Hey Dante,
I can certainly relate to your frustration! I'm in Quality Control/Quality Assurance where I work, so as you can imagine, there is a certain amount of friction between myself and a few individuals in other departments.
I've had to develop a "thick-skin" as it were, since I've been there, especially with the manufacturing supervisor. I would describe him as a hot-headed pudgy pygmy with a Napoleon complex. Like you, I find myself running low on tolerance and patience for people like him, and people who need to be 'babied' at work. I do my job, and I do it very well, and it pisses people off. Oh well. I'm not there to make friends or enemies, I'm just there to do my best to see that we get good products out to our customers.
Fortunately for me, when this guy goes ballistic, I can just turn my back on him and walk away. He isn't my boss and I've let him know that a few times.
I have had an open and honest conversation with my boss about him and a few other people in the place that I seem to have rubbed the wrong way. I also know that I can be very blunt and even terse at times, so I need to keep that in check. That's one of the hardest things for me to do since I was brought up in a military family, (refer to "The Great Santini" if you want to see what my family was like), and being direct was always the preferred method of communication back in the day. Not anymore, people can't handle that these days. I'd be a terrible politician, I'd tell people the truth!
Watch what you say to this woman! As I see it, she's relying heavily on her position of authority and is afraid of losing even the tiniest fraction of that authority, because she isn't sure she can keep things under control if she does. She may see your attempt at improving communications with her as a challenge to her authority, even though you aren't trying to do that. That could be the reason for the condescending attitude, (finger-pointing), she has toward you. l could be way off-base about that, but if she's got that old world mindset, I might not be that far off.
At my job, they have their set ways of getting things done, and I follow their procedures and policies to the letter, but when I see a way to improve what they are doing, I incorporate it quietly, and wait for the results to come back. So far, I've been able to affect a couple of changes for the better, but I don't look for acknowledgment. I know who I am, and what I can do, and the difference it makes. That's good enough for me.
I'd like to share some of that self-appreciation with you. It sounds like you could use some.
Harley