Exactly. It may be 10-whole-hours-a-week, but something like this will affect her marriage, half of her assets, all of her friends, and possibly limit her access to her kids.
Something of that large a scope WILL push her so far out of her comfort zone that the role of “shitty little actress” will get played as if she studied under Olivier.
On the one hand:
Emails, text files, PC email histories, and correspondence. Things that the OP sees as Indisputable Facts.
On the Other:
Tears.
Oh, and…“Men are Horrible!” “Haven’t you ever been tricked by a man who just wanted you in bed?” “It was a Vulnerable time in my life.” “He’s a Player.” “He Seduced Me!!!”
“It was all just a Game to him… he just chased me for the Thrill.” “He’s a Dog! Don’t ever trust him!”. “He was My BOSS! How could I Ever have Any control over Him?”.
The OP can’t win this battle.
I know that in my prior post I was incredibly hard on the OP. I was trying to spur him into action… to roll his chair away from the PC and get a lawyer involved NOW. I didn’t mean to insult him, just to shake his chair & point to the phone.
Time is Short.
Sometimes in life, when severely good things have the chance of becoming severely bad things, time can slow down and people tend to freeze up.
When that happens, if something doesn’t shake the person out of it, the worst case scenario is ALWAYS left to happen on its own.
Well at the very least, there is the one girl at work that she told everything to, and that includes everything about her chasing me, seducing me, relentlessly pursuing me, me turning her down, her obsessing over me, trying to get me to break up with my girlfriend, trying to get in a relationship with me, she sent her the same pictures she sent me, etc. She constantly tells her to back off, stop talking to me, and don’t fuck my life up.
This girl likes me more than she likes my admirer - I am 100% sure of this. If it came down to an investigation, she could at least verify it wasn’t sexual harassment. They both know this, and I doubt she would play the “He’s a bad man” card because of it. She wanted to divorce her husband before I was ever in the picture, and most people at work know this. None of this would get me off the hook, but would be helpful to the company.
She actually tried to subtly hook my girlfriend up with her husband at a Christmas function last night. You can’t make this shit up… Girlfriend was like “WTF was that???”
OK, so maybe this other person could serve as a witness and give supporting testimony.
But look at it this way; if the woman you are having a manager-subordinate relationship with is dishonest enough to cheat on her husband, then why could you trust her to be honest and truthful when HR or some other company department finds out and it’s consequences time? If someone is dishonest once, what’s to say they can’t be dishonest twice or thrice?
''He doesn’t have much of a chance?" I haven’t seen the film, but there is nothing in the OP that suggests he was coerced into having sex. Her relentlessness of pursuit might have become harassment if he had repeatedly rejected her advances, but at no point was he required to give in. It started with a subordinate badgering him with inappropriate texts. You can end that pretty quickly by going to a superior and reporting it, or in the very least sharing it with your SO to cover your own ass. If the OP is so widely popular at work as he claims, going to a superior probably would have ended it right there.
Let’s not delude ourselves. Two consenting adults did a mutually self-destructive thing and it’s about to blow up in their faces, and there will be a lot of pain to go around. There are at least two victims here - the woman’s husband and the OP’s significant other. Whether the company itself or other employees will also be collateral damage remains to be seen.
Why will he need a lawyer? Why will this go to court?
He either resigns before he gets fired, or he gets fired. If he gets fired, he really has nothing to sue over - “lack of judgement” is sufficient to fire him for, if they need any reason at all - and frankly its likely to be “we’ve chosen to make some organizational changes.” If she sues, she’ll sue the company, not him. If the coworkers sue, they sue the company, not him.
Really, no reason for him to lawyer up.
She’s unlikely to sue the company since she was the aggressor and there are witnesses that can collaborate that. The coworkers are unlikely to sue if he gets fired, since the company will have taken action upon become aware of the issue.
You don’t get a lawyer only if something will go to court, or only if one wants to sue. You can also get a lawyer to understand your legal consequences and options moving forward. To me it’s like playing chess - thinking two to three moves ahead of where one currently is. (I guess the masters think ten to fifteen moves ahead? Anyway, that’s my point.)
I agree with those who suggest the OP consult a lawyer. The OP knows best about the woman involved, and he has reasons to believe she’ll act as he predicts. I hope he’s right, but still I think consulting a lawyer would be prudent, and also less expensive than the $25,000 difference in salaries between now and any future job he might need to move on to.
