Palpek posted:

We haven't had a good self-own in a while:

[24F ] I "told on" a coworker [22 M] for not completing his assignment and was totally wrong. He has been blatantly rude to me since. Is this fixable?

quote:

Yesterday was my wife's birthday. She knew well in advance that I couldn't get the day off of work even though she put in for the day off.

We just moved to a new house over the Superbowl weekend and it was costly. Not to mention just coming back from the holidays, so we don't have too much extra money right now. I've asked her many times if she wanted anything and she said no, so I didn't have any gift ideas from her. I had planned on getting her flowers and cooking a nice candlelit dinner, maybe a movie, then giving her a full body massage and oral.

So a few days ago she said her mother texted her and asked if she wanted to go out for a birthday dinner on her birthday or over the weekend. She said she wanted to on her birthday, thankfully my idea can easily be moved to the weekend.

I get home from work on her birthday and she isn't very talkative. She says she's been bored (we were getting internet installed and she doesn't have much phone data so she couldn't really go on the internet too much). I can still tell something is up and so I ask her what's on her mind and she says nothing. I asked if that was true and she said no. So when I asked what was wrong she told me this. (Loosely quoted) "What did you get me for my birthday?" I said it was time sensitive and I thought we were celebrating it over the weekend between her and I. She says "I figured you'd surprise me with something." I told her I'm sorry and after we had planned to see her family on her birthday that I would push my stuff until the weekend. She said "But today is my birthday so I should get my present today." I told her I can't tell her details without giving it away but I promised her she would get it the coming weekend. She said she's "the type of person that once a holiday or a birthday has passed that it doesn't matter anymore". She spent the remainder of the day complaining that her friends (some of which she hasn't seen in a year or so) hadn't texted her to say happy birthday.

Our regular life consists of me waking up early, going to work, coming home and working out (my job requires a high standard of physical fitness), cooking dinner, cleaning up from dinner, and going to bed. I feel like the least she could do is cut me a little slack and understand I don't have the time or the money right now to do all these incredible things and that it was just three days she'd have to wait for her celebration between the two of us, especially seeing as how we still went out and celebrated her birthday with family.

Thankfully we were with her family and that was a good distraction last night so her and I haven't had to talk much because I didn't want to upset her on her birthday. Moving forward I do feel like it was a little selfish. I understand it was her birthday and I want her to feel special but I'm also not the type of person who believes people should bend over backwards for me on my birthday. I don't see how she could be this way about it.

She barely spoke to me last night even after dinner and has been one wording me over text so far today.

I want to just act like it didn't happen but I feel like she treated me really unfairly and even accused me of not getting her anything when I couldn't tell her what I was planning on without ruining anything.

Any third party opinions or suggestions would really be appreciated.

tl;dr - Wife's birthday was yesterday and she said we could do our celebration over the weekend because she wanted to go to dinner with her family on her birthday. She was upset I didn't surprise her or gift her on her birthday and has barely wanted to interact with me

therobit posted:

Why the gently caress would you marry someone who you are already in couples therapy with? I am assuming that is what happened because he was getting congratulated on his marriage. Why would you even consider going to therapy with someone that you aren't married to already instead of just ending it?

Also lol that the problem is that she issued an ultimatum rather than that she is loving crazy and controlling.

Al Borland Corp. posted:

He sounds like a pretty lazy poo poo to be honest. She should have checked with him but it's easy to see why she thought he hadn't done the work . Even if you did your assignment, work isn't the place to browse Reddit and YouTube on your work computer. Find something else to do.

_{like postng on something awful}

Midnight Voyager posted:

Lazy because he finished his work early??? What was he supposed to do? Magic up more work to do? He finished his work. He was filling his time until it was time to go home. It's not like you can just leave work when your job's done, and it's not like there is always something more you can do.

quote:

So I need some opinions from people on whether it would be too weird to try to thank someone a couple of days after the fact.

What happened is that as I was heading out of an exam on the way back to my car, I walked past a couple of student gov members manning a ballot collection/information booth outside. One girl asked me if I needed any info on getting my ballot in and I said thanks but I had already taken care of it.

