How To Get My Boss To Be Better?

[kat]

Ok this is a little lengthy - but I am very unsure of what to do at this point. Please please help.

I started a job as a special projects manager about a month ago for a high-end wedding planner. I handle all her social media, assist and style photo shoots. Basically I do everything and anything. My background: I'm still a university student (going to fashion school for my graduate program), I run my own personal fashion blog, and it's doing pretty well - all my social media is very "good?" I get a decent amount of likes, followers, and tweets on all of my platforms. I know what I'm doing and I'm good at it. When she hired me, I did say that I didn't have formal training in it, and that I had only ever done my own PR and media - she was ok with this.

Every day/week/month there are certain things I am supposed to do:
- 2 Blog posts weekly
- 2 daily Facebook posts
- Minimum 10 tweets daily
- 3 to 5 instagram posts daily (10 if we have a special event)
- Bi weekly and monthly analytic reports
- anything at a wedding or event or shoot that needs to be done

Here are the issues:

1) She gives NO direction
2) She NEVER responds to my emails within a few hours, it usually doesn't even happen unless I send a second or third email or text
3) In order to complete and do everything on time as requested, when she doesn't answer I do most of it without consultation. I create graphics in photoshop, come up with creative posts, and like... they're really good.
- Note: when I say creative, not only are the images and graphics pretty and professional but
she has an annual wedding show and has exhibitors she likes to showcase. I recently
did a post about "Edible Wedding Favours" incorporating all the vendors that were
relevant and their work.
4) She doesn't respond, or check my work in a timely manner and then DELETES everything I do without saying anything - and still gives me ZERO feedback.
5) She doesn't listen to my suggestions on how to use Instagram properly and her images are all over the place, the page is hodge-podge looking because she wants to ONLY POST 3 images of the same "theme" in a row. It's not working and there are so many posts a day that I know it annoys people. I've tried explaining this but she doesn't care.

On the other hand, she can be really nice. She bought take out when we were working one afternoon, leaves me in charge of shoots, and bought me earrings randomly too? She always says she's just busy but... I am insanely frustrated. I feel undermined and feel as though my work is not good enough. I've asked others who's opinions I know would be true and unbiased and they agree that her behaviour is unacceptable.

What do I do?
I should probably expand on #3 - she doesn't answer me AT ALL.
Not just within a few hours, but just no response whatsoever.

When I say she deletes all my work, I mean like mostly all of it. If it were one or two things I would not be asking for advice. I don't see a point in working my ass off only to have everything deleted without any feedback as to why or what she wants. And yes, I have asked her. She changes her mind constantly.

[Michael]

Not trying to be rude here, but have you considered the possibility that your boss really might just be that busy? Everything you've said makes it sound like she really is just that busy and doesn't have time to constantly be looking over your shoulder. The solution to your issue #1 is what you're already doing in #3. If she doesn't like it, she'll do something about it, as you said in #4. As far as #2 goes, she's the one who gets to judge whether or not your email is more important than whatever else she's doing, but keeping your emails short and getting to the point within 2 or 3 sentences will increase your odds of getting a response. #5, well, she's the boss, you've just got to live with it.

Her behavior doesn't sound unacceptable, it sounds consistent with a self employed small business owner who is genuinely that busy. Instead of being upset at a lack of direction, take pride that she's trusting you to handle this for her.