Fuck. This has to be, hands down, one of the weirdest damn things that has ever happened to me. I guess I'll just rewind back to the very beginning. I'm a 40 year old married man working for a large engineering firm that's split between three sites. In my area we had Ellen, a beautiful 41 year old divorced brunette as our office admin or secretary if you prefer the old style terminology.
Ellen had overcome some difficult issues in her life including an abusive husband and some substance abuse issues but those issues were way back in her past though they did affect her demeanor around the office. She always had a bit of a "standoffish" attitude but that sort of melted away when you started to talk with her.
Whenever she'd send out those site wide emails detailing the usual office drivel about a coffee shortage or dirty refrigerator, I'd always respond with a snarky response. She'd always get a kick out of my replies and so we developed this banter between us. Later, I came to find out that, by her estimate, some 90% of men in the office were so intimidated by her that they pretty much avoided her. Well, as it turns out, their loss!
As the months wore on, things settled into a nice routine between us. The facilities folks, in all their infinite wisdom, moved our desks to within 10 feet of each other. Thus, I was able to gaze upon Ellen throughout the day. And being within talking -- hell whispering -- distance, meant that we could exchange the office gossip of the day. I was quite happy that our little work relationship had developed so nicely considering how freaked out some of our coworkers were by her seemingly harsh attitude.
"Hey, I want you to start to integrate Ellen into some of our day-to-day stuff. I cleared it with management already. This should lighten up your load a bit so you can devote more time to the Aries Project," proclaimed my boss bright and early one morning.
Fuck. This hit me like a bolt out of the blue. The sharing of people was not unheard of but I just didn't anticipate my good fortune.
"Uh, ok," I stammered. "Sure. I'll start training her right away."
The next day, I broke out the training manuals for our little task at hand. It was slightly on the complicated side but Ellen surprised my yet again with her technical prowess. She really was quite overqualified for her admin job. I was impressed.
Now, here's where I started down the "road to ruin" as they say. While showing Ellen the inner workings of one of our tasks, we hit a point where we need to pause so as to let a computer system refresh. We made idle chit chat while waiting, talking about the weather, vacations, even our finances.
"Shit, I can never manage my money," she laughed. "It's one of those things I just can't do. It runs though my hands."
I chuckled and then without really even thinking, blurted out, "Well, shit Ellen, if you need some cash, I'd be happy to lend you a few bucks. Of course, I wouldn't want repayment in the form of cash, though."
Uh oh. Did I just proposition the secretary...at work no less? Shit. I guess I'll see if she has a good sense of humor.
She laughed and looked up at me, "You know I should go to HR and lodge a complaint."
I could tell she wasn't bothered at all by my comment. Well, I thought, she's a coworker that I can deal with! As our training continued, I couldn't help notice that she started to have one of the more schizophrenic clothing wardrobes I had ever seen. One day a staid suit, the next a skin tight tee shirt and jeans. And, of course working in close quarters with her, I noticed every supple curve of her body. I wasn't really sure where this was going to go, but I was more than willing to go for the ride.
"So, how's the Aries project coming along?" asked my boss a few days later.
Fuck. I hadn't even looked at it. "Ah, pretty good. I'll have a summary regarding our staffing needs by the end of the week," I lied.
"Great! Carry on," he said. "Oh, and thanks again for training Ellen. I appreciate it."
"Well, the training schedule's a bit tight, but we'll get though it ok," I feigned.
Well, in the weeks that followed, I managed to coble together a report for the boss and get Ellen trained so that she was able to help us. Ellen and I became pretty close coworkers. We began emailing each other at home and at work, exchanging the usual things like jokes and comics but also the more personal details of our lives.
As it turned out, Ellen was casually dating. Nothing serious really, but she filled me in from time to time on the odd vacation getaway that she and her boyfriend might have had. Nothing really explicit but I could detect that she and her gentleman friend were not really that close. They didn't live with each other and pretty much saw each other only when she was free.
Now, fast forward this story to just a couple of months ago. Through a series of unfortunate events, Ellen and another employee had "words" with each other and a complaint was filed. Both Ellen and the other employee were actually put on suspension for a couple of weeks. This was serious but as I emailed Ellen to find out the details, I could see that it was really just an overzealous reaction by our new HR representative who was just following the "employee discipline manual" letter by letter.
Ellen was so disgusted with what was happening that she decided that she really couldn't go back to work. It would be too awkward, she thought. While she was on suspension, we had lunch a couple of times and shared a late afternoon coffee or two. At these meetings she pretty much decided that she needed to move on. She tendered her resignation and began to look for work.
"Hey, can I use you as a reference?" she asked one afternoon, about a week after she quit.
"Sure. Just give me a heads-up as to might be calling. Do the job prospects look good?" I asked.
"Fuck yeah," she gushed. "I have a lead on a great one right now."
Early the next day, I got a call from a major accounting firm. They were interested and asked some pretty detailed questions about Ellen. I was only too happy to let them know that she was the best damn employee I had ever seen! Well, that did the trick because shortly thereafter she ended up landing the job -- with two additional weeks of vacation and a $15,000.00 a year raise!
I was so relieved to see her land on her feet. But I must confess that I was quite sad to see her gone. I vowed to keep in contact with her but emailed her infrequently at best. About two months after she quit, our emails started to become more frequent. She chalked this up to some "grand alignment of the stars" or some such bullshit. I thought maybe it just a coincidence but she reminded me that there were no coincidences. Now, that made me think. Maybe she was on to something.
"So, how are things going with you this week," I asked her in my latest letter. "Hopefully okay. You know I get worried about you sometimes."
"Oh, I'm okay," she replied. "The job is great and I'm pretty happy here and only about 50% of the people are afraid of me," she laughed. "I'm still trying to get my finances back in order. That two week stand down kind of hit me in the checkbook."