thread of inappropriate professional attachments

I just imagine f.Hazel working in an office filled with delightfully attractive young women in scanty outfits all trying to tempt him away from his spreadsheets. "No, you hussies, leave me be! I have Important Business!" he cries, until a hot chocolate appears at his desk. "Oh alright, just the once then..."

i usually go out of my way to be as boring as possible around co-workers in an effort to not develop any kind of relationship other than professional.

that said, the closest thing i have to a workplace crush is a Chinese national about the same age as me who speaks 4 languages and is charmingly awkward and cute and is always wearing something really smart and attractive. despite never really having "a thing" for Asian women, her accent kind of makes me melt.

she's married and is also a new mom so is obviously way off-limits but we have a kind of casual & sheepish mutual flirtation that is kept in check.

she's very good at her job-- which is a stressful one-- something i also find attractive. but at various points she's kind of let on that her current situation is the result of kind of getting cornered in to an unwanted marriage after finding out she was unexpectedly pregnant about this time last year, and that she might be content but probably isn't happy or fulfilled. this makes me a little sad when i think about it and causes me to daydream a little longer than i should some days.

2 anecdotes, regardless:

• a few weeks ago i changed into casual clothes in my office before grabbing my weekender bag and catching a ride to the airport. on my way out she stopped me in the hallway,grabbed my arm, and looked me up and down for a second or two before going "you look like.... Brad Pitt....or a movie star..." i said "thanks, i think" then we both had an awkward laugh and i left

• (tmi content) last week i heard her from around the corner exclaim "SHIT! I forgot to pump!!!" then run in to her office and slam the door. this caused a strange potpourri of reactions w/ me

anyway, thankfully i have IRL girl probs that keep this one nicely compartmentalized right where it belongs :)

that is an a++ workplace crush

literally right after posting that, another co-worker (who just found out his 2nd baby will be a boy) came by. the two of them got in to a discussion right outside my door about breastfeeding, conception, and the Chinese zodiac. at one point it turned to how old each of us were and she told me i look young "for a haole". *^_^*

new job finds me surrounded by bewildering arrays of beautiful bright young things temping, but it won't get even to crushing stage as we're all just hyperaware that permanent staff are so far above them that it could never be.

that just makes it sexier

oh man. i keep having embarrassing flashbacks to my last inappropriate workplace attachment.

and my new one looks v good today

he appears perfectly capable of having normal conversations/interactions with other people despite the fact that *our* encounters are always weird and awkward. ugh.

Maybe that means he ~likes~ you if he bumbles when he speaks to you.

otm

no, it's not that. i'm not the only one who's recognized that he is kind of weird, but no one else is inappropriately attracted to him, so they are capable of acting normally around him, which i think eases him into acting normally. I, however, seem to be incapable of smooth behavior when lust clouds my brain, so we just make each other act weirder by our own weirdness.

also he is married w/children, so even if it were mutual (which there is no way to know since we never actually talk), it's gotta stay an admiration thing

Ah, I see. Even more super highly inappropriate that way. (And probably more deliciously fun.)

ps am making a sign to post on my office door with this:

"No, you hussies, leave me be! I have Important Business!"

just need to find the right cat picture to use.

Whenever I try to be funny, it just comes out like I'm being rude.

Whenever I try to be friendly, it comes out accusatory in some way.

I basically fail at life. Woe.

(I am not actually sad before anyone jumps on me and tells me I shouldn't be posting things like this. Just full of PMT and self pity. And feeling sorry for myself because as I was leaving for lunch, OfficeBoy was reading XKCD and I went over and said "haha, you're not working, you're reading XKCD!" expecting him to go haha and tell me a funny physics joke. But instead he got slightly defensive and then OfficeGossip butted in on our conversation and started trying to talk to him about the work he was doing, even though we were both on our lunch, and now I feel miffed, and also, no physics joke. And I really want a funny physics joke because am feeling rub with PMT.)

BLAH.

And OfficeGossip keeps trying to drag him into conversations now, and it's just like... FFS. I am experiencing actual jealousy and annoyance and this is stupid.

