You can’t possibly be serious. I guess if I were in your postion, I’d “support” him by continuing to be his piece of ass on the side. I’ll bet that would make him feel better! What other possible good could you do at this point? Be his therapist? His confidant? Give me a break. 24 is old enough to know better than that. :rolleyes:
I’m going to throw my vote in with the “get a new job and get out of this couple’s life” crowd. There is no good that can come of your continued presence in this situation. Get away from your boss so he can attend to the family crisis that you helped him create. The outcome of it is none of your business. If I’m any judge of human behavior, he’ll do the same thing with another young woman after he’s past this crisis. I hope I’m wrong, but that’s what i’ve seen from men who seek/create positions of power.
I’ve known young women in your position and it never turned out well. Consider this whole episode a mistake that you can learn from. Lessons like “This is why we don’t fuck the boss” or “This is why we don’t fuck married men”.
Yeah, you’re really getting to the point where you won’t be able to say you’re “very young” as an excuse for your bad choices, which I’ve noticed is a pattern for you. 24 is old enough to know better.
I’m reminded of an exchange from Michael Crichton’s book Sphere. Norman was giving Beth a hard time by reminding her about how she slept with one of her professors in college. She said, “I was only 22 years old.” He replied with, “How old do you have to be?”
Well, I’m glad you feel guilty.Now it’s time to clear out and get away from the mess you helped create. He can’t fix anything while you’re still there, and even if you think you’re “beyond” the screwing stage at this point (and what, pray tell, was the next stage supposed to be, and did he know the screwing stage had an endtime? ) you cannot possibly be supportive in the way that a true friend could be supportive. You are just muddying the waters by remaining in his employ. And you cannot possibly think anymore that “briefly screwing around” with someone can be done without repercussions, now, can you? Please tell us that you have leared something valuable from this experience, and I pray that they don’t have kids.
Signed, the former wife of a guy who routinely “briefly screwed around” with people he worked with and who is still trying to help her kids get over their father’s bad choices.
I agree with this all the way. Him sharing his deep dark secrets with you is almost as bad as the screwing around and hot dates at the opera. In fact, I know that some people think it’s worse, as it’s an emotional connection rather than just screwing.
Those poor kids.
I’m not sure why people say SHE should move on.
He is her boss. As such, he has much more responsiblity to make sure he doesn’t sleep with her than she has to not sleep with him. He opened up a multi-million dollar liability for his employer when he slept with a subordinate.
He’s the one who is married with kids.
It isn’t like she raped him or forced him to have sex. Is she a homewrecking slut? - maybe, but he bears the majority of the responsibility for both the marriage and employer. He wants to fix his marriage or get through the divorce, that’s HIS problem. Her leaving the job isn’t going to change the fact that he cheated on his wife and she’s divorcing him. It isn’t going to change the fact that when his wife decides to let his employer know the reason for the divorce (which it sounds like she will), they won’t trust this guy with the petty cash key. It does mean she is one step ahead of getting fired for “unrelated matters” because she is now a liaiblity for them as well - but she shouldn’t do it out of an obligation to him or his marriage.
Functionally, he screwed his wife, he screwed his company and he screwed her. She seems to be the only person who hasn’t figured out that screwing someone isn’t a good thing (maybe the company if they haven’t figured it out yet - they will).
I think we’re say it because she asked what she can do to help the situation. Sure, he bears the responsibility for his marriage and for sleeping with a subordinate, but the OP can’t do anything about that. The only thing she CAN do is what has been repeatedly advised here – get out of his life.
The OP didn’t ask what her Boss should do. She asked what she could do to help him.
The prevailing answer seems to be, “If you truly want to help him, get away from him. Far, far away.”
If the Canoodling Boss would like to post here, I’m sure he will also receive plenty of good advice regarding his own activities.
On preview: preach it, Nightingale!
Depends on your definition of “badly”.
But getting far far away won’t do anything to help him. He’s sunk - and for very good reasons all of his own making. In fact, IMO, as a sexual harrassment victim (under similar circumstances - though my “relationship” was less than voluntary) her leaving could make it worse, since she can come back and claim she felt obligated to leave and therefore experienced an economic penalty for their relationship.
