I never dreamed I'd be one of those people who have a sexual relationship with a co-worker. Mostly that's because I'm happily married and have been for more than twenty years. A second reason is I've always felt that having relationships at work is wrong. It isn't that I haven't given some of the females where I work some thought. I've spent some daydreaming time having fantasies about a few of my female colleagues. The third reason is I have friendships with quite a few of my female coworkers and have never wanted to mess up those friendships. I've seen sex screw up too many perfectly good friendships.
Then last Thursday evening something happened that blew everything I believe about sexual relationships at work right out of the water.
I was in my office quite a bit after my normal quitting time last Thursday evening, so late it was dark by the time I finally got my things together and got ready to leave. I'd already called my wife and told her I'd be late, not that it was going to mess up any of plans since she already had a meeting scheduled for that night.
As I was locking my office I noticed that the lights were on in an office down the hall from mine. That was unusual because I'm almost always the last one to leave. The still-lit office belonged to a female coworker named Terry. OK, she is one of the women I've harbored an occasional fantasy about, in case you were wondering. Since she usually is out of the building long before I am, I thought I'd check and see if anything was wrong.
I've known Terry since my company assigned me to this particular office complex about three years ago. She's in her early forties, is divorced, and has a couple of teenaged kids. She's quite attractive, with frosted hair she wears layered and cut just a bit lower than her ears. She's also slim, but that doesn't mean she's shapeless. Her breasts are small - I think they're exactly the right size for her - and she has a small, firm, extremely well formed bottom. She wears slacks a lot, and even though they aren't snug fitting, I find watching her walk away from me one of life's little pleasures. She also has a habit of combing her fingers through her hair; an unconscious, but sexy move that drives me crazy.
As I got close to her office door, which was slightly ajar, I heard sounds that were suspiciously like the sounds of a woman crying. I knew Terry had been talking about the pressure she'd been under the past few weeks - actually the company had a productivity push on and all of us were feeling the heat - but I had no idea she was that strongly affected by the increased pressure. Her door was open far enough so I could see her sitting at her desk with her head in her hands. She was crying. I knocked softly on the door. "Terry, are you all right?" I asked softly.
Terry was wearing a charcoal gray turtleneck and black corduroy jeans, a typical outfit for her in winter. She jumped, turned, and looked at me, clearly startled.
"Didn't mean to scare you," I said, stepping into the room. "I was leaving and saw your light was on, so I thought I'd check and..."
She took a tissue out of a box on her desk and blew her nose. "You...you heard me crying..." she responded.
I nodded. "Are you all right?"
She shrugged.
"Is something wrong?" I asked.
"Is anything in this goddamned world right?" she snapped in reply. She took another tissue and blew her nose again. A third tissue was used to wipe her eyes.
"Sounds like you've had a worse week than I have," I said. "I thought my week sucked, but now it's starting to look pretty darn good."
"Well, at least I seem to have accomplished something," she snorted her voice filled with sarcasm. Then she began to sob deeply, so deeply her body shook.
I wasn't exactly sure what to do. I felt a little guilty about making her cry again, but I was pretty sure there was a lot more upsetting her than the comment I'd just made. I pushed her office door closed. I'm not sure why I did it, but I twisted the deadlock as I did. Maybe I didn't want the cleaning people to walk in and find Terry as upset as she was. Who knows?
I walked over and sat on the edge of the soft leather sofa she has in her office. "You want to talk about what's bothering you?" I inquired after her sobbing began to calm.
More nose-blowing and eye wiping. "What's the point?" she asked. "It isn't going to change anything."
"Maybe not, but sharing how you feel with someone else sometimes does," I responded. "At least it usually does for me."
She turned in her chair and looked at me. "Is this stupid push for productivity making your life hell, too?"
I laughed. "Only as much as I let it bother me. Remember, I've been around a few years longer than you have. I've seen stupid stuff like this come and go before. I've also seen the managers who come up with these dopey ideas come and go, too. From my perspective, the key to survival is not taking it seriously - or personally."
"But how can you not take it personally?" she asked. "You don't falsify your reports, do you?"
I shook my head. "Nope, but whenever something like this happens, my reports become a whole lot more detailed than usual. One thing I've learned over the years is that the longer a report is, the less likely it is that the boss will read it."
For the first time since I walked into her office, a trace of a smile showed on her face. "You're kidding, right?" she asked.
"Nope. I just finished my weekly activity report this evening. It's twenty-seven pages long. Last month, my report for the same period of time would have been three pages, if that."
Terry's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. "You're kidding!"
I chuckled and shook my head. "Nope. When they act like jerks, I bury them with paperwork. Never, in the twenty years I've been here, has a manager actually read anything I've submitted that's over three pages long." I smiled. "Actually, I'm not sure how many of the three page reports they read."