As I was walking away the other girl (who, I'll be honest, I found to be quite attractive) shouted out 'I like your shades'.

Now then, slight tangent about my 'shades'. They are actually tinted safety glasses and I receive constant flak about them from my friends everyone I meet. Some of it just ribbing, but the general consensus is that they are a crime against my face. For those curious, they are s536 Uvex safety glasses. Should see a good picture of the lens if you just search s536 uvex lens. (yeah, the huge terminator looking things)

Now then, I am actually a fan of the monstrosities. They keep the sun out of my eyes (their primary function) and they're pretty tough. However, I'm sure you can imagine my surprise when not only does someone complement them, but that person is also someone who I would never expect to talk to me.

So, she says she likes my shades and, as can be expected, I completely swallowed my tongue and my next words were, and are, cringe-worthy. I believe my exact words were "(some sort of laugh) You are unique in that opinion, most people seem to hate them." She responded with a long awww, to which I said "I know" as I continued on my way down the hill. I then proceeded to figuratively beat my head against a wall. A simple thank you would have sufficed but no it apparently wasn't what my brain wanted.

Despite my response, the complement really did make my day. Like I said before, I receive an inordinate amount of abuse for continuing to wear the sunglasses so actually getting a complement for them was nice.

So, this was Monday (5/16) and I figure I could probably get close to locating her to actually say something along the lines of 'hey thanks'. She is in student gov so it wouldn't be that difficult to figure out who she is/have someone pass along the message that I did appreciate the complement. However, I feel like three to four days later this could be considered.. strange.

tl;dr: Someone complemented my shades and I floundered my response. Need opinions on whether it would be too weird to find the person a few days later and actually say thanks. (not too difficult to locate due to them being in student gov)

LadyPictureShow posted:

My (24M) wife (25F) basically thinks I ruined her birthday.


Guess which part the comments are secondarily most focused on?

chitoryu12 posted:

"Ballot" only has 6 entries if you search for it.

Me [22 M] with friendly individual [20's F] , complemented me and I (figuratively) drowned


Place your bets on what this guy looks like and how he normally acts around girls.

The_end posted:

His belated birthday gift should be divorce papers.

quote:

My (28F) boyfriend (28M) is a diehard, unruly Eagles fan and I feel like it's a problem

submitted 2 days ago by simpledeparture

The title makes me feel like I'm writing an Onion article right now, but nope, real life here.

Boyfriend (lets call him James) and I have been together for over a year now and are pretty serious already. We have plans to move in together, and both of us feel like we're each other's person. However, I've been having some issues ever since football season started. Everything culminated this weekend with the Super Bowl.

He's an Eagles fan. Yep. I'm coming to find out it seems to be his only identity, outside of his work. He's a very competitive person and played sports growing up. It sounds like he was always the best on the team. He doesn't play any more, and I feel like since he can't be the best AT a sport, he feels the need to the the best, most devoted sports fan.

He's spent hundreds on Eagles gear and tickets this season, and would never miss watching a game with his friends. We've planned every weekend around the game schedule, and I've never complained once. Every podcast he listens to is football related. Every time I see him reading on his phone, it's about football. Nearly every time I see him, he shows me game highlights and compilation videos of awesome football plays and so on.

It's who he is and like I said, I've put up with it without complaint. I get liking sports. That's fine. I'm just setting the scene here.

My issue is with his attitude and behavior.

Outside of football, James is a fairly quiet, reserved, polite guy. He's someone you wouldn't hesitate twice to introduce to your family or friends. This is one of the things that drew me to him initially.

However, when it comes to football, it's a totally different story.

There have been a couple instances when James and I have been out and he has started heckling people. Once, we were at the grocery store, and he spotted another couple, just minding their own business. The man in the couple had on an opposing team's t-shirt. James made a big scene and starting jeering and trash talking the guy. You could tell the guy was like "WTF??" and just wanted James to stop. It was weird because James was so invested in his trash talking that he never picked up on the guys social cues that were clearly saying "leave me alone".

As you'd expect, the stories I hear from the actual games James has attended have been even worse. More picking fights with people and of course, if someone picks a fight with James, he absolutely must engage. I know security even became involved once.

