the difficult

Here's one tale (of many) about what it's like to work for a loony old bat who thinks she's far more important than she is.

One of the more interesting aspects of being unemployed and desperate is that you'll take pretty much any opportunity that comes along, so that food continues to make its way into the fridge without resorting to theft. One such opportunity rolled into my path about two days before I exited my place of former employment. Due to a random connection, I was put in touch with a wealthy older woman, who needed some computer help and personal assistance, a few days a week. Since my schedule had suddenly become way too wide open, I readily accepted, even with the warning of a "difficult" personality.

That was the understatement of the fucking century.

Come to find out, around the office which had put me in touch with my new, schizophrenic employer, the joke was that I would inherit her 60 million dollars, because even her own kids and grand kids couldn't stand her. I thought that surely, that was some kind of exaggerated joke. Having dealt with an insanely large number of difficult and obnoxious people in my life, I have found that even with the worst personalities, many of them are "crackable" because even with their caustic exterior, I am able to pick up on the issue behind such defense mechanisms and have thus been able to understand and develop solid relationships. In short, traditionally, I get along famously with the people that no one else gets along with.

Bear in mind that if at any point a person crosses the line and purposely offends me, I do not push over. I will stick up for myself and expect to be treated with respect by people I deal with, because I, in turn, will always make the greatest effort to be respectful myself. This open understanding I think, has contributed to my success in the "tough personality" arena.

With this woman however, the rules were changed without my knowledge and the amazing amount of bullshit to which I was subjected on a daily basis was nothing short of mind-boggling. I had NO idea that a person could and would intentionally behave like such a fucking crazy, illogical asshole and expect to get away with it. I mean it. She legitimately expected that when she spat the insults at her intended receiver, that her demands would be hopped to and granted with a smile and an apology. I was slack-jawed on day one as I watched her conduct some simple business on the phone.

A funny aside here, is that this phone transaction was in reference to some christmas gifts she was shipping out to random friends and relatives. The gift, was a nifty little wine refrigerator and when all of the refrigerators were totalled, this one gift (of many) could have paid my rent. Fascinating.

So the quick set up to the phone story. There was only one kind of fridge that she wanted to send and since it was less than a week before christmas (not to mention that she wanted 9 to ship out), all 7 companies we tried only had them on back order, meaning that the gifts would be getting to their intended recipients around or after the first of the year. Once it became clear that this was unavoidable, she gave in and had me order them to arrive late, but with a cute little card attached to each.

Ah, but alas, she had forgotten that she had already ordered several wine fridges from yet another vendor. Lovely. So when the news came in that a couple of them had already been delivered, this understandably caused quite a row. This event also caused an amnesiatic fit with regard to why none in the order which I had placed had gone out. I'll give you a hint on her reasoning...it was clearly my incompetence. But, to my joy and wonder, I was not alone in this one.

When the phone was ripped from my hands in mid-sentence, I was absolutely amazed to hear her (on speaker) berate the poor, incredibly accommodating person on the other end as a "double talker", a "shameless liar" and a "simple vendor' when she was told, for the 9th time, that the refrigerators were indeed, still on back order and not due to ship for several days. No change in the message, whatsoever.

Apparently, when senility sets in, logical ordering times and physical inventory shortcomings, are nothing but an obstacle that yelling and abuse will fix. After a good 2 days of price haggling, shipping changes and malevolence, on her part, she cancelled the order, threatened to sue if the credit card was charged and slammed the phone back into it's cradle. I sat motionless and speechless, waiting for the secret trap door to open and dump me into a pit of hungry crocodiles.

It was then that the answer to the "where do you get off?" question materialized in my mind. There is no retort to that quesiton, because when you have an ingrained sense of entitlement, you simply don't need to answer that question. With all of these ethical, straightforward people I have been dealing with lately, I'm considering jumping the snake pit and trying out this whole rude, irrational, douchebag thing. I might be making millions in no time.