So my girlfriend of three years was finally canned by her flaming hole of a boss (I could craft a pit for this man so nasty that Gordon Ramsey would wince). He let her go three days before Christmas and ruined her holiday. It wouldn’t have cost him anything to wait until after the new year, since she was to start her mandated unpaid two-week vacation that next week. He refused to let her go get emergency dental work because he “might need her for something.” He threatened her with termination if she ever filed a Workers’ Comp claim.
Anyway, I digress. This thread isn’t about him (though I’ll be happy to start a separate one about his daily emotional and physical abuse if people ask).
So my girlfriend J starts looking for a new job immediately. On a whim, I ask her to email me her cover letter and resume, which I would forward to the Supplemental Staffing office in my hospital (they got me in as a temp three years ago, and it gave me a great foot-in-the-door to my current full-time position). I didn’t think it would amount to much.
Well, I get back to work this past Tuesday and J calls me telling me that my hospital wants to interview her immediately. I meet her after the interview and she tells me they were very impressed with her and she got the job (here’s the kicker) in an office that I deal with on a daily basis! So I’ll basically be calling my own girlfriend at work several times a week. She starts Monday.
We already discussed carpooling to work. I know I should be thrilled for her (and I am), but I honestly also have some mixed feelings. My job feels like my home away from home… I live with J and I enjoy my time with her, but I also enjoy my time away from her. And I really do love coming home to her every day. But it feels like I’ll be in pretty much direct contact with her every waking hour now, and I’m not sure I want that. Who knows, she might feel the same way. Am I a horrible person for feeling this way?
Yeah, that might get a little weird. But give it some time, it may not be all that bad.
Years ago I was facing homelessness, and my then-GF said that she would ask her landlord if any apartments in her building were opening up. Great news – one did. Not so great news – it was 30 feet from her apartment. But in the 4 years that we both lived there, we almost never ran into each other by accident.
And yes, I’d love to hear more about the asshole boss.
My gf (also J, also lives with me) has had some employment trouble lately. She started a (very) part time job as a tutor to work her way into the school system, which throws a big wrench in her daily schedule. She finally found a part-time job in the mornings that looked like it was going to work out well. But, they fired her by surprise about a week before Christmas, which set her up for the 2nd month in a row in which she can’t pay her share of the rent. This is not a crisis as I can pick up the slack for us, but it makes her feel terribly guilty.
So now I really have to watch what I say. My investments from the 4th quarter are already doing pretty well, but whoops! If she were more steadily employed I’d have been able to invest more and would be enjoying greater returns. I didn’t point that part out, but all references to this part of my life now sound like an accusation.
I have had so many different jobs in my life it is almost crazy. So I thought I might be able to help her broaden her horizons and maybe get into something more stable while she develops her contacts with the school district. I thought I was being nice, but something I said had her sobbing in the bathroom until 2 in the morning. Was I being a bad person? No, she is just more on edge than I realized.
Well, her spotty employment recently means that she seems to hardly ever leave the house. Sometimes I find myself wishing she had someplace to go for a couple of hours, if only so I could do some things without being interrupted or having to hear the TV. But exactly how would I communicate that without making her upset? She’s so touchy right now that I am simply not going to.
You are going to be susceptible to a higher level of relationship cabin fever than I am. It seems pretty natural- what can anybody talk about 24 hours a day? It’s hard, and after awhile you will probably feel like you could use a break. Here’s what I do: once a week after work I go to the bar with my magazine and lurk in the corner with some chicken wings for awhile. I’ve got a little place where I kind of ‘hide out’ from both work and home, even if it is only for about 90 minutes. She doesn’t seem to mind and it doesn’t seem to take much to relieve the feeling of pressure I sometimes get from having a live-in gf.
I’d snap and kill my SO, and we’ve been together fifteen years and I love him very much. But the only time our relationship was on seriously rocky ground was when we had to carpool together. I need my time away from him, with different people.
But you might be OK, since you do have to be in a different office. I’d set some ground rules, though. Work should be professional, don’t make kissy-faces in the hallways, and both of you have to understand you might need more space in the evenings.
Your girlfriend needs to contact workman’s comp and pass along the threat of her former boss. It’s not retribution. It’s informing workman’s comp there is an employer out there illegally abusing employees and their rights. Workman’s comp may not do anything about it directly. They may redflag that employer and watch them.
So, Work George is clashing with Relationship George? That can be rough.
On the other hand, take what you have and run with it. To make a long story short, Mrs. Devil and I work together–at home–often on the same projects. It. Is. Bliss.