He has lost his voice a couple of times from screaming at the TV during the game. He's physically injured himself before from pounding too hard on a table after a major play. He also went into nearly a week-long depression after Carson Wentz's season-ending injury. James is superstitious and hinted that he felt personally responsible for Wentz's injury. He kind of laughed it off but I could tell he was serious and just didn't want to admit it. James said he felt so sick he couldn't eat, and I know his behavior/attitude affected him at work as well because his boss called him out on it.

We've watched a couple games out at the bar and he tones it down a little, but not too much. He tells me he just can't help his outbursts. But the way he acts, I guarantee you he is somewhat conscious of what he's doing. I think he wants people to notice him and recognize him as this ridiculously cool and knowledgeable football fan. If he's commenting on a play or something, he will raise his voice so that the tables around him are sure to hear him. If the team makes a good or particularly exciting play, he's usually up, out of his seat, making sure he's the loudest one cheering. (Luckily, we don't live in Philly or I'm sure he'd be climbing every light pole he came across.) He knows I hate the big scenes he makes, so he'll always apologize and then insist that he just couldn't control it. I feel like he's mostly only doing this to try and get attention from other people.

I'm sure you guys get the picture by now. I've brought all of this up to James before and while he is aware of his behavior, I don't think he views it as a big issue like I do. I've lightly approached it a few times and he more or less laughs it off. His boss took a more stern approach with him, and that only pissed James off. Neither of us suggested James give up football completely, we just want him to go about it in a healthier way.

I've talked to a few friends about this and they don't see it as an issue like I do, more of a "boys will be boys" thing. I feel like it's more than that, like his behavior is tied to his self esteem, and obviously his identity.

I don't want to break up with him, but incidents like these make me start doubting the relationship and who he truly is, and I start pulling away.

What do you think Reddit? Am I being unreasonable? Any ideas on how I can get him to compromise with me a little more (again, I never would ask him to give up football completely)?

tl;dr: Boyfriend is emotionally invested in his football team to a degree I feel is rather unhealthy. I don't want him to give it up altogether, but how can I encourage him to stop being so obsessed?

Midnight Voyager posted:

Lazy because he finished his work early??? What was he supposed to do? Magic up more work to do? He finished his work. He was filling his time until it was time to go home. It's not like you can just leave work when your job's done, and it's not like there is always something more you can do.

quote:

My dad has this friend, Fred, who's apparently well 'connected' (I think he has a job that gets him a lot of political connections). He's a loving creep. For as long as I can remember (since I was in high school) he'd make really creepy comments about how my sisters and I were 'sexy' and 'beautiful.' Needless to say, whenever he comes over, my sisters and I (and our mom, if she can) retreat to our bedrooms. My dad is not a fan of him either, but keeps him as a friend because of his connections (he helps with getting us Visas quicker and has gotten my sister out of a parking ticket once).

One of Fred's friend is running for a position on our city council and, because Fred doesn't live in the city, he somehow made it so his family is registered as living with us. None of us were told about this in advance. I only found out when I was getting the mail and found election mail addressed to my family and his in our mailbox. Needless to say, my sister and I were extremely upset at the fact that this douchebag is dragging our into his loving schemes (I'm sorry for the language, but I'm pissed). We made it clear to our dad that we wanted no part of their illegal activities. But, of course, our wishes were ignored.

My dad asked for my e-mail because he was going to 'set-up' our on-line voting account for us. This was my first mistake. I let him do this. My second mistake was not taking my voting sheet, with my new password written on it, back.

It turns out, Fred decided to come over and vote for us. That's right. I DON'T GET A VOTE. I told my dad I was looking up the candidates, but apparently getting his friend into power is more important than MY RIGHTS. No one warned me about this. I came home and asked my mom where my voting sheet was because I was excited to vote and she informed me that Fred had already done it. I thought she was joking - turns out she was dead serious. She told him to wait, but he told her that my dad said it was ok (so I'm assuming my dad wasn't home? Idk, my mom doesn't want to talk about it any further - she told me to wait until my dad gets home) and went ahead and voted for my entire family. I don't blame my mom. Our family is pretty much a patriarchal one and my mom doesn't really get a say in what happens.

