the poorly kept secret, the all-staff email, and other stories of affair drama at work

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

Last week we talked about coworkers cheating on coworkers, coworkers cheating with coworkers, and related drama. Here are 11 of the most bananapants stories you shared.

1. The poorly kept secret

At OldJob where I was an intern, there was a couple (Bob and Barbara) who were having an affair. They were in the same department but on different development teams and they didn’t think anyone knew, but in the gossip-heavy workplace, it took all of two seconds for the affair to be discovered. The couple’s preferred way of being discreet was to pretend they didn’t know each other. Whenever someone would mention Bob to Barbara, she’d say something like “Oh does he work on (wrong floor)? I don’t think we’re acquainted.” And then Bob would say “Barbara? Is she the (wrong title) in (wrong department)?”

Naturally, this led to everyone finding ways to mention Bob and Barbara as much as possible just to see what new way they’d pretend not to know the other. Then someone created a scavenger hunt list. Every week, a group of employees would compete with each other to get Bob or Barbara to pretend not to know the other in as many different parts of the building as possible. Elevators and bathrooms garnered the most points.

The game came to an end during the state association conference when the two of them wound up on the same certification panel and were forced to “introduce” themselves to a huge room full of their colleagues. Scuttlebutt was the department head got sick of the scavenger hunt shenanigans and assigned them both to the panel as a way to shut it down.

2. The cheating rumor

When I started dating my husband, I referred him by his proper name (let’s say John). But he had a nickname in the family, let’s say JJ, and he always went by JJ when we were with family and friends. So a couple times at work, I used JJ instead of John. One of my gossipy coworkers went to another and said, “Oh my gosh, John seemed like such a good fit for her. I can’t believe she went behind his back with this guy JJ!” Supposedly they decided not to “embarrass” me by asking about it, so for a few weeks, my office thought I was cheating on my boyfriend with … my boyfriend.

3. The head of HR

I’m a cheater whisperer, people feel the need to confess to me when they’re cheating, thinking about cheating or being cheated on all the time. I don’t know why either.

The weirdest confession at work came from the head of HR (!!), at the Christmas party, in the bathroom.

Jane, head of HR, hired Fergus, a sales manager. Who was engaged at the time, which everyone knew as it was part of his introduction to the company.

About three months after Jane hired Fergus comes the Christmas party, traditionally with an open bar. I’m drunk and in the bathroom, washing my hands. Jane comes in, presumably even drunker than I am, bursts into tears and sort of falls into my arms and confesses her affair with Fergus to me. There are tears. There is sobbing. I have no idea what’s going on. I don’t remember the whole episode that clearly (again: drunk as hell) but I remember awkwardly patting Jane’s back with my wet hands since I hadn’t gotten around to drying them yet; a couple of renditions of me going “he’s never going to break off the engagement” and her going “I know but I think I love him”; a colleague walking into the bathroom, seeing Jane and me and just turning around and walking back out again; and the same colleague later coming back to rescue me. I don’t know how long Jane and I were in the bathroom, but it felt like forever. It was at least long enough for my colleague to grow a conscience and return to help.

The whole thing was so surreal that the next morning I genuinely wasn’t sure if it was real or an alcohol induced hallucination, except the colleague who came to my rescue asked me the next day WTF that had been all about (I DON’T KNOW) and Jane didn’t look me in the eye for weeks (no great loss, she was shitty HR anyway).

4. The Love Shack

At my mom’s workplace years ago, they were all social workers for the state and had cleaning crew provided by the county. They were performing the cleaning as part of community service requirement. For the most part, this was fine. The workers treated the cleaning crew well and respected them. The work was mainly vacuuming halls, dumping trash, and groundskeeping.

One social worker who was married and had children struck up a “friendship” with one of the crew who was her age. My mom and her coworkers did think it was odd she was pouring so much attention on this guy. And she turned around saying she was helping him through her church. I mean, the guy met her husband and had been to her house during a party that other coworkers were at. Turns out they were having liaisons in the storage shed out the back during working hours. They got caught in the act one day by a worker going to get some equipment.

And the worker that caught them was legendary. They didn’t notice her. She walked back into the building, got on the phone intercom and called the office head to come out back to the “Love Shack.” The office head starts asking her what she means and she tells them as she walks them back to the shed where they both catch them. That worker got fired on the spot and to our knowledge, never told her husband why. My mother and her coworkers consistently called the storage shed the Love Shack after that point.

