I'm writing it more for myself than for anyone else.

I worked as a lower management supervisor at an amusement park. I had a pretty rough time my first season getting the hang of the insane expectations for us.

One day I was killing it. I worked extra hard that day to stay on top of everything and had already put out several small (metaphorical) fires before they even became problems. On top of that, I devised this perfect break schedule that allowed me to get my breaks and shift changes done at the same time while giving a break to the employees who had been standing outside of a broken ride for the past five hours getting screamed at by guests for the ride being closed. I was feeling on top of the world and like I was finally getting the hang of the job.

I was halfway through one of the breaks when the big boss and his crony walk by. They don't stop to talk to me or let me know anything is wrong, they just walk by at a distance while staring me down before going into the office.

Two minutes later I get a phone call from the crony basically calling me lazy for being in front of the closed ride instead of doing all my breaks from an open ride. He then said he noticed I like to hang out in front of the closed rides a lot (something my immediate supervisor actually told me I should be doing so I could speak to the guests and be around incase we got the call to reopen the ride).

After running my ass off to have what I thought was one of the best days I'd ever had as a supervisor, I was pretty much told I was lazy and stood around all day not doing anything.

I spent the rest of the person's break trying not to cry to the point the maintenance guy working on the ride told me I should just tell boss guy to fuck off and that I should stop taking his shit (I didn't tell the maintenance guy what had happened, but they knew the big boss well enough to guess).

At that moment I realized that no matter what I did, it would never be good enough for them. They'd only ever see what they wanted to and I'd always be a failure in their eyes.

So for the rest of the summer, I stopped doing anything for their approval. I cared only about my immediate charges-- giving them the best summer possible, supporting them and making their jobs easier, and protecting them from the assholes in upper management when I had to.

Surprisingly I got a lot better when I started doing my job for the people under me as opposed to the people above me. My team was one of the most well-supported, happy teams in the park. We did so well, in fact, I got a promotion to upper management the next summer.

But I couldn't be the asshole they wanted me to be and I had no small group of immediate charges to work hard for, so that ended up being a miserable failure.

And now I don't work there anymore.