NOT PG-13. If you are easily offended, you may want to skip this one

Bullies. I don't deal with bullies well at all. I know this about myself. Which is why I avoid them when I see them coming. But in this line of work, they are prevalent and I always seem to draw them on my project team. And I don't know how to to deal with adult bullies. As a kid you stood up to them. Someone pushes you over, you fight back. That's how it is. (yes, I skipped a couple of steps, deal with) But you don't let kids pick on you mercilessly. As an adult you fight back. It's different fighting, sure, but you don't let pepople vicitimize you. But when I fight back all I hear from people is "Watch your temper, you know how you get", which is particularly rich coming from people who have never seen me lose my temper. Yes I have one, I learned at 18 how to keep it at bay. But how much pushing should you take from someone until you're allowed to lose your temper and fight back?! I work with a project manager who makes my blood boil anytime I have to deal with him. Luckily for me, he's incredibly ineffective so I only have to see him twice a month instead of weekly. At our last meeting, he accused my company of lying to him. He accused the engineers of lying to him. He accused the building regulations of lying. We couldn't possibly be telling the truth because he's been building hotels for 40 years. Whatever... I asked him if we could start our meeting with Mechanical and Electrical, since they have the smallest part of the agenda and he took the occassion to berate me for holding things up-trying to run the project-confusing the client-and speaking to him in a degrading manner. I asked a question, I got yelled at and I held my cool. Two weeks later he came into our offices again and told me I never sent his drawings to him after the last meeting. We did, the following morning they were sent out in the mail. Now, Ireland is a small country. It takes 2 days tops for anything to get anywhere in the country. He waited 2 weeks to tell us he never got the drawings and the proceeded to accuse me of not only lying about posting them, but also of not actually doing the drawings. Then he moved on to how I was holding things up because he hasn't had new drawings in months. Our project was on hold until 4 weeks ago, which I pointed out to him. 2 weeks ago we sent him an updated set of drawings which he never bothered to report missing and now I'm the one holding progress up?! Like hell! Our Quantity Surveyor called this morning to tell me that he's only just now getting around to looking at the products we want to specifiy. He's had my list for 11 weeks and we've been on hold waiting for him. I've sent out memos asking for information, telling the team when we could go no further until he got on it, but no... I'm the one holding things up. And somehow when Drunk Boy comes into my office (yes, the project manager has shown up drunk on more than one occassion) and personally attacks me, I'm supposed to hold my temper, smile and play nice. I have never worked in such a demeaning capacity. And the reaction of my boss when I explain this to him is to smile, nod and avoid me for as long as he can. What the hell am I supposed to do?! I've got no support from my bosses. They all agree that he's "difficult" and "a pain in the ass" but when I ask for help, I get nothing. I have covered my ass every way I can. I have called repeatedly for information. I've asked for meetings. Everytime I need something they go on vacation. They milked the week long horse races in Galway for 6 weeks and then had the gall to accuse us of holding things up. I can't do anymore. I can't do this anymore. I've moved this project along as best I can, as quickly as I can and now I'm going to be hung out to dry by this drunk bullying asshole (and my office) as the reason we didn't finish on time. We've been waiting since May for Drunk Boy to follow up on one item. In the last meeting notes, he dropped it in our court, leading the client to believe that we've been in charge of it, haven't done it and when it bites us all in the ass it won't have been his fault because he told us to do it. IN SEPTEMBER! He told us to do it 5 months later. He's such a fucking bully I just can't stand it! I had a debriefing with my boss after this lovely mess and told him that I needed help dealing with Drunk Boy and my boss just smiled and told me to I needed to try harder. I need help with this guy, I'm asking for it, I'm begging for it and he's looking at me like I'm some self-indulgent little child that isn't giving it her best try. I'm going to go off on the pair of them. No support from the top, no support from the bottom. I'm leading this job, which I can do ably. That's no problem. But I'm doing it in a new system and I don't understand a lot of the Irish processes and terms and I've got no one to help me. I waited 2 days for my boss (not to be confused with Bossy Girl of earlier post) to go over some things with me requiring my response. I flat out told him I didn't understand some of it, he told me 2:30 and then disappeared leaving me to respond to soi%etu*wtgh!g as an issue. I still don't understand the fuck soi%etu*wtgh!g is let alone how to respond to it. Yet I'm responsible for it!!! It's days like these I wish I were still in restaurants.

Anyone got any suggestions for me? How do you deal with a work place bully? How do you work with a boss that refuses to help you? I'm done. I'm just done...