I'm beyond upset, as is my sister. Wenever asked to be a part of their illegal activities (my sister was pretty vocal about this as well). It's my right to choose who I vote for, even if I choose not to vote. I'm just beyond hurt right now and I just don't know what to do. I don't even want to be home right now. My dad's not home yet, and I don't want to be here when he does get home. I feel betrayed. What do I even say to him? I can't really report this because it would mean reporting my dad as well...

Edit: So my dad's home and the first thing my sister does is ask him for her voting ballot. My dad tells her that he just got home, but she's persistent. Then he yells at her for not doing the dishes and tells her that her room has to be cleaned by tomorrow or she's not allowed out. It's like it never happened. The only time I've spoken to him was when he told me to pass him his night shirt that was in the washroom that I was currently occupying. I told him I was using the washroom. He went to his room, muttering under his breath. I just can't talk to him tonight. I know I'll end up yelling and it's not going to do anything. My dad never apologizes. We're probably just going to be told to 'get over this.' I'm pissed.

tl;dr: My dad's friend came over and voted for my sister and I, without our permission or knowledge. How do I confront my dad about this?

quote:

You know what. You're right.

My dad actually has put my sister and I in legal jeopardy before. He has a no-compete clause as part of his job so he made us go through the process of forming our own company so that my dad can deal with clients under our name. He told us that we should go along with it to get the experience of having a company and we'd get money - but neither of us have seen a dime from our company. The credit card he uses for that company is even in my name. I know he's been paying off the bill regularly because that same card pays my phone bill, but I don't trust that he has my best interest at heart anymore.

I'm going to seriously talk to my mom. I know she hates my dad's schemes as much as we do, and I'm going to make it clear to her that I'm uncomfortable with the position I now find myself in. My dad doesn't apologize, he doesn't know when to admit fault, but I just can't simply allow him to keep using us as part of his hosed up schemes. Yes, it will rock the boat, but that can't be avoided. I know my parents' relationship is already terse (my mom has made it clear that she regrets marrying my dad), but I'm hoping she'll help me to at least stand up to him.

I've always made sure to keep myself on the straight and narrow - I've never done drugs or actively put myself in risky situations, but my dad is actively bringing them home with him. I can no longer avoid this. You're right. As much as I love him, I also need to look after myself and protect myself because, right now, no one else is..

"My [27M posted:

fiancé [28F] wants to break up because I lied about putting boots on our dog's feet."]
We have a 5 month old puppy who has been frequently sick since we got him in December. He has giardia and occasionally gets extreme diarrhea so the vet recommended we do whatever possible to protect him and prevent him from re-infecting himself. Since he likes to lick his feet, we decided to put boots on him whenever we take him out for walks. This can help protect him against himself and any other puppy illnesses until his medicine takes effect. Lately he's been pretty energetic and had no signs of being sick, so today when I took him out for a walk, I was in a rush to run some errands and figured he can run free for a little bit. I didn't put his boots on. I told my fiancé that I put his boots on so she wouldn't be upset but when she arrived home she realized that the birds hadn't been moved from where she put them.

She called me out on my lie and more believes she can no longer trust me to be honest with anything. She's so upset that she wants to break up. I feel terrible about the lie and want to do something about it but she isn't talking to me.

Tldr, I lied to my girlfriend and it's about to cost us our future marriage. What do?

Edit: The puppy is 5 months, not 5 weeks.

Al Borland Corp. posted:

You are burying the lede. That woman is 241 years old. Presumably her Dad is even older than that.

sincx posted:

Has this been posted yet?

TheScott2K posted:

LadyPictureShow posted:

How hard a was it to go to Joe and say ‘hey I don’t see your files in the Dropbox? Did you make sure to update them?’ or even just drop an email and bcc the manager?

quote:

I (27 F)have a very close relationship with a dear of mine, "Melissa" (25 F). We became close in college and over time have developed a deep friendship with each other. We text each other almost every hour of the day, updating about small things that happen to us at work and at home. We both happen to be bisexual and have had sex with each other, although this is not a common occurrence and really only happens 3-4 times a year, usually when we're a little drunk or if the mood is right. I happen to be in a committed relationship, but my boyfriend is supportive of myself and Melissa's friendship and doesn't mind the occasional sex session. He just sees it as "girls having fun".

