Boyfriend + work environment = trouble

[Mighty Girl]

I can't count the number of times I've discovered what a control freak I was dating- because they would constantly call or visit me at work. They think because I was in a store that was open to the public, that they had a standing invitation to show up and talk my ear off. Seriously, there's been at least 20 guys who I've dumped for that reason alone (and yes, I did mention that perhaps it was not such a good idea to do that, I didn't blindside them).

And if I made the oh-so-dire mistake of mentioning an annoying customer, they just stepped it up and would try to hunt them down. (Yes, I know men like to "fix" problems, they don't just listen and let it go, but that's another rant altogether).

[MadMike]

I was never dating anyone while I was in retail, but my ex used to constantly call me up and bug me at my current job. I'm behind several secured access doors, so she wouldn't have been able to just show up and visit me, but the calls became quite annoying, especially when I was really busy. If I dared to be busy, she'd get all pissy about it. Same thing if I happened to step away from my desk and miss her call. I guess she thought we were all chained to our desks or something.

She said she only called me because she was bored, and wanted to talk to someone. I guess getting and keeping a job was out of the question, or even cleaning the apartment once in awhile.

It got even worse once we split up. If it wasn't for the fact that we had a kid together, I would have had my number changed so she couldn't bug me. Sometimes she'd call up and try to act like we were still friends, other times she'd bitch at me because she wasn't getting to see our son. That was actually her own doing, not mine. Most of the time, she wouldn't bother with him, and if she said she was coming to see him, she'd show up hours late, or not at all.

I guess when you're with someone for as long as I was with her, they know just how to push all your buttons, and there were a few times that she put me in a bad mood for two whole days. The one time she got me so angry, I called her a "fucking cunt" and slammed the phone down. I felt bad about that later, because at the time the lady who sat across from me was very religious, but also very nice. I'm sure she was offended by the language, but she was a single parent as well, and understood what I was going thru. She didn't say a word abou the language, but told me that if I ever needed to talk, I could talk to her.

[powerboy]

I remember once, I was dating someone who worked with the public. I called her at her lunch time, like she would always do to me, at her lunch. I wanted to surprise her, and well I called the store, since I remembered that her cell was in my car. I got the manager, who knew me, but she told me to hang on for a minute or 2, while my ex came on. The manager hunged up on me. I called back, just letting her know that they hanged up on me. My ex dumped me, becuase of that. And to think, I wanted to be nice, and just tell that I loved her, and I get dumped. Glad, I am not dating her anymore.

[BusBus]

When I worked in a fast food restaurant (*sigh* my first job), my then-bf would sometimes visit the restaurant when I worked the Saturday night shift (yay 5pm-1am). He would read his book at a table and leave me to my work. I would visit/sit down if I could, but there was no "pay attention to me!" pressure. On a couple of occasions, him and his friends would go through the drive-thru and "taunt the box." Always a good laugh.

[Lace Neil Singer]

At the pizza place, the supervisor (basically, the girl who took over when the manager was on holiday/on a day off) had this boyf who worked there too as a driver; however, a lot of the time when he should have been out delivering orders, he was hanging around her. This really used to piss us all off, cuz she never told him to bugger off and do his job. Eventually, some of us complained discretely to the boss, and he had a word with the boyf and told him to do his work first and hang round his girlf second. This worked to some extent, but on slow days we still had to put up with him following her everywhere and talking to her in a really sickly sweet way.

[AFpheonix]

We had a tech who was married about the same time I was, but oh my god those 2 would carry on with each other all the time! It was embarrassing. They lived within walking distance of the store and she'd mosey over and hang out, and he, rather than WORK like a big boy, would go sit out in the waiting area with her and they smooch and blab and generally be annoying. One of the first times she did this, she was so stupid she started walking down the wrong street after leaving the store and didn't figure it out until about 20 minutes later. She then walked back to the store where he came BACK out and comforted her stupid ass.

She'd also call for him all the time, and it got to where I'd check to make sure he couldn't hear me, and tell her that he was busy with a customer and I'd give him a message to call back. I would then proceed to "forget" to give him the message. I could understand if it was an emergency, like she'd cut her arm off, but usually it was totally stupid stuff like "the doggie pooped on the rug!", and I am not exaggerating here.

I do recall one emergency in which I didn't get to the phone first, unfortunately. She had been abandoned by her sister in an area that has Tri-met bus service available, but apparently that wasn't good enough for her, he took off his smock and LEFT! I got stuck by myself while he rushed out to pick her up and take her home! WTF! I was pissed.

He has since gone onto a call center, where one of my customers works. Interestingly, she trained him, and when I warned her about his stupid wife, she rolled her eyes. She was doing it there, too. Agh. Way to bump up the hold times there, doofus.

[ArenaBoy]

Half of my department is/was dating a coworker or so at one point. Now imagine the drama that popped up because of this and you got the most disorganized, dysfunctional, melodramatic department ever. Insults were thrown, lies were made, and things never got taken care of. A significant other + work area = trouble but a A significant other who is a coworker + a work area = A lot of trouble.

[tollbaby]

I used to date someone who was practically impossible to get on the phone. He used to ask me to call him at work all the time, which wasn't a big deal (he had his own direct line & voicemail to boot). The problem came the last time I came down to visit him in Chicago. I had no idea if he was picking me up at the airport or if I was supposed to take the shuttle to his town and he'd pick me up there. So after four hours of getting his voicemail and him not calling me back, I pressed 0 to get to reception and asked them to page him (you can do that in emergencies).

He wasn't at the main building, so they transferred me to the building where he was for the afternoon... the girl there said "no, he don't work here, he works at Main" and transferred me back before I could even get a word in.... the girl at Main transferred me to North AGAIN, and the girl at North got all belligerent, saying "I *TOLD* you, he don't work here, he's at Main"... I tried to say "Wait!" but she had already transferred me back to Main. The girl at Main laughed and said she'd talk to the girl before transferring me again, and I was able to get hold of him finally. The problem was, his boss had been standing beside the receptioninst at Main the whole time, and was really pissed that his "girlfriend" was calling and wasting everybody's time, so he got written up for it *growl*

We were both pretty pissed, result being that I never phoned him at work, even to leave a voicemail, again. We broke up shortly thereafter, because although he KNEW it wasn't my fault, he still brought it up a couple of weeks later while we were arguing and obviously blamed me for getting him in trouble.