5. The hookup capital

I worked at this place that was known as “hookup capital.” Cheating is rampant — people would come married into this workplace and leave married to someone else — it’s nuts. There was this one guy who sat next to his girlfriend, and they worked on the same department. They were classic high school sweethearts who had been dating for years, until they got married while working there. Turns out, the girl was cheating on the guy for years with someone else who sat next to them in the same department. They divorced, while sitting next to each other, and the girl married the new guy. Later on, the girl left to a different place for a couple years, and then divorced the new guy. Then she came back TO THE SAME DEPARTMENT and sat next to her ex-husband and proceeded to date someone else while cheating on them with the original guy. I think they even got remarried or they were dating by the time I left — it was unclear.

That workplace is a mess. I miss the drama, it kept me entertained.

6. The revenge

Male manager (Bobby), divorced, has girlfriend (Cindy) who everyone knows because she runs a hotel/conference center and gives company great cost breaks. Bobby begins acting suspiciously with Jan, his employee, who is married. Bobby and Jan deny anything is going on. Jan gets divorced. Bobby claims he has broken up with Cindy so please don’t ask her for discounts. Bobby gets involved with Marcia, but it’s not romantic – she just needs his help so he goes over and makes her coffee every morning, but he definitely doesn’t sleep there!

Jan begins to smell a rat. She contacts Marcia, who says what do you mean? Bobby and I are engaged! Jan reveals she and Bobby and engaged! Jan calls Cindy and – you guessed it – she and Bobby are engaged!

The stage is set. Marcia and Bobby go out for dinner. They are seated at a table for four. After drinks are ordered, Jan and Cindy appear (IN THEIR WEDDING DRESSES!) and sit down.

Bobby married Carol six months later.

7. The obliviousness

I am oblivious to this type of thing and am always the last to know about any interoffice romances, cheating or not.

I once walked into my boss’s office to ask a question and a coworker was in there too. Asked my question, got the answer, and went back to my desk to continue working. I DID NOT SEE ANYTHING or SUSPECT ANYTHING untoward going on. Must have had my head down looking at paperwork or was just not paying attention.

Next day, both parties came to me separately so embarrassed asking me not to say anything/gossip about what I saw the prior day. I truly had no clue what they were talking about. I can only assume I did see something but my brain would not compute and just lost the memory completely.

8. The mess

I have a good one because of the absolute audacity! This background is necessary for how this happened and caused no one to get in trouble. The first place I worked after college was very “high school” in terms of gossip and everyone making horrible relationship choices since 95% of the people hired in that department were hired straight out of college and most higher ups had come up through the ranks with almost no outside hires. The job involved a lot of lab work where people were scheduled to work with the same people throughout the whole day. The tasks were pretty mindless, so gossip was the easiest way to pass the time.

There was a girl (Sherri) on one of the teams. She was secretly dating Casey, Zane, and Jess. She’d told each of them that she wanted to keep it a secret because she didn’t want their relationship to become workplace gossip. She also told each of them that she HATED the other two guys due to them treating her poorly. Thus, all three guys would only talk to her one-on-one at work and tried their best to avoid each other.

This worked really well until she went on vacation with her family. One of the schedulers who had an idea of what was going on chose violence that week and scheduled all three guys in the same task every single day that week. The first day all three worked in silence. The second day Casey started talking about how he was sad because his girlfriend was on vacation that week. Zane and Jess thought that was a coincidence because their girlfriends were also on vacation. One of the three of them said something about it being hard to have a secret girlfriend at work. Then the floodgates opened and they all realized they were all dating Sherri and she was cheating on all three of them. Picture the Spiderman meme where they’re all pointing at each other if you want an accurate picture.

At the end of the week, Casey and Jess were assigned to lead a project together for the next three rooms, even though they hated each other so much that they couldn’t speak to each other and none of the three were allowed to be scheduled with each other because it would devolve to screaming.

Sherri came back to a nightmare. Casey, who had been dating Sherri the longest, ended things with her because he also blamed her for the issues. Jess would talk crap about Sherri to anyone who would listen. Zane thought Sherri was out of his league and that he couldn’t do any better, so he continued to date her and they made the relationship public. However, Sherri continued to cheat on Zane with Jess.

Jess would talk about it with other coworkers while riding the bus home, so everyone, including Zane, knew about it. It was the talk of the department for months.

9. The car dealership

During my time at a car/recreational vehicle dealership, Phil was our top salesman, for reasons no one could define. His jokes weren’t funny, his belt buckle was the size of his head, he wore his shirt unbuttoned nearly to the waist, he referred to himself in the third person – he probably even hated puppies, not sure. Phil never met an elderly customer he couldn’t or wouldn’t screw over.