Melissa recently began seeing a new guy, Steven (28 M). I was over at her apartment when they began to get a little frisky with each other. Mind you, Melissa is not shy around me and is somewhat of an exhibitionist, so she was okay letting me see what happened. She told me to come and watch as they had sex.

Now, a strange thing happened. While I watched them have sex, and saw how much fun Melissa was having, I began to grow a little jealous in a way I've never been able to express before. I can only describe it as: in all the times Melissa and I have fooled around together, I've never seen her enjoy herself as much as she did with Steven. We've had fun, yes, but never THAT much fun.

Afterwards, Melissa told me that Steven is perfect for her and satisfies her in every way. I was happy for her, but at the same time I feel a really uncomfortable feeling. I felt extreme jealousy at the fact that I've never been able to make her feel that level of pleasure, and that she would always see me as a best friend, never as a real lover.

I don't feel good about these thoughts. I need to be there for her as a best friend. It's been a month now and these feelings aren't going away. She is oblivious to my feelings, and happily updates me on the amazing sex she and Steven are having, while still reiterating how glad she is to have me in her life as her best friend, etc.

Can anyone give me some advice? I need to get into the mindset that she's a best friend before anything and that I should be happy for her, not sulking that I can't give her what she's getting from a man. What makes it worse is that Steven is a great guy and has also been making an effort to get to know me so I feel extra guilty.

tl;dr: Best friend and I have occasionally fool around, watched her have amazing sex with a new guy, got jealous and now need to put those thoughts away before they damage our friendship.

Clark Nova posted:

lol around here "Waverly" would just remind everyone of the haunted insane asylum. Poor kid wouldn't survive first grade.

Universe Master posted:

She just watched? "Come watch me gently caress my boyfriend" is a thing now.

Barudak posted:

Im not sure why you dont think shed date you too, at the same time. Bring along your boyfriend, writhe in ecstasy as your combined moans reach a deafeaning roar, startling pets miles around.

chitoryu12 posted:

"Ballot" only has 6 entries if you search for it.

Me [22 M] with friendly individual [20's F] , complemented me and I (figuratively) drowned


Place your bets on what this guy looks like and how he normally acts around girls.

Vargatron posted:

"Failure to answer is consent".

Okay buddy.

LadyPictureShow posted:

My (24M) wife (25F) basically thinks I ruined her birthday.


Guess which part the comments are secondarily most focused on?

veiled boner fuel posted:

I don't know that much about alimony but my sis had to pay child support to her ex husband even though custody was 50/50 because he was a lazy pile of poo poo that refused to work. She worked for the fuckin library making like 35k a year and was paying child support even with joint custody. The judge did at least presume that he was capable of getting a minimum wage job and factored that into the child support calculations, but fuckin jesus, come on.

Pick posted:

You lied, these aren’t dog roller skates at all!! There’s not a single wheel on this dog!!

Neutrino posted:

It isn't teamwork if you can't communicate with your team. She kind of hosed herself for failing this simple part of teamwork.

Beachcomber posted:

chitoryu12 posted:

Our next search term is "password", and thus we have a tale as old as time.

My wife [28/F] of two years wants all my [28/M] passwords and me to delete and stop communication with any friends "younger or who would be deemed attractive by average guy" - in desperate need of advice


I don't know how to get the size larger, but the bolded part is bolded and like twice the font size of the rest of the post.

VanSandman posted:

WHAT THE gently caress

ArbitraryC posted:

It was kind of weirdly passive aggressive of both him and the manager to not mention that he was submitting his chunk of the project through a different system when she kept asking why it wasn't in the dropbox. Like I get the dude was annoyed with her nagging him but it seems oddly intentional neither him nor the manager mentioned anything about his files already being submitted.

