While working in this company I made friends, grown-up friends, even though it was not so easy, I first met Lisbeth, another member of the LGTBQ community and we instantly clicked, she thought me all her tricks to get around the office and how to be better at my work, we confide and told me to not trust any of my other colleagues 3 other ones (2 women and a guy) at the beginning it was all me and her and little I spoke with the rest of them because she told me they were not good people and I believed her (she also said she was the highest-earning employee so she felt superior, she was earning $5.45 per hour). As the weeks went by, Melissa kept calling me to her office if I was 1 minute late, laughing, breathing, or just the fact that I was there sitting at my chair, she always had an excuse to call me into her office and wow I hated her. Little I knew Lisbeth was very close to Melissa, many say she was in love with her, which many months after I learned it was true. I wondered many times how Melissa knew every single step, comment, phone conversation, times I breathe, walked in and it was all because Lisbeth was her informant all this time. After I know about this, I stopped my relationship with Lisbeth and we became enemies, still, I had a blessing from the person that put me in that job and people loved me around the company. Things got so bad with Melissa at some point that I went straight to the powerful all-mighty director of finance who put me in that position and complained. (which made it worse)
If I laughed, I would be called in the office, if she heard me on the phone, she would call me in the office for any fucking reason to get me fired which was basically impossible for her to do, one time she told me if I was wearing the same clothing to work every day and if I have washed them, I answer, why are you saying that? She is because you are wearing the same shirt and pants (I was not wearing the same shirt and pants, I unintentionally have bought my first office outfits with the same tone of color, between white, beige, khaki pants, basically I was wearing a uniform in my head) but in her eyes, I only had one pair of pants and shirt. Melissa had a daughter, one that did completely the opposite of what she was told, being a single mother, she would work weekdays and her daughter would have to go straight from school to her home without supervision. Melissa was juggling between a full-time job and being a single mom trying to control her daughter and looking for excuses to fire me, at one point she told the head of the department that because of her religious belief I couldn’t be working in her department because I was gay (Back then in the ’90s and still today in many states, I could easily get fired because of my sexual orientation) There’s something about women and religion, it makes them feel like a saint, like a better person, still, her religion didn’t stop her daughter taking boys and getting caught fucking on time she went home early from work.