Just going to put my headphones on and avoid fucking office chatter for the rest of time. I can't play these games, I hate them, and resent the fact that I've become even vaguely involved in them because of this inability to not pay attention to this idiot boy. :-(

new job finds me surrounded by bewildering arrays of beautiful bright young things temping, but it won't get even to crushing stage as we're all just hyperaware that permanent staff are so far above them that it could never be

But temp staff are like the work crushes it's socially acceptable to have.

seriously? ALL THESE MONTHS I'VE WASTED ;_;

Glasses. He is wearing glasses today. Ladyboner overdrive.

(Also, I gave him coded proof that he was right and OfficeGossip was wrong, in his argument with her, so we are friends again. I think.)

((God I am so fucking pathetic. But mostly bored.))

Physics makes us all its bitches.

i just read the "will be nice to have another lady around" (paraphrasing) incident - i read it like he thought you were saying you were only one around and when he said "dont let x hear you say that" he was implying that you didnt think SHE was a lady - i might be crazy tho

crush came in my office yesterday to talk about a client and i innocently and casually pointed out that she had some food crumbs on her lapel. i know that's negging 101 but i swear it wasn't my intent but holy shit that made her blush and get all self-conscious and act funny and i kind of had fun with it after that, telling her "don't come back in my office with food all over you ever again" as she was leaving.

:-]

haha oh grady bless your heart

have you considered 200 level negging, it sounds like you have what it takes

i was asking her about a meeting i wasn't in attendance at but my boss was. she kept saying that my boss had another colleague with him but she forgot the guy's name. i tried describing what my regional manager looks like, thinking it might have been him, but she said "i don't remember what he looked like... all i remember is he was not handsome."

:-]

I am trying to work out who it is in Gr8080's office that actually has the crush? It could be either of them.

I think I have figured out what he meant in the "lady incident" because he made another, similar joke yesterday, which was clearer. It relied on a difference in category-level, rather than gender this time. That all the big, client-facing bosses were out yesterday, and for an hour, it was just the 3 of us in the office (me, OfficeBoy, OfficeCreep) and I made a joke saying "Me and a gang of 20 year old boys alone in the office, ugh, this is someone's wet dream, but not mine" and he laughed and said "but what about Lady3?" (this is confusing because she has the same name as him) and the joke is from group dynamics, because clearly he thinks of her as part of their social cohort, while I think of her as being part of the "group of big bosses that goes out on the client facing calls" because she has been there a lot longer and she is about 100x more mature than them, even though she is a similar age. And I think the Lady Incident was along the same lines.

I hate this situation and I love it.

Because when he is nice to me, it is the best thing in the world, and makes me feel so good. (He saw me on the street in Croydon during lunch hours and came running up to me with a big grin, waving a Sainsbury's bag saying "Look, I'm eating lunch!" in reference to a conversation that I had forgotten we had even had - he remembers bits of old conversations and jokes which is flattering and attentive, because he has good social skills or something.)

But when he is horrible to me, or worse still, ignores me, it just makes work awful and horrible and tense and I don't like having that atmosphere somewhere I'm supposed to be able to feel safe and competent. I flip back and forth between thinking "oh god he must ~know~ that I have such a ladyboner for him" and therefore he is avoiding me because I am so gross. And then thinking "oh god he is oblivious" and therefore thinks that I am sometimes joke-horrible or teasing/negging towards him because I hate his guts, or am just a negative, bitter person (though this is actually true) when I'm actually trying in my weird way to be nice to him, but I have such a massive warping crush on him that pigtail-pulling comes out all wrong because of fear.

Torture. And yet.

I am trying to work out who it is in Gr8080's office that actually has the crush? It could be either of them.

i used the phrase "mutual flirtation" in my first post!

Sorry didn't catch that. I have almost no experience of crushes that are not totally one-sided.

WCC, it's really cool to read someone going through something fraught and electric in such a thoughtful way, thanks.

I can't remember if the "Croydon is on the Hellmouth" discussion happened on this thread or the OKC thread, but in more exciting Croydon-related news, this morning we discovered that the telephone exchange for our office (which means probably this entire end of Croydon) is 666-. So this is very definitely on a Hellgate.

My inappropriate attachment at my first work experience job in 1995 lived in Tetbury, which shared Malmesbury's phone code of 0666 (now 01666).

