a conundrum

So I know no one out there is reading this, but maybe writing it out will make me feel better and cause me to come to a conclusion.

I used to live in Los Angeles; more specifically, I used to live in a Northwestern suburb of Los Angeles filled with trophy wives by the dozen and Porsche Cayennes as far as the eye can see. It's the kind of place where 14 year olds carry large Louis Vuitton handbags and have $150 highlights and yet the patron of the local sushi restaurant refuses to tip the single-mother/community college student waitress because his sake isn't exactly 86 degrees. A place where 60% of the people don't need a steady job and yet still feel it's appropriate to comment on how homelessness is only a problem for people with no work ethic. All this isn't to say that it didn't have it's upsides. I spent many hours hiking it's lovely trails through the mountains down to the beach and enjoying the pristine, smog-free weather and beautiful, multi-colored sunsets.

I worked at a small recruiting firm (we used to say "boutique" although I can't think of anything about our tiny, one-room office with dumpster-dive recovered furniture and prime access to the outdoor restroom that would conjure the word) where we specialized in finding self-involved Financial types jobs that would give them "more upward mobility and opportunity for growth". Basically this involved convincing a bunch of boring bean-counters that they weren't too boring to change jobs. Why would I do this? It paid extremely well, I got to drink at work and I never had to wear make-up or a suit jacket. All in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend three years and it supported my handbag habit ( I know, I know, I was just judging the poor tween girls for their handbags, but keep in mind, I'm nearing 30 and don't own ANY Louis V).


During my time there I worked with several interesting characters. Perhaps I will go into greater description of the 20 plus people who worked with and for me during my tenure, but this story only requires the description of one. We'll call her Midwestern Farmer's Daughter (or Miffed for short). She is from a corn-infested midwestern state where the only things to do are drink, fuck and operate meth labs (not necessarily in that order). She is nearly six feet tall with pretty blue eyes and a chip on her shoulder the size of a great lake. She has the kind of ashy blonde highlights and giant, torpedo-shaped fake breasts that only come with her brand of Midwestern insecurity. She gets absurdly drunk and shouts at strangers, but is hilarious and joyful in an almost childlike way. She is both articulate and inane: refreshingly abstract and tediously literal. No friend of mine has ever caused me so much laughter or so many tears.

When I met Miffed she hated me immediately. On my first day of work she refused to make eye contact with me and spoke about me in the third person when I was sitting right there. It took three weeks of achingly subservient courtesy to get her to even acknowledge my existence. When she finally did acknowledge me, it was to alternately boss me around and inform me that my position within the company was not even remotely secure.



"I hate to be the one to tell you this, but there is no way that you're going to last here if you don't learn how to document your activity more accurately. We just don't have time to show you more than once and you're clearly not getting it so I just think you might want to be a little more careful..."

"I'm so sorry! I know it's a huge inconvenience, but do you think you could let me know exactly what you're talking about? I am just doing it the way I was taught. Thanks so much for your help!"

"UGGGH. Whatever. If you don't know already there's no point."

This continued for several months. After she saw that I was sticking around, we entered a more cordial period of detente. She explained to me that she had gotten so used to people coming and then going immediately that she decided not to "get attached" to anyone. This new phase of our relationship was characterized by her asking me to do things for her and me jumping at the chance to break my back bending over backwards to do them. I had workplace Stockholm Syndrome. I even began to empathize with her situation. I felt lucky that instead of berating me or criticizing everything I did, she would throw me a bone or two; even though she always reminded me of my place when I seemed too comfortable.


"Um, excuse me Miffed...I am going out to grab some lunch. Can I get you anything?"


"Sure, as long as you don't completely screw it up like last time...."

Eventually she came to see me as someone she could trust with more than sandwiches and we became REAL friends. Sometimes she was wonderful. She helped throw me an amazing birthday party, she listened to me when I needed to talk about my family and she encouraged me to find a therapist to help with my eating disorder. Without her help, I honestly might not be sane right now. Other times, she wasn't so wonderful. She was constantly competitive about everything. Looks, clothes, music, our husbands. It didn't help that we were in actual competition in the workplace. If she was having a bad day, she belittled me about everything. Whenever someone new entered our world she was insanely jealous of my attention and then immediately tried to show me how awful the other person was. Then when I agreed she would accuse me of being a petty bitch and tell the other person I didn't like them. She lied to me more than a dozen times about things that don't matter at all.


When she moved to Austin she stopped returning my phone calls and started telling coworkers lies about me. I really don't know why. She had previously gotten pregnant and had a miscarriage. I was angry with her at the time but I still visited her at the hospital and every day at her apartment during the three weeks she missed work. I also convinced her husband to stay with her (he told me this) and did her job for her while she was gone. The last real conversation we had was about a "going away" party she was throwing for herself. I attended and made food for this party, but was unable to plan it myself because I was going to be away the whole week prior. After I moved to Austin several months later, our boss called me and told me that he didn't want me working for him anymore. After some prodding on my part I found out that Miffed was concerned that I would be competition for her in this small market and that she had lied to him about my performance and integrity and had basically gotten me fired.

Now, in the end, being rid of my job and association with this crazy man was a good thing, but I was still terribly hurt by her actions. This was about four months ago. Ten days ago she texted me wanting to reconnect. I haven't responded. I don't know what to do. On the one hand, she was a conniving bitch that used every trick in the book to screw me over. On the other hand, I do care about her and she was kind to me at times. Part of me is so curious about why she would contact me that I want to text her back. The other part of me realizes that no good will come of this.