The demographics at my current job skew younger and more male than my last previous three jobs.
My co-workers are also married at a higher rate than any other job I’ve had. I think the marriage rate has something to do with the original owner being a practicing Christian and hiring his first engineer group right out of his Married Men’s Bible Study class. The outgoing culture here is male and church belonging. The incoming culture is male and single with a few women thrown in for EOE purposes.
When I first got here, I was excited about how quickly my IT trouble tickets were answered. Everything is done on a trouble ticket. Out of hot chocolate in the break room? Trouble ticket. Need something loaded onto your computer? Trouble ticket. I was totally impressed by the IT Guy who would resolve my trouble tickets until I figured out that I knew more about my laptop than he did.
And when I mentioned how fast IT Guy got upstairs to answer the tickets, Q flatly put it out there: he’s hitting on you.
Then there was the operations tech who always seemed to be at the door when I was leaving for the day. He’d walk to his car while I was walking to my car, talking away. He held me hostage at a company picnic, talking away. When he kept looking at my ringless ring finger, I heard in my head Q’s simple words: he’s hitting on you.
Why did I not see it coming when we hired a new product manager who tried for weeks to plan an off-site company event with me? First, he needed writing help that “maybe we can finish at Starbucks or somewhere”. After that, he was thinking a department happy hour would be fun, even though we are in two different departments. I told Q about the happy hour while Q was driving to see me one night. I was confused why my sweetie was so upset and completely unwilling to meet the product manager for cocktails. He is hitting on you! he finally said in frustration. I don’t exactly want to go out on a date with my girlfriend and the man who wants to (have sex with) her!
Oh.
In my defense, Q doesn’t know certain girls are hitting on him when they visit his office nine times a week to talk puppies and politics, so I am not the only doofus in our relationship. Once I figure it out, I do tell the guy that I have a boyfriend. Sometimes, I have to say it several times, and I throw in my two baby-daddy kids for emphasis.
Once I say all that, I stop getting IT visits, walks to my car and happy hour invitations. It’s like I’m the company leper. Which isn’t all bad. I go to lunch everyday with Q anyway. It may be a phone date, but it’s still a date. But maybe it makes me sad that these men were only talking to me while they thought they had the chance to sleep with me. Once they found out otherwise, I no longer existed. Are all men like that?
Any girls wanting to troubleshoot my laptop, giggle with me as we leave work for the day and meet me for a few drinks after work, email me. I’m easy.
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