Dealing with incompetent supervisor

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I have a totally incompetent supervisor who makes up "fun" busy-work projects for herself and our team that she often tries to dump onto me to "help" with - even though this takes away time from my real work, and I already have more real work than I have time to do. When I point out I can't even get all my real work done, she tells me "no one can ever get all that done". Which might be ok, except that she also meets with me once a month to "grade" me on whether I'm getting my real work done or not. When I push back and don't take part in her busy-work projects, then I get labelled "not a team player".

Wtf?

Hi, some jobs it really doesn't matter if your supervisor is lousy or not, it's more about coworkers and clients. But it sounds like this isn't one of those jobs.

So, I guess the thing is to start emotionally disengaging snd looking for another job. Which I've always had a heck of a hard time doing. A bad job just takes too much of my energy. And there's certain techniques, like if you get there ten minutes early and leave on time, well, it doesn't exactly make you king of the world, but it does give some shielding against criticism.

And I would recommend being vague with your boss about your reason for job hunting and/or leaving, maybe something like 'family responsibilities' or 'time for career change.' She might even ask you in seemingly an open-minded way. But really, if she's not mature enough to understand the difference between delegating and dumping, and not mature enough to set project priorities in a realistic way, she probably can't really take in and process this kind of adult discussion, and there's more potential downside than upside to you. So I would go indirect, and keep your cards close to the vest so to speak.

I can't really tell you what to do or say.

But here is something you might wish to consider.

Fill out your timetable with the things you do on a regular basis, then if she comes with a fun work project, pull out your current schedule and say, I see that this project is important to you. Let's take a look at my current list of jobs in this schedule to see how we can make it happen and when.

She might then be able to see what you do.

Only reason why I say this is that I am new to my job, and am still getting to see how fast my employees can do stuff. And how much they can take on. I as a supervisor always ask how things can fit into their schedule, and work with them to find a way.

I hope that this works for you in the interim.