BlueHaiku Posted February 13, 2008 Share Posted February 13, 2008 I'm not asking for advice, just want to rant a bit about a couple of friends/co-workers of mine that are driving me nuts. They're having an affair, which wouldn't necessarily be bad in itself except: 1. One of the people in the relationship (the guy) is married 2. The other person in the relationship (the girl) can't stop telling everyone in the office the naughty and explicit details (even though no one wants to hear) 3. Both of these people are intelligent, dependable, hardworking assets to our department - at least when they are separate. When together, they suddenly become blithering idiots, giggling and making obscure inside jokes that make no sense to anyone else and then giggling some more. I hate to say it, but #1 is the least troubling aspect - that's the business of the three people involved, not mine. But #2 and #3 have gotten so bad I am now doing everything in my power to avoid the girl (so I don't have to hear about X, Y, or Z graphic sexual detail) and to avoid seeing the two of them together (because no one can get anything done with them in the room constantly interrupting work with their giggly inside jokes). Again, I'm not looking for advice. I've tried everything. My relationship with the girl is such that I felt comfortable trying a couple of times to tell her about these problems, but her response was to say she knew it was bad and she shouldn't do it, to start crying because I was hurting her feelings by bringing to her attention that people were getting upset about it, and/or to become pissed off at me for trying to control her. My relationship with the guy doesn't allow me to approach him in this way. He's in a weird state of self-denial anyway, I think. He seems not to know she tells everyone everywhere everything about their sex life - I know he's gotten angry at her for telling people specific things when he has found out, but he seems also to be amazingly blind to the fact that she does tell everyone *everything*. He knows her well enough he ought to know that she can't keep her mouth shut, but... Good grief! I'd love to hear other similar stories - and how they ended up. I can't see this one leading anywhere but to disaster. BlueHaiku Link to post Share on other sites
vintagecat Posted February 13, 2008 Share Posted February 13, 2008 Results of one of those things: Older male tries to break off with younger female after a very visible and somewhat messy fling. Female files a sexual harassment lawsuit against the male who wasn't exactly a direct supervisor of the involved female, but he was a much higher ranking employee. Feces hit the air moving oscillator. It resulted in disciplinary action, lowering of pay grade and a forced move out of state for the male. Male's wife divorced him after she found out. The court ordered huge alimony and child support in part as a result of the documentation from male's workplace as company lawyers and personnel managers gathered evidence and collected statements by employees in damage control response to the lawsuit filed by the female. Male probably lives in a trailer eating peanut butter on day old bread because he can't have much money and will have to work till he's dead as the ex-wife also gets half of his retirement. Ouch, a very costly POA. After the male left the scene, the gloves were off in the workplace. Female was a screwup from day one that barely did her job that pretty much only required showing up to get a satisfactory rating. Her work problems were finally documented, she was marginalized by staff and eventually quit before being fired. She had a fairly widely known substance abuse problem and had been tapping her relatively wealthy office lover for cash and expensive gifts and the lawsuit was very likely intended to get more cash for her habit but was dismissed because like the case you cite, it was clearly and widely known as consensual. Female was last seen working in a sleazy (even for our area) highway strip club. That's about the worst result I've ever seen. I've seen about a dozen or more of these things that went public and a few more that didn't or weren't fully substantiated. None of it ever turns out well. One resulted in a stalking restraining order and the employee was fired after an affair ended. Almost all end in divorce of one or both of the involved parties if married. Many end with an employee forced to quit or move to avoid working with the other half of a stupid fling that they can no longer stand or tolerate working with. Most end in heartbreak for someone. All result in the lowering of office mates respect, and often due to the bad judgement of having an office affair that becomes public, even fairly benign ones, promotions are not forthcoming and careers are stalled. All result in vicious gossip. The "best" result I've seen was a long time office affair that resulted in the man leaving his wife of 20 something years and marrying the other woman. A year after they were married the woman was bored to tears with her new husband and was looking around again. Like you said, smart and talented people making stupid life altering decisions for something so transitory and non-valuable. As unwilling participants depending upon the area of the world in which you live and it's laws, any one of those persons subjected to the details may possibly be able to file a valid hostile workplace charge or sexual harassment lawsuit. These people need to cut the chatter at the very least. Dumb, very dumb. Cat Link to post Share on other sites
