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I have this friend...
Hey, I'm 20 and female. My friend is a guy and he's 22.
I've known him for quite some time. We used to go to the same church, his mom was my youth group leader. Since he wasn't my age, he was in the youth group above me with my brother. They actually got to be pretty good friends. We went to this church together for eight years. So, I knew him since I was six (he was eight) and we left the church when I was fourteen.
From fourteen until I was eighteen, I forgot this guy existed. At eighteen, I got hired at my work and low and behold, he was my supervisor. But it's been so long that we forgot about each other and didn't even realize the other was who they were. Until, I checked the schedule the one day and it shows the last three letters of the last name and it clicked that I went home and checked the church directory. So I went in to work the next day and told him and he asked what my last name was and I told him and it was like a weird moment we had where for the rest of our shift, we would just reminisce about old church stories.
I've now been at my place of work for two years and he has since moved to be a supervisor of a department that isn't mine but he is still working in my department a lot so it isn't like I don't see him.
Every time he needs help, he asks me if I can help him and I always agree. He knows I don't like being on a register so whenever he can pull me off, he does, and I appreciate that. Now, the jobs he usually has me do are very detailed and time consuming whereas if he didn't have help, he'd be doing that one job for half of his shift. It's usually pulling old price tags and putting up new ones for rollbacks or that kind of thing.
Since inventory is coming up, today he had me count all of the candy in the checkout aisles. To do that, he gave me a supervisor palm pilot so I could put the quantities in it. Now, I was not the only person helping him, he had two others on each side but I was the only one that got the palm pilot and I was the only one that he would talk to and help and that he would kind of shadow if I got out of the screen by pressing the wrong thing or whatever. He had to do them and he simply couldn't in a short span of time so he took half while I did the others and we would meet in the middle when we were done. He finished a lot quicker than I did since he's done it before so when I was on my last aisle, he came over to help me finish it so we could move on to doing something else. I kid you not, the entire time we were in this aisle, my other supervisors would not leave us alone, somebody would constantly be in our presence.
After we finished all of the aisles, his manager needed him to help him with something so he left to go do that and told me to take my last break so I did while I waited for his return. As I was taking my break, an elderly cashier was doing so as well. We were sitting on the bench together and she asked what I was doing earlier so I told her I was helping my friend inventory the candy so he didn't have to do all of it alone. She looked at me, sighed and gave me a look. So I asked her what that was about and she told me that he has me hoodwinked and that I'm wrapped around his finger, every time he needs help, I always help him. So, I got mad. Since when did doing favors for a friend become so uncommon that people mistake it for forcefulness or some kind of hold over the other person? As she told me that, another cashier walked by and she completely agreed.
When he came back from break, I asked if he needed any other help or if I could hop back on register. He finished the last two boxes on his list while we talked about our own, separate, individual plans for the night and how he found a flask earlier and wants to buy it to bring it to work later (he was kidding). When he finished the two boxes, he told me we were done and thanked me. So I went to go return the palm to the supervisor he borrowed it from and she asked if I was signed in under her numbers the entire time, so I replied verbatim "No, I was on ______'s" and she looked and me and smirked and said "oh, you were on ______, huh?"
Since I was helping him for about three hours then I took my break, I was only on register after that for about 40 minutes until my shift was over. So, after work I texted the friend I work with but is in another department but he's around this guy and I enough to have an opinion. So I told him what everybody was saying to me about him having me hoodwinked and that kind of thing and his reply was "well, I will say that your relationship with him is different than most" so i asked him what he meant by that, if he agrees with everyone and sees what everyone else sees that this guy and I seem to be missing. He said no, he doesn't agree with them because he knows how long this guy and I have known each other so he gets the closeness of the bond we share. But he went on to say that we are way more affectionate that most and that he noticed on both ends that he and I "go out of our way" to talk about each other or bring up other topics to bring the other person up into conversation. When I told him that he's crazy and that we aren't affectionate, he said he didn't mean touchy feely affectionate, he meant that the way he interact could be misconstrued as flirting. This guy is very, very open with everything, he makes it 100% known if he does not like you or he has a problem with you and if he does, he will make cynical jokes at or toward you all the time. This other guy that I was texting said he isn't like that with me, that the jokes he makes at me are cynical but they aren't as rude as the other jokes he makes to people he blatantly does not like or he will always smile after the joke he tells me. Upon hearing this, I had asked other friends that I work with and they all agree that he is definitely different toward me.
I just don't see it. I don't think he sees it. I think he just asks me for help because he knows that I will do it without complaining and I will do it in the quickest manner to help him finish a task. I just think it's strange that now, so many cashiers are coming forward in their feelings about this guy and I; that I'm wrapped around his finger and that his normally strong and sarcastic demeanor is more gentle and loving toward me. I told everyone I think they're just used to him being sarcastic to people so that when he isn't AS sarcastic around me, people tend to notice the difference and mistake that for him liking me or being softer toward me. I've gotten jokes before about he and I being together or liking each other or us being cute together but it never really made me sit and think about it until older cashiers and my other supervisors started doing it too.
Hes a cool guy, he really is and I enjoy his company a lot and I know I didn't give you much to go by in telling me if you believe him to have feelings for me or not, but I will tell you reasons I could 100% make you believe he doesn't. We don't even have each others numbers so when we leave work, we do not talk until the next day at work again. I actually gave him a few opportunities to exchange numbers but he never either picked up on it or just overlooked it because he didn't want to. We never hang out outside of work either.
