I was at my dream job for over a year. It was entry-level, but it was the perfect way to get my foot in the door and work in the industry I’ve always wanted to work in since I was a kid.
I immediately liked my boss. She was very cool and hip and open and didn’t really act like a normal boss. She was super funny and would play pranks on me and ask me questions about my dating / personal life like a girlfriend, not a supervisor. I would genuinely be excited to see her every day. It was like going into work to see a friend. I also started developing a pretty big crush on her.
We’re both technically independent contractors. The job was coming to an end this summer, and my boss asked me if I could jump on a much smaller job she was doing for a couple months. She couldn’t pay me, but she would offer me a title increase and closely mentor me. I had some money saved up and knew I could get through the summer working for free – plus I liked her and working for her so much. So I agreed.
The hours were super long and we got even closer. She was married and eventually started treating me like a therapist when it came to her marital problems. Every day she would come in and update me about the problems she was having with her husband, what they were fighting about, their sex life, etc. This made me feel really special because I liked that she trusted me and came to me for advice.
One night we were working really late and we started talking about sex (we talk about sex a lot, so this wasn’t unusual). She told me about a time years ago she went to a gay bar with a friend and someone tried to pick her up and how she regrets not going for it and asked me if I had ever slept with a woman and I told her I had. Then she kissed me and we ended up hooking up on the couch. It was really emotionally overwhelming and I ended up crying. She comforted me but I could tell I totally freaked her out.
Things were weird for a while. She mostly avoided me and just pretended it didn’t happen. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to do anything to further jeopardize my career so I didn’t push anything. Then she stopped coming into work. One day I came in and the assistant to the guy we’ve been working for told me she was going to start working from home. We were nearing the end of the job around this time, so this didn’t seem unusual, but she didn’t even warn me. Then the other day I had to present our work to the guy we’ve been working for and she was super mean to me after I finished. She just kind of glared at me and went, “Bye.” and walked out of the room.
The job ended a couple months ago and I haven’t worked since. She used to be warm and affectionate, and then her texts to me after we slept together suddenly turned cold and terse or she just wouldn’t respond at all. I’m looking for another job, but she’s my only contact in the line of work we were doing (it was an entry level, foot-in-the-door situation for me). I’ve reached out to her a couple times to tell her I’m looking and if she knows of anything and she’ll just a respond with a, “No.” I heard she started a new job and hired someone else to be her assistant. I’m almost out of money and have started looking for serving jobs.
I feel anxious and confused and terrified, but also hurt and used. Sometimes I just feel overwhelmed with anger when I think about her and all the long hours I worked for her for free under the promise that it would be good for my career, only to end up abandoned and unemployed. I also feel a tremendous amount of guilt and self-blame, and I replay the night we slept together over and over in my head, and I wonder how I could have extricated myself from that situation without things getting weird between us and hurting my career and all the hard work I put into the job. I’m terrified she’s blacklisted me or something, but I don’t know why she would do that or if she even could. I also can’t reach out to my friends, because if what happened between us got out I could pretty much just kiss my career goodbye. I really miss her too.
I’ve spent the entire morning crying on the couch over this. I really scared for my future and I don’t know what to do. Please help.
Tl;dr: Got my foot in the door in my dream career and my boss promised to mentor me. Then she seduced me and stopped talking to me.
Submitted December 01, 2018 at 09:58AM by hurtandconfused58767 https://ift.tt/2rg3pi8
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