Grow Up

Back when my job sent me down to my home state to work for a month, I found out that one of my co-workers was having an inappropriate sexual relationship with one of our bosses.

To make matters worse, she had drawn two of our other co-workers into the mess and it almost hit the fan when yet ANOTHER of our co-workers admitted that she had been sleeping with this same boss.

The fall out from this was awkward. In an effort to keep things quiet, co-worker 1 who we'll call Lisa asked co-worker 2 who we'll call Danielle to go to dinner with her and the boss. The idea was a friendly work dinner wouldn't be seen as suspicious by any other co-workers. Long before we went back to our home state, Danielle was accidentally made privy to what was going on between Lisa and our boss, and then later co-worker 3 who we'll call Angie was also told when Lisa needed a friendly ear.

Eventually it all got to be too much and shortly after we got down to the state, both Angie and Danielle asked Lisa to end her relationship. Lisa promised she would, but when everything got busted by that 4th co-worker who had also been sleeping with this boss, it came to light that Lisa had lied. Both Danielle and Angie were upset.

I understood their anger, but ultimately felt like while none of us agreed with what Lisa was doing, as adults we had no right to tell her what to do. She made her choice and the consequence was that both Angie and Danielle felt they had to leave their friendship with her alone. This meant they weren't speaking to her and wanted nothing to do with her.

Fast forward to today. Though we're all co-workers, Angie works in a physically separate office. The tension between Danielle and Lisa was palatable and a few unknowing co-workers began to pick up on it. Recently, Lisa asked Danielle to go to lunch with her. They spoke and cleared the air. Danielle made it clear that she wasn't looking to go back to being friends, but cordiality was a necessity. Since then, the awkward tension.

Because Angie doesn't work in our office, she didn't know things had changed until today. Today she ran into all of us in the hall and seemed to be taken aback by the friendly nature with which we all interacted. Later she sent me a gchat message. In a passive aggressive way, she basically asked me what had happened so that things were so different between Lisa and Danielle. I told her that the tension between the two had gotten to be too much. In turn she said she felt like she had been left out in the cold and no one had her back because no one was as mad as she was anymore. I told her she should probably speak to Danielle.

Danielle on the other hand has been upset with Angie for a while. We'll make plans to go out and Angie will bail super last minute. Like won't pick up the phone when you call to confirm and always has some variation of "I was sick" as an excuse on the other side of the plan. Danielle feels upset that Angie won't come talk to her about this, but that further she seems to be critiquing her friendship loyalty when she hasn't been a very good friend herself.

There's a lot to be said about this situation. But what struck me the most was how absurd this is. Like I said, the choices Lisa made were for herself. They did effect more people than just her, but at the end of the day they were still her decisions. None of us needed to support them and none of us had to accept being lied to, but who are we to still be carrying that baggage around?

When you stay mad at someone like that, you give them power to control your emotions. How does that make any sense? I believe that anger was the last way Angie felt she had control over the situation but in reality she lost control a long time ago. The kicker is it was just today she realized she lost control and instead of turning it in on herself, she continues to look outside for an explanation for it all.

I told ya'll, I'm not doing stupid drama in 2009...