vintagecat Posted February 13, 2008 Share Posted February 13, 2008 Results of one of those things: Older male tries to break off with younger female after a very visible and somewhat messy fling. Female files a sexual harassment lawsuit against the male who wasn't exactly a direct supervisor of the involved female, but he was a much higher ranking employee. Feces hit the air moving oscillator. It resulted in disciplinary action, lowering of pay grade and a forced move out of state for the male. Male's wife divorced him after she found out. The court ordered huge alimony and child support in part as a result of the documentation from male's workplace as company lawyers and personnel managers gathered evidence and collected statements by employees in damage control response to the lawsuit filed by the female. Male probably lives in a trailer eating peanut butter on day old bread because he can't have much money and will have to work till he's dead as the ex-wife also gets half of his retirement. Ouch, a very costly POA. After the male left the scene, the gloves were off in the workplace. Female was a screwup from day one that barely did her job that pretty much only required showing up to get a satisfactory rating. Her work problems were finally documented, she was marginalized by staff and eventually quit before being fired. She had a fairly widely known substance abuse problem and had been tapping her relatively wealthy office lover for cash and expensive gifts and the lawsuit was very likely intended to get more cash for her habit but was dismissed because like the case you cite, it was clearly and widely known as consensual. Female was last seen working in a sleazy (even for our area) highway strip club. That's about the worst result I've ever seen. I've seen about a dozen or more of these things that went public and a few more that didn't or weren't fully substantiated. None of it ever turns out well. One resulted in a stalking restraining order and the employee was fired after an affair ended. Almost all end in divorce of one or both of the involved parties if married. Many end with an employee forced to quit or move to avoid working with the other half of a stupid fling that they can no longer stand or tolerate working with. Most end in heartbreak for someone. All result in the lowering of office mates respect, and often due to the bad judgement of having an office affair that becomes public, even fairly benign ones, promotions are not forthcoming and careers are stalled. All result in vicious gossip. The "best" result I've seen was a long time office affair that resulted in the man leaving his wife of 20 something years and marrying the other woman. A year after they were married the woman was bored to tears with her new husband and was looking around again. Like you said, smart and talented people making stupid life altering decisions for something so transitory and non-valuable. As unwilling participants depending upon the area of the world in which you live and it's laws, any one of those persons subjected to the details may possibly be able to file a valid hostile workplace charge or sexual harassment lawsuit. These people need to cut the chatter at the very least. Dumb, very dumb. Cat Link to post Share on other sites
directx Posted February 13, 2008 Share Posted February 13, 2008 Oh, those can only end bad. If you are a cad like me, i would sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. Now, my first professional job, there was a couple at work and were friendly to each other all the time. I was naive I guess because everyone guessed they were having an affair. I thought they were just friends. He was married to a woman in the same office (hot as hell, btw) and she was engaged to be married. They would work late, etc. One time i was working late and entered a conference room and he was pulling up his pants. He said he was changing to go out to a business meeting. I wonder to this day if the woman was under the table or something. Anyway, when you walk into a room and a guy is half dressed, you just leave. Well, I left but I heard from my friends that they both got busted for cheating. She was married for a week and her husband got the marriage annulled. The married guy got divorced. The married guy left the company, and the woman left soon after. They didn't date or do anything after they were both suddenly single, though she wanted to. He didn't. I'm in a new department at work and now i'm hearing the gossip on professionals and their secretarys. It seems much cheating is going on, and it amazes me how everyone knows about it. Link to post Share on other sites
mental_traveller Posted February 13, 2008 Share Posted February 13, 2008 Sounds amusing - keep us updated! Link to post Share on other sites
vintagecat Posted February 13, 2008 Share Posted February 13, 2008 Sorry for the duplicate posting. Not sure how that happened. Cat Link to post Share on other sites
SixthSt.Girl Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 They'll regret it. Office romances suck. Link to post Share on other sites
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