[Courses] [Spineful Living, lesson 5: The Hardest Nos]

[Tracey C]

It's true, unfortuately, that if people find out you make more or have more
than them, the start asking for handouts. My husband started just not
talking about his salary after experiencing a few people who suddenly
started asking for loans or expecting him to support them in some way. He's
been a database admin and is now an IT manager, so some of you can relate.

This isn't a story about a loved one, it's a success story about a person I
used to work with. A guy started there and had moved back to Texas from
California after a long term relationship broke up. He had lost his car and
was looking for a place to live. Our supervisor asked around if someone
would be willing to drive him to & from work for about a month while he
looked for a car. After asking around a bit, I found that the guy's house
was not terribly far away from my commute, and I didn't live that far from
the office. It would only add 15 min to my drive. Realizing that there was
the chance that the guy would drag this out, I agreed to help him out.

The first week, he started telling me about the ex and his troubles, and by
the way he related the stories I realized that he was high drama. His focus
was not on overcoming difficulty but the pleasure of telling people about
his problems. This told me that he would probably drag on the free ride for
longer than a month. As a result, I politely asked him the first 2 weeks how
the car search was going. He told me about the car he wanted and price
range, and how much trouble it was trying to find exactly what he wanted. In
the third and fourth weeks, I got firm about asking what was happening with
the car search and not letting him fill the entire car ride with stories of
his ex. I was reminded of this during the thread about when guys think that
a woman is their free therapist.

He was the kind of guy that would make the pretense of being friendly to get
what he wanted. For example, one day he asked me if I wanted to eat lunch
with him outside because it was such a beautiful day. He really wanted to
eat lunch outside so he could smoke. I should have said no when he asked if
I minded, but at least I stuck up for myself with the bigger battle of the
rides to work. Of course, he continued to moan about his ex and his problems
during lunch. I stopped eating lunch with him. At one point he asked why I
was being so pushy about the new car. I told him it was because I had agreed
to the favor with the understanding that it would be about a month, and it
was looking like it would turn into a lot longer than that. He was pissy but
I held my ground.

During this time, he got snotty with me about being a couple of minute late
a few days, and took a scolding tone with me. I told him that I was doing
him a favor, and that if he didn't like it he could find someone else to
drive him in. He wound up getting someone else to drive him in, and it was
about another month before he got his car. The same guy that gave him rides
to work let him move in after his own mother kicked him out of her
apartment. It seems he hadn't paid his mother any money for bills but got a
very expensive stereo for his crappy car. He then abused the PC of the guy
who was letting him stay, installing all sorts of stuff and infecting the PC
with so much malware it wouldn't boot after a while. He was messy, and
didn't clean up after himself. He ran up the phone bill, and did other
generally rude things. So I'm very glad that I was firm about the rides to
work, and stopped listening to his sob stories.

-- 
Tracey C