"Ted, can I talk to you real quick?" The interruption wasn't welcomed. It was past 6:00pm and I was trying to finish up an email to a customer so I could get out of the office for the night. But Angie had this concerned look on her face and being the helpful co-worker I try to be, "sure, Angie, what's up?"
"You know that overnight package you wanted me to get out tonight? Well, I never made it to the drop-box so it didn't go out."
I know my facial expression gave the impression it was a bigger deal than it was. And in reality, it wasn't a big deal. Getting it delivered the next day was a nice to have, not a need to have. It was an annoyance, though. Angie had been with us for 3 years now and she just wasn't getting it. In some respects, it didn't surprise me. Angie was in her mid-50's and had been a stay at home mother while raising her kids and then a homemaker after that. She was late to the scene insofar as office skills, computer technology and so forth. She was smart and had good people skills, but technically she was at a big disadvantage. She did have a close personal friendship with Tanya in our office, though, and it was Tanya who convinced us that Angie would be great to fill the open admin assistant position we had. Tanya was about the same age and was a great worker. In fact she could have handled the extra duties of the open admin position but had no desire to do it because there was no extra money in it for her. Tanya was good but no dummy so she pushed for filling the open position. And she had just the right person for it. Angie was a friend of hers, had just completed administrative assistant courses at the local community college and was in need of a job. Her husband was steadily employed for years but lost his job and then was floating from one place to another for years. According to Tanya he was a bit lazy and when he lost his steady gig, no subsequent employers wanted to drag his ass around. Angie needed the work to not only help support herself and her husband but also to gain some independence from him. Tanya said he wasn't physically abusive but was verbally demeaning to her. So there she found herself, in her mid 50's and married to an intermittently employed man who she wouldn't care less if he walked out except for the fact she needed a roof over her head and food in the cupboards.
For an older woman, Angie was very attractive. She kept her brown hair short and conservative in style, had a nice smile to go with her hazel eyes and a relatively fit if curvaceous figure. There were times I'd take the opportunity to sneak a peak at her breasts when given the chance and when she wore a particular form fitting skirt, I did have the desire to throw her over my lap and spank her round bottom. In that passing fantasy, the spanking usually involved one of her screw-ups like we had today.
"Really, Angie? We had told Pete we'd get that out to him for tomorrow." As I made that last statement, I gave her the raised eyebrows, open eyes look that says, "we've gone over this before, this is important stuff, blah, blah, blah." It was my best attempt at playing manager and I had my doubts about how well I was pulling it off. Angie and I work in a relatively small office and we were the last ones there so I figured I'd get in some practice time.
"I know, I'm really, really, really sorry." I could see she was really sincere and very concerned. While Angie worked for me, she also worked for the others in the office and I wasn't her direct manager. That was Lisa, and Angie's mistakes were starting to get on Lisa's nerves. Lisa was in her 30's about the same age as me and tough with a chip on her shoulder. She was giving Angie a chance because she wanted to give another woman a chance, as long as that woman was not a threat to her position of power in the office. But the talk around the office was that Angie had worked through her grace period and was starting to be given the ultimatum to either shape up or move on. The pressure was there and as Angie stood before me, I could see in her eyes that she thought this could be the straw that broke the camel's back.
"Is there anything I could do? I'll do anything to make this right, just let me know. Lisa will kill me if she finds out about this. There's got to be something I can do. Really, I'll do anything." I don't know what Angie was suggesting with her comment but hearing the magic words "I'll do anything" awoke the devil in me. He popped up on my left side saying, "she seems really vulnerable right now. You've been wanting to massage her breasts and I bet you could get away with that without any questions. She'd probably suck your cock of pushed." I don't know how long I sat there contemplating her offer but the thought of putting my hands on her breasts and exposing my hard cock to her sent the blood rushing away from my brain straight to my penis, which was starting to bulge in my pants. An angel on my right side said something about losing my job and some other stuff, but the devil seemed to have me pretty convinced Angie wasn't going to say anything. As I got up from my chair, the next words out of my mouth were either going to be consolatory or change Angie's and my relationship forever.