Several months ago I was walking by a co-worker’s cozy little corner office and glimpsed the sight of an odd scene; both her and her boss were picking up pieces of a broken chair from across her desk with puzzled expressions on their faces. I shrugged it off at the time and kept hauling to a meeting I was otherwise late for.
Months went by and this co-worker and I became closer friends. It became over the holidays when she got engaged to another employee of the sales team that the two of them had been in an office romance for who knows how long. (For the sake of privacy, let’s call them Harry and Sally. It fits, trust me.)
So the other day Sally, Sam and I headed out for lunch. It was one of those gloriously fabulous Fridays where our workloads were light, the bosses were out and we could take our sweet time doing whatever the hell we wanted after what felt like a week living in the seventh level of purgatory at the office. Naturally, cocktails were ordered with lunch (it was the happen medium to otherwise playing hooky for the rest of the work day; a fair comprise, we all agreed). Into the second hour and second round of drinks, Sally leaned in and began telling us the story of how her Harry hooked up.
Evidently, the two had become friends when Sally began employment, however both were in other relationships at the time; her living with some asshole she knew she needed to get rid of and he was currently going through a nasty divorce and custody battle over his two-year-old son. Nevertheless, they both flirted profusely as time passed and they both hit the single’s market.
One night last summer a team of us from both the marketing and sales divisions were working late into the evening on a client project. I specifically remember the insane deadline of 48 hours we were given when the bomb dropped on us. We all eventually trickled out of the building around 9:00pm, though no one realized these two were the last to leave. Sally grinned at us from across our lunch table, plates completely forgotten, as she recapped the story for us.
The absurdly heavy flirting that evening turned into a make out session in the conference room and was eventually taken back to her office. Staplers, pens and papers were flung off her desk in an attempt to make it into some form of makeshift bed. When that didn’t work, they fell off and onto the floor, landing on the chair across from her desk in the process. When the hot and heavy sex scene ended and they began putting the office back together before heading out, Sally realized one of the legs on the chair was nearly broken off altogether. Nevertheless, it was shifted back upright and straightened out as much as possible before jetting out the door.
The next day, Sally said, she had come in running late and had completely forgotten about the chair altogether. That is, until her boss came in bitching about her previous month’s numbers and plopped down in the chair. CRRACCCKKK! The chair broke right out from underneath him and he went flying backwards, hitting his head on the door. Sally bit her lip so hard it bled to keep from laughing hysterically as her boss, flustered and red by this point, apologized profusely (the guy is not necessarily a twig by any means). The chair was replaced with a new, more modern ergonomic chair within the week and her boss never found out exactly what really happened.
So as I sit her at my desk giggling to myself, thumbing their wedding invitation while recapping her lunch story in my mind, I realize that I am undeniably jealous of them. And how short life really is when we’re not really living it up, caring too much for rules and what other people might think. It makes me want to get out more. And break some rules.
Months went by and this co-worker and I became closer friends. It became over the holidays when she got engaged to another employee of the sales team that the two of them had been in an office romance for who knows how long. (For the sake of privacy, let’s call them Harry and Sally. It fits, trust me.)
So the other day Sally, Sam and I headed out for lunch. It was one of those gloriously fabulous Fridays where our workloads were light, the bosses were out and we could take our sweet time doing whatever the hell we wanted after what felt like a week living in the seventh level of purgatory at the office. Naturally, cocktails were ordered with lunch (it was the happen medium to otherwise playing hooky for the rest of the work day; a fair comprise, we all agreed). Into the second hour and second round of drinks, Sally leaned in and began telling us the story of how her Harry hooked up.
Evidently, the two had become friends when Sally began employment, however both were in other relationships at the time; her living with some asshole she knew she needed to get rid of and he was currently going through a nasty divorce and custody battle over his two-year-old son. Nevertheless, they both flirted profusely as time passed and they both hit the single’s market.
One night last summer a team of us from both the marketing and sales divisions were working late into the evening on a client project. I specifically remember the insane deadline of 48 hours we were given when the bomb dropped on us. We all eventually trickled out of the building around 9:00pm, though no one realized these two were the last to leave. Sally grinned at us from across our lunch table, plates completely forgotten, as she recapped the story for us.
The absurdly heavy flirting that evening turned into a make out session in the conference room and was eventually taken back to her office. Staplers, pens and papers were flung off her desk in an attempt to make it into some form of makeshift bed. When that didn’t work, they fell off and onto the floor, landing on the chair across from her desk in the process. When the hot and heavy sex scene ended and they began putting the office back together before heading out, Sally realized one of the legs on the chair was nearly broken off altogether. Nevertheless, it was shifted back upright and straightened out as much as possible before jetting out the door.
The next day, Sally said, she had come in running late and had completely forgotten about the chair altogether. That is, until her boss came in bitching about her previous month’s numbers and plopped down in the chair. CRRACCCKKK! The chair broke right out from underneath him and he went flying backwards, hitting his head on the door. Sally bit her lip so hard it bled to keep from laughing hysterically as her boss, flustered and red by this point, apologized profusely (the guy is not necessarily a twig by any means). The chair was replaced with a new, more modern ergonomic chair within the week and her boss never found out exactly what really happened.
So as I sit her at my desk giggling to myself, thumbing their wedding invitation while recapping her lunch story in my mind, I realize that I am undeniably jealous of them. And how short life really is when we’re not really living it up, caring too much for rules and what other people might think. It makes me want to get out more. And break some rules.
