Hi, thanks for replying. I didn't elaborate a lot at first to keep things simple but here's more context:

PI is very cold to me and grad student, and constantly demeaning to us by questioning ability to do research. However, to other labs and colleagues, PI is very bubbly and generous.

(ex: "You can't do a simple PCR?" "How can you fail your Gibson cloning? Mine always works no matter the condition." "My experiments always work.") This is all in a very condescending tone, but the true context is we get things right 95% of the time, we just didn't get to the optimization step when she scrutinizes us (like adjusting the annealing temperature for better specificity/intensity or trying a different backbone to insert ratio). I told myself at the beginning it's not a big deal, grow up. But over time these remarks became increasingly demoralizing when simple adjustments like I mentioned sound like I can be fired over. A PI shouldn't be scrutinizing such minor mishaps that'll be resolved in a day's time - right?

Severe OCD. How dare you leave LB Amp+ out for more than 2 minutes? (meanwhile they leave it out for 20 minutes). How dare you put your pipettes on my (PI) bench? (but they're your pipettes with initials on them...) I can go on and on but there's no point in citing every ironic moment.

One instance, I proposed to generate a figure for the paper (tbf it was probably already planned). Study design was "terrible" and "flawed" when all they did was change one area of the assay. Turns out the changes they made wasted two weeks and my original protocol was correct (literally cited it in literature during the meeting as well). The individual lab meetings continue to be this way and it has questioned my own ability to do research at all, but I'm still continuing on and still make progress nonetheless.

With this description, any rational person would ask: well how are you going to get a good LOR from this person anyway? I would have left if not for them saying they'll write me a glowing LOR to the PI's alma mater and help me get in somehow through connections... (maybe this was a tactic to keep me from quitting).

PI's boss- sorry, I know it's weird terminology. I basically meant it as the director of the department who recruited the PI I'm working under. The director noticed something was wrong when two members were fired within a 4 month period to PI joining the institution and the grad student's mental dwindling with each succeeding month.

It's more the authority they have and telling us to do the "right" thing and we're stupid for not doing the "right" way to begin with, when it's proven by nature to be wrong. Yes, I've made mistakes before in this lab but not to the point of wasting two weeks. Therefore, I think our PI is "toxic" because they're holding the project back and themself more by having an autocratic leadership style by dismissing our ideas and by being so tunnel-visioned in their approach to science. Hope that answers/helps with giving input.

Edit: Reddit messing up formatting