Just give me any input, it would be greatly appreciated. Maybe how to handle everybody telling me that he likes me or blaming me for doing his job all the time since I'm so "hoodwinked." Maybe how to handle him if you think he has some kind of soft side for me. Thank you!
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I don't get it dear. From what you are saying, it sounds like the only way the company can pay you for your time legally is when you are clocked in, logged in under your own name. I do not know of a system that lets two people clock in under the same name. this is essense sounds to me like you are putting in all the time but not getting paid for it because you are helping him. If the company has given only him, of all the employees, a heavy load of work that the others don't have to deal with then this is his matter to reconcile with his bosses and owner of the company. If he is being given more work than everyone, which I must assume is so, because you never mentioned the other co workers needing people to help them get their work load done or you neither. If he just plain old isn't fast enough, he needs to learn to be faster instead of having someone else do the work to help him finish. It doesnt matter who is bailing him out.
Now I know thats not your intent but yes you are going way beyond the call of duty to your job. If it isn't written in the company rules and guidelines, or in your job description, then you aren't required to be doing it.
If you worked elsewhere, someplace without him, would you be volunteering your own time, not getting paid to put in all this extra work, even if the co worker or boss was a nice person? I doubt you would be doing it.
Now if you occasionally volunteered to help other people as well, I could just say thats part of your very giving helpful nature. the fact that it is only him you are helping makes it stand out as a very Odd situation in the work environment.
You are so used to him as a friend that you see nothing odd about this compared to the relationship most people have with their supervisor. Its not actually the relationship that makes it odd, but the fact that you volunteer all this time and he just accepts it indeed of doing what he should as a supervisor. The same exact behavior and work should be expected from all employees. He is young as has no idea that other than an occasional help, being that your job position is not that of being his right hand man, that it is inappropriate in the business world to take advantage of employees this way and even worse since you are a friend.
Both of you are looking through Rose colored glasses, just not seeing this. He's as much in a wrong place as you. But who's to say its wrong if he's the top person and is not accountable to anyone right...there are bosses who an unscrupulouse and will do the wrong thing to gain in some way. You are helping him to look even better to someone, who ever pays his paycheck unless he owns the business which from what you said, he doesnt. So you are in esssence helping him to climb the ladder from where he is instead of him doing it entirely on his own as others have to. Maybe I am reading into this too much, but I kinda have to agree, all your co-workers are not over-reacting in how they see something odd about this. All we can do is guess at what's going on. I understand you still dont see this as odd.
Here's something that may help you see but you'd have to be real honest with yourself, don't lie to yourself by making excuses. Either what I say applies or it doesn't.
There are two main different kinds of love connections that are important to have in a committed couple relationship which you say this is not. I believe you. But here's where things mess up. One of those intense loves is the emotional kind, the kind of supportive, companion friend type that you can count on. This love feeling can be as strong as what a committed couple have. Sometimes it is lacking and a couple only have the wild sex as they're only compatible sexually, romantically, there is a great chemistry but they lack being friends so the relationship is rocky.
With the emotional connection instead of a physical one, at some point it is very possible for a couple things to happen if the best freinds are opposite sex.
1. One of the two slowly begins to feel the other type of love for their friend but is too scared to make a move for fear the other may not feel the same and that it would ruin their friendship. This is called getting stuck in the friend zone.
2. Both people as friends never felt ever a hot blazing romantic attraction like a good majority of people who get together do. Instead, a romantic love for them starts as an ember, a coal take slowly grows into a blaze, so slowly that it sneaks up on you and you don't notice the difference, but everyone else will because of how you treat each other.
You sound like a dating couple or married couple and there's nothing wrong that. But there's a problem if you don't recognize it cus sooner or later, one of you is going to be hurt. If another new employee, female started and he began to show her more of the attention he had for you and now is very romantically involved with her. Would you feel happy for him? Sure you'd miss him because she will now be his top priority and as only his best friend, not his girlfriend or mate, you'd fall to a lesser priority. Or would you feel jealous which is an indicator you fear a loss of something. Loss, or change like this is inevitable in life, it will come at some point. And you will eithe adapt or be unable to do so because you are in fact in love with him and don't realize it yet. The best of marriages are builted on both being best of friends and being each others romantic/sexual interest. Sometimes it happens simultaneously but very often the friendship comes first and then it blossoms into something more, either quickly or slowly. And this is where you need to be honest with yourself because it is looking fairly obvious to everyone else who works there, it just hasn't hit you or him yet.
You might want to have a good talk with him away from work. Just pose it as a hypothetical question. And tell him you'll explain later why you're asking. Since you both are such long time friends and have everything a dating couple has except the romance, how would he react if some dude came along and swept you off your feet? Happy for you, afraid to lose you, miserable and jealous? See what his answer is and then explain what others are seeing, what I've tried to explain in depth, that others say this isn't normal behavior for just two friends especially when one supervises over the other, and that this is more the behavior of two people who have grown sweet on each other, caring about each other as more than friends and just not realzing it. So you just want to check with him how he feels. Heres his opportunity if he's kept feelings hidden, to confess. If you're not sure but can't stand the idea of him dating anyone, then it might be the best thing to suggest that you both give dating and romance a try. Hope this helps yoou some.
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