newZness

Melissa Donaghy, now known as Melyssa Hubbard (but also known as "Miss Ann" in the dominatrix world) is very angry at me. I understand why: She is an angry person. She's angry at anyone who doesn't do what she wants. The sad thing is that she thinks everyone is supposed to do what she wants. She is very disconnected from reality. I haven't exactly been a Saint myself, but Lord knows I am trying. You see, I have very little patience for people who are disconnected from reality. I like to exist in a world of logic, reason, and grounded truth. Some people, like Melissa, live in a world where reality is whatever she "feels" it is. There are no inconvenient truths for these kind of people. Because of this, she throws toddler style temper tantrums on a regular basis because things often don't go her way. Yes. Temper tantrums. Like a toddler. This is a fifty-year-old woman, mind you. I lived with her for exactly six weeks and I saw her throw more than half a dozen temper tantrums. And there was nothing I could do to predict or stop them. So, I've spoken my mind to her a few times and didn't mince my words. No, I didn't called her any names or curse at her. But when pushed, I have broken down and told her what I thought of her, which wasn't very flattering. It is something I am working on: Handling confrontation from emotionally unstable people and standing up to bullies without "fighting back" or engaging them on their level. Allow me to share a few anecdotes from the past six weeks... I met Melissa about two months ago at a Ron Paul event that I was helping organize. Melissa took a very strong liking to me and told me that I should come to work at the company she was working. She said she was making over $100,000 per year and I could easily do the same. I did some research and found that this company was actually very impressive, the job was promising, and they did have job openings. So, I applied for the same job that Melissa does and she recommended me to her boss to interview me. A week later, another manager in the company interviewed me, and I was hired and scheduled to start on February 6th. There was only one problem. This job was in another town several hours away and I had no car, no savings, and knew no one there except, well, Melissa. To make matters worse, in order to have a smoothe transition, I had to quit my current job a few weeks before starting the new one so finances were very strained for me. Of course, Melissa didn't hesitate to offer to help me out. She told me I could live with her while I was getting my feet settled. It would be perfect, because she and I worked at the same place and I could carpool with her to work. Then, she told me she was going to charge me rent. Okay, that seemed fair enough - how much? $500 per month. $500 per month to rent a room. And believe me, I was just renting a room from her - I had to leave most of my things in storage back in Chicago because there would have been no place to put them. In this town I was moving to, you could rent a 3-bedroom house for $500 per month. Sure, it wasn't in the nicest neighborhood or in the best condition, but still - $500 per month was very steep for renting one room out. In fact, from what she has told me, it was more than 1/3 of her mortgage payment on a large four bedroom house in a fairly decent neighborhood. I found a large, two bedroom house in a nice neighborhood for $750 per month with all utilities included. So, yeah, $500 per month for one room - and just one room - was pretty steep. She didn't even provide me with enough space in the refrigerator to put my groceries. So, I had to shop and eat light - and store food at my work. All this time, Melissa acted like she was doing me the biggest favor in the world by renting this tiny room out to me for $500 per month. It is true that I wasn't paying a share of utilities (which she never ran, it was always an ice box in the house), and she would occasionally share a meal with me. This was nice. But it wasn't as if that was breaking the bank or anything, and it wasn't as if I wasn't doing the same for her as well. Well, then the shenanigans started. In my first two weeks living with her, she proved to be very overbearing and controlling. I wanted to go shopping for groceries; she insisted on driving me. I tried to say no, but she wouldn't hear it. Of course, I prefer to spend 30 minutes running to and from the Grocery store. Melissa liked to turn these trips into 4 and 6 hour affairs - dragging me to antique malls and taking me on tours of suburban neighborhoods I had absolutely no interest in seeing. When I was in the grocery store, Melissa had an opinion about every single item I wanted to purchase - and everything I didn't. She literally wanted to tell me exactly what I should and shouldn't buy. Melissa didn't see this as overbearing. She saw this as being kind and helpful. Well, Melissa is a little bit nuts, isn't she? I can't complain too much. Melissa did do kindnesses for me that she didn't