when you work with cheaters: share your stories

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

In response to the letter earlier this month about two engaged coworkers where one was cheating with another coworker, someone shared this hilarious story:

We had a situation where two managers (married to other people) were seeing each other. They thought they were being discreet but … they really weren’t. The guy’s wife worked elsewhere in the company. The woman was divorced. They’d travel to her house together on specific nights. A few coworkers took the same bus. The secret couple didn’t sit together. The female manager’s stop was the second stop, so several of the coworkers would make a point of talking to the male manager, who could not get off the bus when he wanted and would end up riding to the end of the route where he’d have to wait for the return bus. The coworkers took turns doing this (“Hey! Since when are you on this bus line?”) just to drive the managers crazy. A couple of times, someone would ride back in the other direction too. (“Oops! I forgot I’m meeting my wife two towns over! Why are you riding back this way?”) We’d also come up with ways to delay one or the other of them when they were trying to leave together. It was childish but really satisfying. They were terrible people.

We clearly need to discuss cheating at work — coworkers cheating on coworkers, coworkers cheating with coworkers, and related drama. Please share in the comment section.