Yeah dude, lawyer up.
Oh and I like the user name / post combo. So true: hereWeGo!
hereWeGo, dude, you’ve got a true whacko on your hands. I imagine the sex with her might have been hot and wild (and I am not asking either), but from what you’ve told us about her, her actions don’t seem to be as predictable as you might think they are.
PREDICT: you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Princess Bride quote inserted, for humor.
Agree. She sounds very weird; certainly doesn’t sound like someone you could trust to tell the truth should the company/HR hammer come down on both of you.
So the consensus view appears to be:
[ol]
[li]Do not go to HR. HR exists to support/protect the company. Both of you are expendable to the company. HR will do whatever they need to do to cut the company losses.[/li][li]You are both consenting adults. However, as her superior, you are held to a higher standard and integrity, no matter what the circumstances. You failed both.[/li][li]Others apparently know what happened and their stories support you. However, none of these stories are on the record and you failed #2 above.[/li][/ol]
The consensus outcome appears to be:
[ol]
[li]You will soon be out of a job. What remains is whether you walk on your own or whether you are thrown out. If the former, you stand a decent chance of finding another job (but I’m betting it will not be long-term). If the latter, this indiscretion will follow you hard. It will be a long time recovering from it. I doubt you will make any type of supervisory/manager role for a long time.[/li][li]It will affect your personal life. Your SO will find out; what matters is whether she hears it from you first or not. If she hears it from you first, it may be a long road to redemption, if at all. If the latter, you will take a long walk on a short plank.[/li][li]You still sound like you fully do not understand the corner you painted yourself in. You said you work for a “major company.” So drop the generational “hooking up” weasel words and use the company words; you had sex with a subordinate while you are in a long-term relationship and your subordinate is married.[/li][/ol]
Good luck, because you’re going to need it.
Actually, I think there is a non-zero chance that if he breaks it off and she doesn’t make a fuss - no one will complain to corporate (sounds like they are in a district office) and if it never comes to the attention of headquarters, HR or his manager in the form of anything other than a vague rumor, it might blow over. BECAUSE they are a district. However, if anyone makes a fuss, if it impacts the productivity of the district and someone makes a query why that gets answered with “we were distracted because Herewego was boinking Floozy” he’s screwed.
I’d end it, hold tight, NOT lawyer up and hope no one else does nor does anyone bring it to the attention of management in anything vaguely formal. Management won’t act on a vague rumor. And hope that his own little Alex Forrest just disappears quietly. If its true everyone likes him and no one is gunning for his job and no one has any hard feelings and she’ll behave herself, he might slide through this.
But if those things don’t happen, he’s toast. If they want to fire him, there is nothing stopping them from doing so.
Get that resume together. Do a working draft TONIGHT, then polish it up over the next day or two.
Get it out there.
IF you trust your supervisor and have a good relationship with him/her, AND if you are valuable to the company, then follow Shodan’s advice in post #31 and have a come-to-Jesus conversation with your supervisor about this.
If you do that, don’t try to soft-pedal it. Make sure that anything your supervisor might find out about this relationship in terms of breaching of company policy, s/he hears from you. If you soft-pedal it and your supervisor finds stuff out later that makes it look worse, you’ll be cleaning out your desk while the security guard waits to escort you from the premises.
But if you think there’s a good chance that that will be the result of going to your supervisor regardless, then avoid that step, and just concentrate on trying to find another job before the shit hits the fan at this one.
End your relationship and quit the job. You shouldn’t be dating or managing anyone as long as you think the question here is how you can weasel around what you’ve done and have everything stay the same for you.
No need to waste money on a lawyer. Even if you’re not in an at-will state, it would be termination for cause, no question, and that also means no unemployment benefits. Don’t tell anyone in the company either, especially not HR, which has much less reason than your boss to want to keep you around and a lot of reason to get rid of a potential massive legal liability for the company.
The only way you won’t get fired is if nobody finds out in a way that they can’t dismiss as this woman just being flighty and making up stories. You can ask her not to say anything more, to keep you both from getting fired, but that will only buy some time while you both get new jobs. That is much easier if you already have one, as you may know, and it’s a good reason in general always to keep your resume updated.