ask me to pay her for. While I was apartment shopping, she picked me up a few times and gave me a ride back to her place. She even drove me around for a few hours one Saturday so I could look at a few places. Of course, even that had to turn into drama. Rather than ask me what places I was going to and in what order, Melissa just started making up her own driving route. When I tried to correct her and asked her to drive me to the next appropriate appointment, she pulled the car over and started yelling at me for "changing the plans" on her. What plans? She made up her own plans and I tried to tell her what appointments I had scheduled days in advance and I was changing the plans? Interesting... That was not a very fun day. I decided that day to never run errands or ask Melissa to drive me around for anything ever again. She couldn't be trusted. From day one of starting my new job, my boss and other co-workers offered to give me rides to and from work. These were all good guys and they never made me feel guilty or like I owed them anything - they just honestly wanted to help me out and went out of their way to do so. It was great. So, I took rides from them rather than deal with riding with Melissa - something she constantly reminded me was a huge favor for her to do for me (never mind the fact that she was going to and from the exact same places as me). A few days after the apartment shopping episode, Melissa fell down and broke her wrist. This meant two things. Melissa was going to take temporary disability and not work for a month, and she could not drive her car during this time as well. Melissa told me that since she couldn't drive I should take her car to and from work. So, I accepted her offer because I didn't want to prey on the kindness of my co-workers. And I made sure to pay for the gas I was using. Two days later, Melissa asked me to drive her to work in the morning to fill out HR paperwork. Then, she asked me to drive her and drop her off at home. No big deal. I was happy to do it. Then, a couple of days later, she called me up and asked me to deliver some papers for her. So, I drove back to her place during my lunch hour and retrieved the papers and dropped them off for her. The next day, she called me before lunch and asked me to drive her to the post office on my lunch break. So, again I took off from work, picked up Melissa and drove her to the post office. On the way, she insisted that we take her car to be washed. I asked her if it could just wait until after I got off work, but she threw another fit and insisted that it had to be done right now, and how dare I be ungrateful that she was letting me drive her car. So, I ran all Melissa's errands for her and two and a half hours later I made it back to work. It wasn't my most productive day. My weekends were spent, of course, driving Melissa wherever she wanted to go. I barely had any time to myself. Melissa would, of course, justify my presence on these trips by insisting that I buy things for myself at all the places she was taking me and insisting that she had taken me to Big Lots, Aldi, and Kroger's all in one day was to help me. Never mind the fact that she was buying things left and right at all the places herself. And never mind the fact that what little extra money I had was going into paying for gas her car now, and it didn't matter anyway because she didn't have any room in her fridge for anything I wanted to buy. I almost bought a quart of ice cream, but Melissa insisted that I not buy it because she wouldn't have room in her freezer after stocking up on several pounds of snow crab legs. Oh, and her refrigerator/freezer is huge. Yet, there wasn't room for me to put a quart of ice cream in it. I guess renting refrigerator space cost and extra $50 per month or something. My bad. Before I moved in with Melissa she told me that she was trying to help the Ron Paul Indiana Grassroots volunteers organize. She asked me if I would help out, and I told her I wanted to prioritize my new job, but if I could find time I would help. After I moved in with her, Melissa seemed to think I had made an agreement with her that in exchange for her getting me a job at her company I agreed to help her organize Ron Paul grassroots. First, let me point out - Melissa reminded me numerous times of how she got me a job at her company. How insulting is that - both to me and the manager who hired me? I did two interviews with three people, and I don't recall her being present in any of them. Oh, sure she advocated on my behalf, but how much of a reference could she have been having only met me once. And don't get me wrong, I am extremely grateful that she INFORMED me of this job. But how long is she going to hold this over my head now? Melissa must seem to think that I didn't have any merits of my own that got me the job and my boss obviously hired based on some kind of Nepotism, not because they thought I was a fit and qualified...

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