ArbitraryC posted:

It was kind of weirdly passive aggressive of both him and the manager to not mention that he was submitting his chunk of the project through a different system when she kept asking why it wasn't in the dropbox. Like I get the dude was annoyed with her nagging him but it seems oddly intentional neither him nor the manager mentioned anything about his files already being submitted.

Xombie posted:

She isn't his boss, he doesn't really have an obligation to go tell her. Unless, of course, she asks him. Which she didn't.

quote:

(I'm trying to format this properly, but line breaks are giving me trouble.)

Today was a very stressful day.

First, a little back story on our cast:

Mark: Our protagonist. Exceptionally vain but also very kind and personable. Loves to talk and make friends. Working on his confidence issues that sometimes lead to him seeking attention a little too much. 19 years old. Third in command at the store.

Laura: Friend of Mark’s for a month or so. Connected very close emotionally with Mark based on shared tastes and opinions, a real friendship candidate in the long-term. Very emotionally complex and interesting – a real natural friend. 16 years old.

Cathy: Friend of Mark’s for a few months, open to a casual relationship, but Mark's been hesitant to take that step. 19 years old.

Tina: Friends with Mark for over 6 months, had a drunken makeout once and mutually decided to forget about it. 18 years old.

Rob: Store manager. Knows everything. Literally omniscient as to what goes on in his store, nothing gets past him. No flicker of romantic interest, anything. Incredibly professional, a role model for keeping work separate from one’s personal life, and very admirable in this respect. 35-40 years old.

First of all, it was an open interview day. We do one every so often where anyone can walk right into the store and get an interview on the spot with either myself or the other hiring manager. I was excited about it going into the shift because it would mean that I could possibly get a good amount of interview practice in. Prior to open interview day I had done perhaps 10 interviews total, so this was a good chance for me to really show my stuff.

At about 2:30pm (I was 12-8), Rob asked me to come downstairs with him to discuss something. His attitude made me a little bit nervous, because I had no idea what I’d done wrong, but I was about to find out. We sat down in the office, and he began to tell me about a sexual harassment claim that had been launched against me. I had received several complaints that my conduct on the floor was of an inappropriate nature with certain crew members and they brought it to my store manager’s attention. I was so incredibly ashamed and shocked to hear this.

Laura and I had had a big fight about a week prior, which is unrelated but made her feel very uncomfortable with me. Some people don’t work out – I was sad to lose the friendship but I’m very certain of the way I felt on this topic and clearly we weren’t compatible based on it. However, pursuant to this fight, she told me after she finished working with me the next day that I had made her very uncomfortable and that she didn’t know how we could be friends, based not only on the fact that we disagreed but also that I had been very forward and flirtatious with her on a personal basis.

Now, I had, from the start, made it very clear to her that I was interested in knowing/possibly pursuing something with her completely separate from work, that my managerial title had nothing to do with us and that if anything ever went wrong that she could rely on my ability to maintain a perfect professional relationship. I thought I covered all my bases, didn’t I? This is how you make friends or start relationships within the same workplace? Apparently not.

I had told her in response that I was extremely sorry to have jeopardized her work environment or made her feel uncomfortable in her workplace, that it was never my intention and that we could freely revert to an only-professional relationship, no questions asked. She responded by telling me that it was nothing to do with work, that it was completely based on my forwardness and sexual interest in her and that she wanted none of that. (So things at work were, at this point, GOOD)

I had apologized, but also defended myself to her in that I didn’t believe she was being fair to me – we had gone out several times prior and she had a real interest in continuing our relationship. She had had ample opportunities to tell me that I made her uncomfortable. Instead, she told me that she enjoyed the attention and was flattered, honestly. She told me she was excited to help me pick out furniture for my new place AFTER we had this fight, for goodness’ sake!

Laura and I had agreed prior to any of this that since I wanted a casual relationship and she was only interested in committed relationships, that we would never work out. I assumed (wrongly, it seems) that it was okay to continue treating her flirtatiously since it was now clear to both of us that nothing would ever come of it. So I didn’t see this coming at all.