Things may be a bit more complicated outside the home (e.g. office dynamics and pecking order), but if you accept it for what it is and look at it as getting to spend a bit more time with her, then it can work out wonderfully. I know there are several other Dopers in similar circumstances, so it’s not that far fetched.
My husband and I work in the same company and have offices three doors down from one another and sometimes work on similar projects.
We had to establish some ground rules fairly early on: 1) conversations about work (i.e., the ones you would have with any other co-worker in the same position, e.g., when I want to ask him about a project he’s working on for a proposal I’m writing) are always just fine, and we usually keep these separate from any sort of personal conversation (though they can be followed by a personal conversation if necessary); 2) extremely short non-work conversations, especially those that impart a high density of otherwise-unknown information, are fine (e.g., “I have a doctor’s appointment today, so I need the car at 3”); 3) off-the-subject non-work conversations are okay as long as they are kept to about one or two a day, not engaged in if one of us is busy, and are very short (e.g., “Hey, did you see that thread on the Dope? Thought you’d like it”) 4) long rambly non-work conversations are not fine.
I mean, we didn’t sit down and come up with all those rules one day; it just sort of happened as we figured out what we were comfortable with and what was proving to be more of a distraction to our workdays. It was a bit rough until we got it worked out, but it didn’t take long and now I love working at the same company with him!
Do yourself a great big favour and wait until there is something to freak out about first.
Second, talk to her about a strategy, NOW, in case it should get weird. Lay down some fall back rules if things should get hinky. Like only talking work at work, home at home. No PDA while on the job, cool professionalism only, etc. Remember it’s a fall back position, but delineating it may help you start off in the right place.
When I moved in with my boyfriend I was told, it was too soon, it will kill the relationship!
When he got a job, where I worked, I was told, it was a relationship killer.
When we went to travel, for months together, I was told, it’s a relationship killer.
Buying/renovating a house together - relationship killer.
Caregiving his mom in our home for years on end - relationship killer.
Almost 30 yrs later, we’re still together. And most of these things were as easy as drawing breath. For us. We did watch a lot of relationships crash on those same rocks, though.
Everybody is different, every relationship is different, don’t take on too much, or put to much stock in what ‘they’ say. ‘They’, it turns out, often, don’t know shit!
It could be suffocating. It could also be an opportunity to see her through a different lens and gain a new appreciation for her. You won’t know until it happens. Don’t worry until you find out which it is.
My husband and I worked for the same company for several years, and it worked out very well. I miss those days. We ate lunch together most days. We had similar ground rules to raspberry hunter, not explicitly stated, but it’s how things worked out. There are other married couples who work where I do, and at least one divorced couple, and as far as I know, no major drama.
To me, it was like having a really good work friend. And someone who knew exactly what you were talking about when you vented about work at home.
My brother in law took a job years ago - also for a hospital. My sister is also a medical professional, but they intended to start a family so she wasn’t going to work. But the hospital needed a little part time fill in help - would she? She did (she hadn’t gotten pregnant yet). When she got pregnant, would she do a little work until the baby came. Sure. Then there ways “could you just process paperwork for us - you know the hospital and we will set you up to work from home.” This started ten years ago - he has fundamentally the same job - she is now his boss - part time because she is still - in theory - a “stay at home mom.”
I worked with my ex-husband when we were still dating (but not after we married and I’ve seen him twice since the divorce was finalized). Its strange. I’d put some boundaries around “work” and “me time” up front. Like “yes we can go to lunch once a week, but I do want to hang out with my work friends one on one a bit too and I think you should also establish your own work friends.”
I’ve worked with my husband at two separate companies and I agree that it can work out but that you need some space and you need to talk about it.
Carpooling was a no brainer for us at the second company we worked at - it was a hellishly long commute and very expensive. There was no way we wanted to take two cars, but we rarely had lunch together and the only time I saw him during the day there was when our paths crossed on a work project or when he was stealing candy out of my drawer.
The first job was where we met and it evolved without our intervention from us working as a team on customer support to both of us being promoted to divergent groups. We didn’t have to put a lot of thought or work into it but the entire process made planning for the second time we worked together easier.
Never, ever intercede on her behalf - objectively reasonable or no.
You will be held to higher standards of professionality for this and she will be held to higher standards of pretty much everything until people can accept that she gained her job on her own merits, not because you bent the boss’ ear. Yes, even if there would realistically be no way for you to “get her” the job, that’s what people will believe given the smallest chance.
Urgh. Speaking as someone who worked at the same place, in the same department, as one of my exes and as someone currently managing two people who are married - there’s just an enormous potential for amazingly, absurdly petty bullshit.