Phil was married – as cads often are – to a wonderful woman we all loved, who was unaware of his penchant for picking up strippers, bringing them back to the dealership, and “christening” the new RVs. None of us could stand him but since he had the highest sales, he was untouchable.

One morning, a few salesmen were standing around, snickering about the night before. They had all gone to a strip club, where Phil met a stripper – “Berry” – whom he brought back to the dealership for the RV portion of his evening. Typically, he would just shoo them out when they were done, and go home to his wife, but Berry was impressed with his new “digs” and resisted leaving. Phil told the salesmen that she delayed him getting home so much, his wife was suspicious.

I asked the salesmen if they wanted to assist ruining Phil’s morning; they couldn’t agree fast enough.

Our dealership was huge, covered three buildings and four large parking lots. This pre-dated cell phones/pagers, so to get a hold of someone, you had to use the PA system. Both the buildings’ and the lots’ speakers were insanely loud; the people buried in the cemetery down the road probably never got a moment’s piece during business hours.

I knew Phil was in the RV lot, tidying up from the night before. Over the PA, I announced, “Phil, please call Reception.” When he did, I said a friend of his was waiting in the lobby, she said her name was Berry. I am fairly certain he dropped the phone. He told me to say he wasn’t available, and ordered me to get rid of her. I hung up. Minutes later, I paged Phil again; when he called, I reported Berry was interested in buying a car, and would not work with any other salesman, given that Phil had promised her a big discount. Phil was irate (cheating on his wife with strippers was one thing, giving a customer a discount was intolerable) and again, told me to get rid of her.

I hung up and paged him again after another imaginary conversation with Berry. This went on for a ridiculous amount of time; Phil giving me increasingly panicky demands to get her to leave, “Berry” becoming more insistent on getting that discount she was promised. I was just about to let Phil off the hook when the owner of the dealership arrived, perfect timing! I to page Phil twice to get him to come to the main building.

When he finally stormed over, he noticed the owner’s car and really panicked. He said, “Where’s Berry?” and one of the salesmen said she was waiting in the customer lounge. When Phil couldn’t find her, another salesman said he saw her walk out to the new car lot. Still no Berry. Yet another salesman said, “That chick wearing the blue dress? I saw her walking over to the RVs.” Phil sprinted out the door just seconds before we all broke down laughing. We kept that up for an hour, making Phil jog all over, looking for Berry. Cruel, but highly entertaining. Finally, Phil had sweated through his clothes, and we had gotten bored. The salesmen told Phil they tracked her down and asked her to wait in the conference room. Phil burst through that door, only to find our way-past-retirement (and in on the joke) comptroller sorting files. She looked up at him and said, “Hello, big boy!” and winked.

Phil didn’t talk to anyone for over a week. It was glorious.

10. The calculations

My spouse works as an independent contractor for a larger company, where each person/team is paid for jobs completed and difficulty, not hourly. Those able to complete the greatest number of jobs and/or who have expertise in the most challenging specialties make the most money.

There was a woman who worked in sales who realized she could calculate which of the subcontractors were making the most with the data she had … and then she proceeded to date ALL of the top earners (this is a very physically demanding, male-dominated industry). At once. The company is spread out across the country, and most subcontractors travel frequently, so it was actually pretty easy to keep them secret from each other for several years.

However … when it got out, the whole company kind of exploded. She’d been in “exclusive” relationships with at least 12 men, some of them with wives and children, and almost all of whom she’d convinced to spend extravagant amounts of money on her in gifts and vacations. There were several divorces and at least one physical altercation. One employee literally disappeared into the desert for several weeks and then just … went back to work and nobody said anything about it. The saleswoman was let go, but almost all of the men stayed with the company, so … now all the top performers just hate each other’s guts. No one with any of the key specialties can teach the whole system, and they absolutely refuse to work together on anything ever, including teaching the same person in sequence, so the company is now slowly crumbling because one woman was the world’s most manipulative player.

11. The all-staff email

I used to work at a small agency owned by two partners. One afternoon, a coworker looked over at me across the open-plan working space and whispered “Have you checked your email?” When I did I found an email from the wife of one of the partners addressed to the entire company with the subject line “Big News!” and the text:

Hey Everybody!

[Partner] and [Designer] are sleeping together! She can have him!

I sat there for the next fifteen minutes or so as you could watch people go from quietly working to gazing around with the same shell-shocked expression that I and my coworker had. Eventually the designer in question read the email and left in understandable embarrassment. I left shortly thereafter, texting my wife with the location of a bar near her office and informing her that I would be waiting there with a stiff drink until she could get off work.

Relatedly, if you want to read a very long email sent company-wide by the wife of an employee who was cheating on her with a coworker, you may do so here.