Yes I looked up his emergency contact number from the list on the wall and remembered the area code (which I have never once had to ring) for 17.5 years, what of it? I don't think I memorised the rest of the number though, in case anyone is scoring my creepiness out of 10. The phone number was probably 10 digits so I guess four digits = 4/10.

See, creepiness used to be such hard work, actually memorising phone numbers and all that. Now it's just entirely too easy to crepe on Facebook or whatever.

(Not that I have a Facebook to crepe with.)

What I do not understand is: why is it, no matter what time I get to work, does he always appear to catch the lift with me?

she just came in my office and asked if she could ask me "an English question."

"i dont know, can you?"

Yesterday was full of all ARGH ooh ARGH moments.

Each day at work has become both delicious and fraught and beautiful and funny and painful and horrifying. And I find myself actually wanting to go to work in the morning, not to do my job, but to wait for those moments of delicious interaction. And this is STUPID, jobs are annoying places where you hate your life and waste your time trying to ignore it all, not where you spend your time flirting over standard deviations and helvetica neue. I keep waiting for the crash, and every crash is horrible, but every high is even nicer. And I can kid myself that he knows and goes along with it, when in truth he's probably ~oblivious~ and would be horrified at the time I spend fantasising that he could be the Harold to my Maude.

I know I am playing with fire, even my *Mum* has noticed that something is up with me ("you spent last weekend cursing his name and saying he was the worst thing to ever happen to your job, this week he's amazing, do you *have* to live your life as a character from Pride and Prejudice?") and tells me how dangerous this is, that I could lose a job I actually quite like over this. But what about the idea that his presence makes the job more enjoyable? Do these things always have to turn out badly? ("he is 24, yes, this will turn out badly, all men are bastards and they are even worse at that age" says my Mum, the cynic, to me.) No, they turn out badly because I'm me, and I overthink things instead of just enjoying them.

I think it will be good for me to get away from the office for a week next week, but the problem is now, I'm looking forward to getting away less than I was. This is absurd.

I will shut up now and go away.

No, today is just one of those days when I feel like a fool. An old fool.

I call those weekdays.

right. i have this problem, she's a recovering mormon, gayy, politically leftwing ferocious, a blood indian from south of lethbridge along the belly river. i like her and she'd say things about how no white dudes ever liked her before, and finally it's a weirdo like me. and it all started when i began flirting with her guiltfree because she had a girlfriend and dug it and it became like a sandbox for flirting gambits for me. then she told me about cheating on her girlfriend and there was a queer crackle in our fakeflirts and one night, we both worked late on canada day and she went to the roof of the building to watch the fireworks and i snuck up to and watched her watching them and when she came back down, i said to her, i knew that was my moment, i should have come over and put my arm around you and MADE MY MOVE, and she said, why didn't you, you pussy? i drove her home that night, and i drove her home the next night and i was going to vancouver for a week and she leaned across to hug me and then i ended up kissing her for a while and it was awesome. but i came back and she'd been transferred to another office and i responded to the situation by cutting off all contact with her.

he is 24, yes, this will turn out badly, all men are bastards and they are even worse at that age

as a 24-year-old I gotta say this is OTM. we leave trails of tears and ruined lives.

I knew better than to date 24 y.o. boys even when I was 24.

Just before leaving time today big boss owner called a special meeting with EVERYONE IN THE OFFICE EXCEPT ME and so now I am feeling really paranoid and butthurt.

I had a bit of a "wah no one appreciates me" earlier today and OfficeBoy did email me saying I was great but I think he was only buttering me up to get his hands on my data. Boo hoo.

dylannn u making me tear up

Oh god I touched him today. I forgot about that. Only his shoulder, nothing ~inappropriate~ but still it makes me feel dirty thinking about it.

to get his hands on my data

amirite?

dylannn bringing the raymond carver vibes.

our office is really close to the front desk office so we pass by them all the time and know some of the managers there. just now one of them handed me a cup of frozen yogurt topped with cherry slush (i think it came from an employee appreciation day thing they're having today).

i don't eat dairy but i took it anyway and seconds later was in crush's office dropping it on her desk and saying "i brought a present for you." and omg the look on her face its like i told her i was giving her a million dollars

but then it turned in to a conversation about how i don't eat dairy, general eating habits/diet, and Chinese cuisine, culminating in her enthusiastically stating her love of eating dog meat :-(