The Long Shot Personals Ad...

The story is a bit long, but I like to hopefully introduce the characters a bit.  Thanks for reading.

I had been pretty much alone since my wife had passed away and was missing the physical intimacy of being with a woman. Not just the sex, but being close to a woman, being able to hold her in my arms.  Since it was just me and my dog, Butch, at home, I threw myself into my work.  I easily crossed the line of healthy work life balance and not on the life side.

My job had taken quite a turn when my organization had done a somewhat poorly thought out reorganization and I'd been given several new sections to manage. I knew all of the personnel in those sections, since I had worked for this company for the last ten years. Most of the sections were a mix of company employees and contractors, which brought its own set of challenges.

We had one position left to fill and after conducting interviews, we had two really strong candidates, one was technically strong, the other had far better soft-people skills. Given the nature of the job and my experience, it was easier to teach someone technical skills than it was to try to train them to develop interpersonal communication skills. The other people on the interview panel had chosen the technical person above the other candidate.

HR let me know that the first candidate declined and asked if I was okay with moving on with the second candidate. I agreed and thanked them. Within a couple of hours a few friends had contacted me saying that Becki had accepted the Temporary Job Offer and would be starting all of her pre-hire paperwork.

She was our first alternate for the job. She worked in our building as a contractor, and would now be a company employee, which came with a pay raise and significantly better benefits. Her husband James had been a contractor for our company as well, before leaving to work for one of our customers.

I had met Becki during several company events she had attended with her husband before she started working as one of our contractors. The first thing anyone noticed about Becki was her smile. This woman brightened rooms when she walked in. She had a naturally calm, happy demeanor that seemed to quickly diffuse difficult situations.

One of the first calls I got was from Bobby, our company lead for the section she worked in and he wasn't happy.

"What the hell Jamison, why did you poach my best employee?"

I laughed, "I'm sure my personality was the reason Becki wanted to work upstairs, well that and the additional pay and better benefits...Plus, I can't force someone to leave a job they were happy in..." we both laughed.

"You hit the lotto with her hire, take care of her!"

"Will do Bobby, plus if you need her to explain some things to her replacement, I'm sure we can ask her to help out if needed."

Becki was a tall lady, or at least it seemed that way to me. I was 5'9" and now with Becki in my section, both women on my team were as tall, or taller than me. She had dirty blonde hair and light brown eyes. She was physically fit and played on the softball team the contract company had. Her team was the local champions. After speaking with her, she said that she'd played softball in high school and had been on the state championship team, but had lost in the finals. She had mentioned that she was 29 and was about to turn 30 in a few months.

"You know, as cheery and pleasant as your demeanor is, it is hard to imagine you as an aggressive competitor."

She laughed, "I am capable of being overtly aggressive and competitive just so you know..." We both laughed and I stood up and welcomed her to the team again and shook her hand.

She smiled, "Thank you again for choosing me!" She gave me a big hug. It caught me off guard and I think she noticed and apologized stating that it was probably inappropriate.

"Sorry about that Mr. Johnson, I'm a hugger and I got carried away."

"You're good.  Please call me Jamison. Welcome to our team, I hope you love being here as much as we do having you with us."

"You know everyone in the building wants to work for you, right?" That truly caught me off guard.

"When I walked up to the section this morning, everyone greeted me and welcomed me to the team.  Almost without exception, everyone in your team is happy working for you and the general feeling is that everyone gets along with each other."

I laughed, "I noticed that you said almost everyone... I'm still trying to change the one!"

She laughed out loud at that comment. Her laugh was loud and infectious, She winked at me, "he'll come around, eventually".

I saw from my office that as soon as she was out in the cubicles, the team had come back up to her asking where she'd like to sit and started to get her situated. She was an immediate addition to the team. As she'd been working as a contractor for the company, she already knew most people as well as most of our external customers, so aside from using a different PC and getting a company email account, she was pretty much set.

I got the info from HR the next day and got her entered into our evaluation system. I also got her personnel record created. I had also just gotten notified that she'd gotten her email account created.

I stepped out of my office and walked over to Becki's desk, "When you have some free time, could you come see me please?"   Several of the other people in the area started to tease her with things like, "wow, you've only been in the office for a few days and you're getting called into the boss' office..."

I laughed  "You guys better be nice, you're getting called into the office soon too!" Which was true as we needed to start mid-year reviews.

"If it's okay, I just need to contact one customer and after that I'll come over if that's okay?"

"Of course Becki, no hurries."

After about half an hour I heard a knock on my door and it was Becki.

"Is now a good time?"

I smiled, "Absolutely, please come on in and close the door behind you and have a seat." The first thing I did was slid her new badge across the desk to her.

She laughed, "I look like a psychopath in this picture!"

I laughed, "That is a feature HR provides to all employees..." and showed her my badge photo.

She laughed, "We both look like people that should not be picked up if hitchhiking!"

"I'm not sure what sort of picture I'd need to get picked up,"  which made her laugh even harder. She was an easy lady to talk to and we chatted about all sorts of things for about 15 minutes. It ranged from her husband, James, and how he was doing, to my daughter and wife.