I could make a case that the best way to help a loser like this is to show up at work every day, act professional, and when he cries your direction look at him and say “just count your lucky stars I haven’t hired a lawyer. You made your bed - sleep in it.” That would do a lot more to help this guy than leaving so he didn’t have a daily reminder of how bad he fucked up. How a devoted father is now going to be seperated from his kids over a piece of ass.
Course, I don’t think nongoog is any more likely to do that than to leave. She doesn’t seem to understand that either of them did anything wrong here.
Good point.
I would recommend “far far away,” (as in another department, not another state) because I think it is easier to leave someone severely alone if one doesn’t see him or her all the time. If a person has the will to be able to brush someone off repeatedly, that would certainly also work. (Hard to do to a supervisor, though.)
You’ve gotta be kidding me. If you want to sleep with him again, for god’s sake, just say so. No need to pretend you care about him or his family.
I think HE needs to find her another job in the same company - or rather, he needs to explain to HR why she needs to be transferred RIGHT NOW and make sure it happens. And I think SHE should start looking for another job in ANOTHER company - but none of that has anything to do with helping him and everything to do with protecting herself. So I sort of agree, but I don’t like the “judgement” vibe - the “you screwed around with a married man so you should quit” thing. Hell, if its so important that they be seperated, he should be the one quitting.
In the end, I’m giving better than even odds that he’s getting fired - might take a year, but he’ll get walked. If she can manage a quiet transfer now, behave herself, and find another job in the next twelve months, she might manage to make her time with the company pleasant and not have any loss of income when they decide to downsize her (which I give nearly equal odds on). If not, she’ll probably just go down with him, with his walk being done for unrelated reasons and them not needing an admin for a position no longer necessary.
Why do you think that he should be glad she hasn’t hired a lawyer?
Sounds like everything she did was of her own free will, so what exactly is she a victim of?
Fucking the boss is not, by definition, sexual harassment, particularly not when the person who fucks their boss is deliberately using it as an underhanded dishonest means to securing themselves a better position or more favor. That’s just being ruthlessly cunning.
That’s what I was wondering.
In my opinion, she was not a victim of anything. But that doesn’t seem to stop people from claiming that they are. Who knows what someone in nongoog’s situation might get it in her head to do? I mean, from what she says here, it seems quite clear that he did not manipulate her, she knew exactly what she was doing, and of course her job wasn’t in jeopardy (since he didn’t try to get her moved elsewhere, even when his wife wanted him too). But who knows how she might try to twist the story to get something out of him? I don’t know nongoog well enough to know if this is the kind of thing she would do, but I’ll bet it happens all the time.
Absolutely right…and if that doesn’t work out, then changing the story to sound like a victim might be the next step in trying to get something out of the relationship.
I don’t think saying that he should be glad she hasn’t hired a lawyer is saying that she should hire a lawyer. It’s just saying that in the current climate, anyone would be pretty stupid to enter into a consensual relationship with an underling because it would be so easy for the underling to hire a lawyer and cause some serious shit. Even if it was consensual, she could cause a lot of problems for him by alleging sexual harrassment. She would be wrong to do that (based on her account), but realistically, she could and she’d have a good chance of being successful. He’s put himself in a position of vulnerability to someone who may or may not choose to victimize him. He’s lucky this hasn’t happened in the same way a woman walking alone in a bad neighborhood in the middle of the night is lucky to make it out safely.
I see no evidence in the OP of ruthless cunning, nor of intelligence sufficient to support ruthless cunning. But from the company’s perspective it doesn’t matter.
After a manager/subordinate affair, if the company “solves the problem” to the detriment of the subordinate, they do create an exposure to a sexual harassment lawsuit–there have been damages. Thus, from the company’s perspective, the situation needs to be resolved keeping the subordinate in an equal or better position. Managers are expected to know that sleeping with subordinates, even voluntarily, creates a legal exposure for the company. And creating a legal exposure for the company can cost the manager a job.
Cause it really doesn’t matter if it was of her own free will, if she wants to take the company, she can. Is it right and ethical to do so?, nope. (Is it right and ethical to sleep with your married boss to start with?) But he has set her up so that she can cry victim and the company will hand her a check (it isn’t quite that easy - sexual harrassment lawsuits are a pain in the back end - but it will be her word against his that this wasn’t quid pro quo harrassment). Moreover, my understanding is there is precedence for other employees being able to sue if they feel she got any preferential treatment based on her relationship with him. She doesn’t have to do anything at all for there to be liability for the company here.