#one of my coworkers is being a complete bitch to me and i have nooo idea why

[joyridingmp3]

oh summertime we're really in it now

[kavernathy]

my ex-coworker's now-ex wife decided he and i were having an affair because i called him "dude"

story time

i work at a non-profit and in late summer of '21 we hired this guy to run one of our programs. he was pretty good at it. when he first started, he was really excited at the prospect of being able to serve his community and apply his skills to the job. we were thrilled to have him, as the program he ran was pretty intense and the rest of us didn't have the bandwidth to handle it on top of our own workloads.

one day he brings his wife in to show her the office and meet all of us. we'll call her jenny. both this coworker and jenny are in their 50's, i am in my 30's. jenny seemed really nice, and wanted to volunteer for our organization. like any non-profit that relies on volunteer support, we happily trained her and put her out in the field. by all accounts she did a great job and the clients appreciated her service.

my coworker, we'll call her elaine, mentioned to me that jenny kept trying to friend her on her socials. not totally out of bounds, but a bit strange. then my office manager, who i'll refer to as sophie, told me that jenny kept inviting her out for a drink but would either cancel at the last minute or ghost her. huh.

in october, i get married to my husband, who i am madly in love with and have been with for 9 years.

the new year rolls around and my coworker starts working from home. i'm told this is because jenny is a nurse and he's at high risk of getting covid-19, didn't want to bring it to the office. this made sense at the time, ofc.

finally in late january of '22, i get a friend request on one of my socials from jenny. i message her and let her know that i keep my work life and my personal life separate, and i don't friend people from work. that is a very strict boundary of mine that i drew because my past experiences have informed me that it's just a simpler way to live.

now i know one can't really parse tone out in text messages, especially if you don't really know the other person, but she sent a creepy ass response that was like, "oh tee-hee silly, i don't actually work with you!"

i responded that this was a boundary of mine and i politely asked her to respect it.

her reply to that was something to the effect of, "haha ok [my coworker] and i don't really make work friends either, and remember, no nicknames!" the fuck? i thought. nicknames? i realized she meant when i call him "bud" or "dude". then it hit me - this absolute dork thinks i am having an affair with her husband and she is trying to spy on me to catch me. lmao. ohhhh nooo.

i am insulted for several reasons. one, i deeply love my husband and we are monogamous. two, i have... higher standards than that. three, bitch are you serious? because i called him "bud" and "dude"? i tried to play it cool. i told her i didn't know what she was talking about, that this seemed to be something between her and her husband, and i didn't want to be anywhere near it. i blocked her. fuck all that.

thing is, my coworker and i occasionally share projects and our office is not set up for us to efficiently do our work remotely. and shortly after jenny being weird at me over socials i realized that my coworker was working from home as a performative act to reassure jenny that he wasn't having an affair with me, and it was my boss's idea.

this is a stupid move for a couple reasons. probably most obvious is that it makes getting work done difficult. but really, what looks guiltier than completely upending your work life to accommodate your spouse's wild notions? it's practically a signed confession, the way i see it.

i called my boss and my boss's boss and demanded that they do better than this. that this was fucking absurd. we don't live in a soap opera, y'all. i assure you, i am a deliriously happy newlywed and devoted to my husband. the most i do in my free time is eat cheesy popcorn and play video games. my coworker was back in the office the following week.

however, his mental health was clearly suffering. he lost a ton of weight and was ghostly pale. he was like that for months.

in the end, he divorced her. i heard through the grapevine that jenny had totally lost it. turns out she hid a significant mental illness from my coworker and decided to stop taking her meds after she """""found out about the affair"""""". when they got divorced, jenny took my coworker's dogs in the settlement.

he later quit, bought a van, a plot of land in hawaii, and fled mainland usa just to get away from her.

i had to delete my linkedin profile and lock all the rest of my socials up tight, as there was evidence of her watching me. she still could be, for all i know.

all because i called her husband "dude".