When I shared that my wife had passed away, Becki intuitively placed her hand on mine and expressed her condolences. "I'm sorry that I hadn't heard about this or I'd told you sooner."

"I kept it somewhat private, so no worries.  Thank you though."

She asked very directly, "Are you doing okay?"

"Yes, I'm doing as good as could be expected. I'm slowly adjusting to being single again." I sort of laughed. "That sounded strange when I said it. I'd never thought about being single."

She smiled, "I'm sorry for asking, I hope it wasn't inappropriate."

"No, you're good, thank you again for asking."

We had an awkward silence and she thanked me again for her badge.

I smiled, "No problem, but it comes at a price." She was giggling.

"Now that you've got your badge, here is the temp password to your account, you'll need to change it on first logon."

"I'm ready to get to work!"

"That's only part of the price, please slide your chair over here. Unfortunately my monitors will not swivel far enough for you to stay there, we need to go over your appraisal and open it for this eval period."

"No worries, it's okay." She stood up and pulled her chair around to my side of the desk and put it next to my chair.

I gave her several printed documents that laid out the process and expectations from both the employee and supervisor's perspective as well as some handy guides on what to add as part of her self-assessment.

I also gave her a copy of the Job description, and went over what that translated to in relation to daily work and I also added that there may be some changes coming due to the reorg, but told her what the process would look like with the union's involvement and what to expect.

She smiled, "as long as I'm working on your team, it's all good."

"You say that now... just wait" with a laugh which made her giggle again.

My office had glass walls with an opaque pattern that allowed people to see in, but without detail. The rumor was that my predecessor had actually had affairs in the office and during the last remodel they made the changes to make it impossible to do those sorts of things. It wasn't out of the realm of the possible, but for the life of me, I could not imagine why someone would do that sort of thing at work. No amount of fun was worth losing your job, or least that's the way I viewed it. There's a good chance that my age played a role in those thoughts as well.

We finished going over her initial assessment and I asked, "Is it okay if I sign for you since you haven't logged in yet?  I'll do that while you watch to make sure it is legit."

She smiled, "It's okay, I trust you."

I returned her smile, "Thank you for that vote of confidence!"  I then proceed to check the boxes necessary to show that the employee was present but couldn't digitally sign. I annotated the new account with the reason why and saved it.

"As soon as you log in, you'll have digital copies of all the documents and items we discussed as well as a copy of your initial assessment.  Any questions?"

"You can move your chair back around if you would please? I'm sorry, I'm pretty sure that sounded a bit rude."

"Not rude at all, I guess I got comfortable on your side of the desk..."

I laughed, "You can have my job when I move on!"

She got very serious look, "You're not planning on leaving, are you? You're a large part of the reason I applied for this job!"

I smiled and reassured her that I was not planning on leaving any time soon. She smiled and sat back in her chair. I decided to make small talk and asked how James was doing. She said he was his normal self and that he spends most of his non-working hours playing video games. I laughed, I remember when he worked up here and he'd be talking about gaming with a few of the others on the team. She had a flat affect when she said, that's literally all he does, talk about games or play them.

She looked at me and got very serious, "I have something to tell you... I'm sorry I took this job and..."

"Why?"

She nervously looked at the walls and out into the cubicle area, "I don't want to tell anyone yet, but I'm pregnant."

"No need to be worried, I'm super happy for you guys.  Congratulations!"

"You're not upset?"

"Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, please contact Casey at HR, she will help you out with the parental leave requests, plus she can give you more info on other benefits and I'm sure she'll need some info from you once you give birth."

"Thank you again Jamison, it's really refreshing to work up stairs and especially for you. You seem to genuinely care about everyone on your team."

I smiled, "I in fact, do care about each one of you and more than from work production aspect.  I've had several bad bosses over the years and that has shaped how I would lead my teams. It may seem a bit self-serving, but a happy, safe employee is a productive one. It's less stressful on everyone involved, plus it's simply human nature to care about others and you and the rest of the team make my job easy."

She smiled and said she'd contact Casey and let me know once she gets more info and when her approximate due date would be.

"When you get close, we can get you set up with some training that you can do from home so you don't have to worry about having to come to the office and deal with traffic, okay?"

She smiled and thanked me again.

Over the next several months it became obvious that Becki was pregnant as she was showing and wasn't trying to conceal it. During those months, our company was involved in a lawsuit stating that the transparent walls were a violation of privacy, both of the supervisors that had those offices but also from the employee standpoint as it was argued that some may have felt that they were always being observed under close scrutiny.

The answer was vertical blinds in every office or space where a normal wall should have been. To me it seemed a bit gaudy given the modern aesthetic of the glass walls, but at the end of the day, it didn't matter to me. These blinds were to remain closed unless you were on vacation then they could be open with the lights off.

Becki had let me know that she'd be giving birth around the end of the year or start of the new year. In November I had been talking with a few of the team when Becki came up stairs and was looking a bit off from her normal bubbly self. I asked her to come over to the office and as soon as she crossed the threshold, she closed the door behind her and started crying.

"I'm so stressed right now.  My former coworkers down stairs are talking crap, my husband isn't really doing anything with me with my pregnancy... it's just weighing me down right now."

