Dear Snarky,
I think I might need to quit my job. I don’t want to because I love my job and the pay and benefits are really good but some stuff has happened that’s making me think I need to leave and do it quickly.
I’m going to blame it on the pandemic. I started my job in late February of 2020 and exactly two weeks after later the company went WFH. Everything has been remote since then but we recently got a memo that on September 6 everyone has to be back in the office.
A couple of days later I got another email that a guy that had been in my work pod was promoted to group supervisor. My problem is that although I have never met this guy in person from April of 2020 to January of 2021 we had a pretty hot and heavy sexting relationship.
Like he’s seen a lot of me and I’ve seen a lot of him and we did a lot of what I’m going to call role playing that involved props. It was never serious and was really just a fun pandemic pastime but now I’m freaking out about seeing him in person every day and the fact that he’s now my supervisor.
It’s not like I think I need to quit because I did something wrong. When we were sexting this guy and I were equals at work so no one was in a position of power. But now just the thought of seeing him is making me nauseated. My friends think I should stay at the job because it’s not fair that I feel I have to leave when my sext mate is riding high with a promotion.
What would you advise? I want to stay but I also don’t want to be riddled with anxiety every single day.
Signed, Was Naked and Now Afraid
Dear Naked,
We all did a lot of things during the pandemic that we’re now regretting. For instance, I cut and colored my own hair and I’m still paying the price. But regrets aside, what I think you need to do before you flee from a job you like is actually have a talk with your former pandemic buddy before you go back into the office. Like an IRL conversation – both of you together in the same place conversing.
Will it be weird? Yes, at first it will probably be very awkward BUT after you both get all the meeting in person for the first time, OMG can you believe we have to go back to the office stuff out of the way it might go better than you expect.
Once that is over you congratulate yourself and check – seeing my former sext mate in person and surviving it – off your list.
Next up is going to be scheduling a meeting with H.R. and asking for a work assignment where your former, umm, special friend is not your supervisor. You don’t need to go into any details, but you will need to divulge that during the pandemic you had an online relationship and because of that you don’t think it would create the best work environment for either of you.
If H.R. can accommodate your request and since you’ve already conquered your fear of seeing your “friend” in person, then I suggest you stay at your job. At the very least give it a chance and see what happens. If after that you decide to leave at least you’ll be making a decision based on facts and not fear of the unknown.
And now just because I’m a mom I feel duty bound to remind you that moving forward I suggest you make it a rule that co-workers are off limits in this certain section of the fun and frivolity department.
***
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📚Hell hath no fury like a menopausal woman scorned
Three middle-aged women who have seen their carefully crafted lives take a precipitous financial plunge, forge an unlikely friendship while getting paid to take part in a clinical trial for a new menopause drug. The trio spends a month sequestered at a pharmaceutical testing facility, that has all the charm of a nail salon inside a Walmart, and bond over their anger and disbelief that their only hope for some quick cash is leveraging the remaining estrogen they have lurking in their ovaries.
Each of these women has a recent story of their existence hurtling to hell due to everything from a career catastrophe, extreme vanity that took an ugly turn and a husband who didn’t just walk out on a marriage but disappeared with all the money.
The primary things they have in common are that they’re broke, bitter and not yet ready to give up without a fight. One of the women, Julie, a brand-new empty nester and bougie super mom, who is trying not to lose her house, suggests that the other women, Cassie and Maria, pool their remaining funds and move in with her after their pharmaceutical testing stint is completed.
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Snarky in the Suburbs 