As the most junior in my team, I've been working with a challenging manager/colleague (let's call him A). I've been working on a project with him for the past month, something that usually takes a week to complete. As he's very detail oriented, each time I approach him for feedback it turns out that there are always things that he'd like to change (some of which he wanted initially) or add, and he's never happy with it.
Whenever I try to help someone else in my team, he tightens my deadlines more to make things difficult for me. This has happened twice so far. Today, he was upset that I was to work on another project with manager B. When B mentioned that I've been working with A for the past month, A told him that it was because my work quality was poor, that he had to revise my work over and over again and that I was behind time on A's project.
I was rather surprised as he's been telling me that I've been doing a "great job" (though I doubted his sincerity at times), and because I was actually on time for A's deadlines. I tried to defend myself, but got talked over. I think the real reason is that someone claimed to have no capacity for A's project recently, and I'm now to take on that work.
I find it demoralizing as I've worked really hard on this project, and tried my best. I'm thinking of avoiding A's work now, but I'm not sure how when I sit in front of him. What would you do in my position?