I handed her some tissues, "You're previous coworkers are clearly jealous and James is probably nervous about the pregnancy and might not know how to react."

She laughed at my comment about her coworkers but seemed to get a bit upset about what I said about James. She was cursing now and was visibly angry when discussing his role in the pregnancy and summed it up with "he's got less than 5 minutes invested and that was counting conception!"

I smiled, "So he doesn't play video games all of the time...."

She stopped and looked at me and laughed out loud.

"I'm sorry, that was probably an inappropriate joke."

She had sort of waved me off and kept laughing. She seemed to calm down while laughing, "That wasn't inappropriate and more importantly, it helped me get over this funk I'm in.  Thank you for that!"

"James hasn't even been to any of my appointments with me. Did you attend your wife's appointments when she was pregnant?"

"I made almost all of my wife's appointments but missed a few during issues with my employer at the time. I was nervous as hell about the appointments and I wanted to support my wife and help out however I could. It was obvious in many of the classes or appointments that I was the exception in that most husbands or baby daddy's didn't attend many of them. It was so bad that most of the expectant mothers were teasing me and my wife."

She smiled,  "You were a good husband and you seemed to really support your wife." I

"I tried, but there will always be moments where things get a bit crazy and that at least for me and my wife, it was all about open and clear communications. Sometimes it is easy to think that the other person feels a certain way, but in reality, you will never know unless you ask."

"How are your appointments going? Is everything okay?"

"James hasn't been to any of them, and this is the norm based on the way the waiting rooms looked. When I asked, most of the other mothers pretty much stated the same thing in that the fathers were too busy to show up and even if they weren't they'd probably be playing video games."

I shook my head. It seemed foreign to me to act like that. "It seems like things have changed quite a bit since I've been in that situation."

Becki smiled, "You should talk to James and remind him of how a man should support his wife" and then winked at me.

That caused us both to laugh. "James probably doesn't need to hear that from me."

Becki then blurted out "well, he sure as fuck won't hear it from his gaming buddies!" She then realized what she'd said and apologized for her language.

"You're good, we're adults" with a smile. She smiled and leaned back in her chair and patted her belly.

"I've felt really emotionally off lately."

"You seem normal to me."

That made her laugh quite loudly,  "I'm not sure if that's a compliment."

"I enjoy seeing you smiling and laughing. Your smile literally brightens any room you're in and regardless of how my day is going, you always put a smile on my face."

She had some tears starting to form, "That was really sweet of you to say."

"Are you sure that's not your hormones talking again?"  I winked at her which made her laugh again.

She reached out to grab my desk to stand up and I got up and came around and put my hands out to help her up and literally as soon as she stood up she immediately hugged me very firmly for a few moments and then stepped back.

"Thank you so much for that, I really needed to laugh and get some things off her chest" and then looked down at her breasts. "They are quite swollen and need a lot off of them right now" with a laugh.

I smiled and kept looking at her eyes. She noticed I wasn't looking at her breasts and apologized again for steering the conversation towards her breasts and smiled. I said that it was okay and that I didn't want to seem like I was staring as that would be inappropriate. She smiled, someone needs to stare at them for a while and laughed and then apologized again  that she was not sure what had come over her. We looked at each other and simultaneously said, 'hormones' and both laughed. She gave me one more hug and thanked me for making her day a little better.

"Please let me know when you are ready to stay at home."

"For now, I'm better off being at work rather than staying at home with James."

"You guys will work it out."

That became our routine for about two weeks where she'd come to work and by mid-day, be stressed out and ask to come in my office. We'd chat and talk about how James was a somewhat absent partner even though he worked from home, he wasn't being emotionally or even physically available. She had opened up more and more about what she wanted and what he wasn't providing. The conversations had certainly drifted away from business and while they weren't overly graphic, there was no denying what the content had been.

I had shared my experiences with my wife during her pregnancy and stated how I thought it was a unique experience per woman and couple and even shared some of my buddy's experiences during their wife's pregnancy. No graphic details, rather just generalities.

In all honesty, I was enjoying the physical intimacy of our hugs. I had never thought of them as sexual, but just two people hugging. That was the single thing I missed most since my wife had passed away. Just the touch of a woman. I knew that it was an inappropriate supervisor to employee behavior and had decided to let Becki know on Monday.

Monday morning came, and I was at my desk when I got an email from Becki and she stated the same thing I had been feeling. She thanked me and said that she'd like to stay home and work on the training we'd arranged to allow her to get ready for when she went into labor. I shared with her that I agreed with her and that while I had enjoyed the conversations and hugs, I had the same feelings and didn't want to get her into any trouble, either at work or at home.

Within two weeks she had called  that her Doctor had recommended bed rest due to preeclampsia and that she'd be having frequent Doctor visits. I assured her that she'd be okay and that we could work out her sick leave to not be a factor in her decision to work. I suggested that if she was able to do the training when she wasn't at the doctor, and only submit leave for the actual doctor visit, she'd still have some leave left and it shouldn't impact her pay. I reminded her that maternity leave would be still in effect once she'd given birth and she'd get 90 days.