posted April 09, 2016 03:45 PM            

In my second ever job in a law firm, the big boss called us into a meeting, everyone who was on his "trial prep" team, which was five or six of us junior associates. He started nearly yelling at us all for not having prepared him adequately, as the adversary already had identified our trial experts, but we (the team) had not identified the adversary's experts who were going to testify shortly. The meeting was so horrible, and I knew that in dividing up assignments between us, there was one specific person responsible for identification of experts, and that person was NOT me. But I was getting yelled at!!! So when the boss let us out, I asked to speak with him privately, behind closed doors. I told him that I had nothing to do with experts and that I was only in charge of gathering scientific literature relevant to the issues in the case. In retrospect, it was stupid for me to ask to speak with him alone, because he wasn't the type to care who wasn't to blame, he just felt like venting and yelling, in general.

Anyway, about a day or two later, I found out that the boss had found out that two associates in the firm were carrying on a love relationship and living together, and that he was upset about it, and called the two of them in to tell them he felt that living together was unacceptable. Then, one of those two stopped talking to me altogether, and I was told by someone else that the "couple" was told that I had been the ones to spill the beans about their relationship to the boss, when I had asked to speak with him privately a few days earlier. Of course, this was a complete fabrication. I would never go talk to a boss about someone else's love life. But, there was a snake in the grass at the firm who felt it was perfectly appropriate to pin the blame on me, thereby making me two instant enemies (the man and the woman who were living together.)

At another office, years later, some crazy woman (who until then I thought was a friend and a confidante) went and told the big boss that I was there after hours and so was she, and she saw me enter another attorney's office in the dark and go through his desk drawer when he wasn't there. (I pieced together later that she was jealous of my relationship with one of the partners, who apparently she had a crush on for years.) The desk drawer thing was such a ridiculous fabrication (for anyone who knew me) that the big boss actually told me this himself, laughing. He was one of those jolly Sagittarius types. I was infinitely relieved that he didn't believe the crazy lady, but I was blown away that a woman who was a self-professed religious person, who had confided so many things to me over the years, who smiled to my face always, could do such a malicious thing. Now that I am re-telling this, years later, I am still shaking my head.

But .... it's because I've been through this, and other incidents, that I understand how you must feel. It's worse for you though, because this is your father. I cannot fathom the kind of karma you two must have for him to be plotting against his own daughter like this. And you're right, other people will probably think you're batsh** crazy if you tell them all this, because most people will not be able to wrap their heads around this kind of thing.

At the risk of repeating myself, just keep asking your angels to protect you, ask for it every day. Ask them to guide you to a better living situation. I believe they will.