STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

I need to vent.

I'm a marketing communication analyst and I have worked at this company for a little over a year now. I'm only 23 but I work hard and please my boss (she's Marketing Director), the company president, and my other "kind-of" boss, the Director of Sales and Business Development (named R.) Let me clarify by saying that R was one of the people who interviewed me for this job, and obviously the sales and marketing departments work closely together, so when R asks me to work on something, he'll CC my boss on the assignment and I will do it. R is a pretty good guy, but he's definitely out for himself. He has a tendency to feel that anything he wants is the most important, urgent thing in the world and that everyone should cater to his desires.

Now, about 4 months ago, R hired himself a sales executive named M. M is extremely self-confident to the point of being cocky and arrogant, but has excellent people skills so everyone here seems to like him just fine. M is 31 years old if that's relevant. At first, M and I would exhibit at trade shows together, but he's obviously not my boss and didn't act as such. Now, M has started typing me emails such as the following (if it doesn't seem to make much sense, don't worry -- this guy cannot write very well but thinks he can):

"I had told Mary that we would definitely exhibit, and to please reserve a booth for us, but that I was unsure if we would sponsor. Please contact her to confirm that level of sponsor that we will be attending as.  In doing so, find out the specifics of what the thousand dollars extra gets in sponsorship, and that you will run that by our executives to see if they want to take advantage of that, and you will contact her if we decide to participate at that level."

These emails come all the time now, especially over the past 3 weeks -- he'll hear about a conference, then type out an email telling me exactly what to ask the conference's coordinator when I call them, word for word (as you saw above.)

OK, 2 things. One, in his emails to me and also the way he speaks to me in person, he talks to me like I'm stupid or "beneath" him. It's so offensive the way he tells me step-by-step what to do or say, like you would to a child. Two, why is he wasting his time by typing an email to me that tells me word for word what to ask someone? Why can't he just pick up the damn phone and call the person himself? It would be faster!!

In addition, he will often come into my office (no hello or anything) and say something like, "I need brochures" or "what's the status on XYZ?" And this is the worst -- whenever he asks what's the status on XYZ, I have ALREADY SENT HIM AN EMAIL (replying to HIS bossy email) giving him the status and telling him I will keep him posted with additional news (and I know he sees the email, b/c he writes back and says "thanks, keep me posted.") Um, why are you asking me the status? I just sent you an email an hour ago and TOLD you I would keep you posted! Yet I simply tell him, "I'll keep you posted." (How redundant!)

Is this kind of thing happening because I'm 8 years younger than him? Because I'm female? Because he's on a power trip in general? It can't be because he's been around longer, he's only been here for for 4 months. I'm wondering if his boss, R, is secretly telling him, "Oh, and you should definitely use Christine as a resource (aka, your office b*tch)."

I don't know if I want to talk to my boss about this, because it's not a very "team player" thing to do -- this is a really small company (50 ppl) to begin with.

Any advice, thoughts? I'm sure some of you girls have had really similar situations....? Grrr!