For my 18th birthday, I got myself a tattoo and a promotion at work. All my previous management team left a little before and once they heard I had gotten promoted the person who shaped my management style came in and told me that I was supposed to have turned it down so I could follow them. Eventually, I did, but not before being “the boss” of my social peers for a little bit.
During that time, one of my freight workers caught my eye. I was freight manager, but he was a couple years older than me, tattoos all over his arms and chest, dark hair and these intense eyes that I got stuck in every time we made eye contact. All of us gals at work thought he was dreamy, and when he asked me out I was thrilled.
Until our date consisted of me bringing over some of my stash to smoke, his giant and scary roommates insisting on me “sharing” with all of them and then them getting into a fist fight in the living room with me darting out without calling attention to myself and leaving behind my smoke.
Next day at work one of my “peers” asked me about it and I told her and said something flippant like “it was NOT a good time, I don’t recommend it, but I guess if you want to take a crack at it, he’s all yours”
And then I quickly found out about why managers don’t socialize with their staff, much less try to date them. It was messy and ugly, and within a month he no longer worked there.
Same time frame, but how I was actually making money; I had inherited a lucrative pot business from one of my friends who moved away and had inherited the business from her (ex) fiancé who she was supposed to run it while he entered the military. They broke up, he had a buddy come and collect his personal belongings, she moved back home to her mom, and I inherited customers, contacts and for lack of a better term, bodyguards.
Now, I’ve never put a lot of value into my own personal appearance, and more often than not I would hide my assets, but I was in my late teens-early 20’s, lifting and moving boxes as my “real job” and had access to the best reggies in the state at the time. I was, a commodity.
Every so often a customer would try to shoot their shot, but my “bodyguards” kept me safe and not one of them protecting me ever attempted to lay a hand on me. Which sort of sucked for me because oh man, they were yummy. BUT there was rules to follow, and it kept us efficient, and no harm ever came to me in that line of work. Also I accidentally lied, because one of them ended up being the guy I later married and divorced.
When I started my own business, my employees were: a guy I had casually dated as a teen, my wasband’s boss’ daughter and a mutual friend of the ex and the wasband. Working with them played a bigger part of my success than my own stubbornness, I see that clearly the more time passes. Most of “my” success was actually to their credit and I love them for it.
I went from married to divorced in that time, and I ended up dating my Office Manager for almost (5) years after my divorce was finalized. It was fun and exciting to work together at first, but when we went from casual to actually dating and eventually living together, it caused a lot of friction for each side of our relationship and so he ended up quitting and finding a different job.
When I started working again as an employee I was very much friendly but not friends to everyone, refusing to socialize at any place I was working until a couple of them ended up having the same gym routine as me and we accidentally became friends. Which then left my heart wide open to end up befriending the whole freaking service department.
Those five years were the gold standard of my career, and even though it comes with a side of toxic, I really felt like I was surrounded by family, and it was really nice to have such a large group of people willing to sock the jabronies who tried to “hurt” me, and feel the same towards them.
It’s been a little over a year since we were all together, and most of them have been spread out between (3) different companies so I don’t know if we’ll all ever be together in the same place for any amount of time again, but I love them all dearly, and know that they love me too.
Back when my Umpa died, I had a new board member for my volunteer job and I was trying to hold together my passion project AND my sanity while losing my favorite person ever and he forced me to talk to him about it. And made me talk to him for reals, like an equal, not a co-worker, and ended up becoming one of my best friends. To this day, if one of us needs advice on something hard, we know we got each other.
So, have you figured out the “rule” yet?
Duel Relationships. I learned the hard way as a young, dumb manager, and even had an entire ethics class about it when I was in school to be a LMT, duel relationships are the BIGGEST no-no in the professional world. (Even the underground not so legal professional world).
“Be friendly, not friends” to protect yourself and your reputation is the go to line. If you work with friends, it’s hard to stay professional is another argument. I’ve heard it all, and they are ABSOLUTELY correct. Most of the time, blurring those lines between professional and friends (and more) makes things messy and complicated. And a lot of the time, it’s not worth the mess, and I am totally team follow the rules.
BUT. Occasionally. Someone saunters into your life (or you into theirs) and the rules say to keep your distance, but you know that your life will be more full if you don’t. So, what will you do?
Play it safe? Follow the rules and know that you’re doing the “correct” thing? OR. Do you do the right thing and bring some color to your life, risking that backlash if it ends the way of the stories that justify the rules?
I don’t actually have an answer here of my own, and while this is about all forms of relationships, I can’t help but think of that god awful romcom (that I sort of love, shh), “He’s Just not Into You”. You know, where they spend time ranting about how people need to stop acting like they’re the exception to rules and realize that they’re just a normal person THE ENTIRE MOVIE. And then at the end chick face throws his words about the exact thing in dude’s face and he’s all goopy when he said “but you’re my exception”.
Which you know, completely counteracts the entire point of the GD movie, but you know, romcom. And I guess that’s also the point I’m trying to make?
Most of the time, those rules were 100% the right choice to follow, and when I’ve broken them, it’s backfired horrifically sometimes and blossomed other times.
Ok, it took me a while to get here, and I apologize if I went in a couple loops to make it, but here’s where I’m landing:
1) rules exist for a reason, and you should probably have some sort of loose guidelines you follow, but you can’t let your life be controlled by unmovable guidelines written for a stark black and white world
2) the rules that matter still have exceptions, but they’re rare
3) if you’re not willing or able to live with the worst case scenario of breaking the rules, stay in the lines
4) I think I want to break a rule lol