Rob went on to say that he had gotten complaints from Laura and Tina based on my conduct with them and that he wanted to give me a chance to explain my perspective before he took action. I told him everything (in less detail, but I didn’t omit any facts) and we resolved that we’d keep a record of this conversation in form of a documentation and that I’d shut down any ongoing relationships I had with team members in order to protect myself.

How naïve of me to assume that I’d be able to be a professional and still get away with this on the side. I jeopardized my workplace and I’m scared for myself if she decides to take it farther, but I’m also very upset because from their perspective, given that they broke the ice and went to Rob, they must have been made to feel so incredibly uncomfortable by my presence. And it’s so scary to me to wonder how long this has been going on as I was completely oblivious. How much of what she said to me was the truth? Did she lie about picking out the furniture? Was she only hanging out with me because she was scared to say no? Did I never make a friend at all? But most importantly, I was making my team feel scared of my presence? It was never my intent and I feel so God drat ashamed.

This is all very confusing to me as I was really sure that I was making great strides for myself. It’s hard for me to meet people given that I’m working most of the time and it’s all shift work. And my social skills improved by leaps and bounds thanks to work! I met so many people, made so many friends, and now everything is at risk because I… what, I made a bad judgment call when I decided to pursue Laura? I would have enjoyed a casually sexual relationship but I was so satisfied with friendship!

I was prepared to settle and perish the thought of ever having that kind of relationship with her as we’d already agreed she’d never be interested. I thought I covered my bases and now everything is in danger. Deeply troubled but fully aware of what I had to do, I returned to the floor.

By 7:30 when I had to start turning people away so the closing manager could take his break, I was exhausted. Tired of talking, head was spinning, couldn’t see straight. I pretty much fiddled around and ran an okay floor for that half hour, and then I was out the door at 8 on the dot. On my way out, I ran into Cathy, and asked her to meet with me outside once she’d changed and was ready to go.

Upon meeting with Cathy, I made it clear to her that I would no longer engage in any sort of unprofessional relationship with her and that that was it. We were done. Despite the fact that ours was actually by far the most stable of any of my work interests, my job has always been my first priority and I would never, ever risk it over one little subset of all the possible relationships one can have from the world. That was my first step.

My next steps are:

1) Meet with Laura and apologize to her for being anything less than professional. Make it clear that she has the right to a professional work environment without being put at risk by my behaviors and that she will never have to worry about my being unprofessional again.

2) Meet with Tina and apologize to her for making her feel so uncomfortable. Let her know that she and I will be strictly professional from now on and apologize for jeopardizing her work environment.

3) Refrain from inviting team members to do things or participating in activities with team members outside of the regular scope of work (outings, etc). This is to protect myself.

4) Continue to journal my thoughts, feelings, and progress on this matter as I tackle this situation. Hopefully, this is the end of it.

Now, I save all of my text messages, so everything pursuant to this that either of us has ever said is saved. And I'm confident that it'll be defense enough for me if we ever get to the stage where I need it (Hopefully, I won't.) I made a genuine mistake and I won't do it again... but it makes it hard to trust people and I resent Laura a little bit for that. I won't try to make friends in my workplace again.

Tina was only mentioned so that you have the whole story -- she and I have really had very few problems and I suspect her name was only brought to the store manager's attention by Laura as evidence that I'm flirtatious with more than one person, as certainly we were flirtatious at one point but we also had (I thought) a pretty good friendship. I honestly can't imagine her doing anything like this, or even having reason to. We've barely talked for months.

TL;DR: Employee-personal-friend-relationship-interests launched a sexual harassment claim against me. It came out of nowhere as until I heard about it I was sure that we were doing very well on a personal basis and though the main plaintiff and I had a fight regarding my flirtatious treatment of her, she made it clear that it wasn't about work at all and then did this. I feel betrayed but also scared for my situation and I would like feedback based on my goals and any input that you have to offer.

ArbitraryC posted:

She asked him about it the day before and the manager about it the morning of, presumably mentioning the dropbox his part of the project was absent from.

I mean I think she's a weenie and everything but the manager clearly had opportunity to resolve the situation and calm the employee that thought she was going to have her name attached to a failed project.