It started along time ago…
I started a new job in a bustling “internet” driven company. I don’t remember when I first noticed her, but it was one of those times that you are walking and just start tripping… I don’t mean like acid, I mean like literally trip because you cannot see this person and function at the same time.
There were 3000 people working at my company at the time, you couldn’t just ask somebody… “Hey, who is the blonde girl upstairs?” I didn’t know who she was, but I would always freak out when I saw her usually just trip over my two feet. She started using the plotter behind my desk for some reason. I would hear the plotter start up, jump up, take a look at the drawing, if it looked like something that could be hers, I would jam it up… that way when she came to get the print out, she would find it’s messed up and have to come back.
The company in a heat of growth split up and downsized simultaneously, we moved production into a building down the street. At the same time, we outsourced a couple of the groups, she was in one of them, but got moved to another position in the other building. When I figured out where she went, I was slightly relieved; it was embarrassing tripping every time I saw her in the hallway.
A year or so, after the internet bubble burst the two building were condensed, she moved back to my building. This is when we had our first “conversation”…
I was in the cafeteria getting lunch, it was a philly cheese steak, walking to the register, I hear somebody, “Looks good” IT’S HER! Oh my god, I am going to trip and drop my lunch!! I replied with “Ya” can you fucking believe it? I am so worried about falling down, that’s all I can say.
My group had moved upstairs and was a fraction of what we used to be… when I was hired the group was about 35 engineers, we were down to about 8. We were now doing little machines and sustaining what we had already built. I sat next to mechanical engineer who started doing project for the product engineers… specifically her. She would come over and explain what she needed done, usually design up a fixture or something… he would do it for her.
He and I would of course talk all the time… “Hey did you see Sienfeld last night?” remember the one in which he was complaining about when people sneeze and you say “God bless you. Why don’t you pay them a compliment, like, Your so good looking…” well, we talked about that episode one day, later she came over for a design review and of course sometime during the meeting she sneezed… George and I looked at each other… and there was silence, we were both thinking the same thing… “Your so good looking…”
Time went by, I got to the point where I could actually say hi to her in the hallway without falling down. At the time the company was re-organizing, again… I was doing some manufacturing engineering, rather than machine development. My first project was to solve the companies biggest problem. We started a team, and you guessed it… she was on it! One way to keep me from missing meetings.
These probably went on maybe six months, it was getting towards winter… one Friday afternoon, we were sitting next to each other and turned towards each other… knees touch, neither of us moved just pretended like it wasn’t happening. That night was the Christmas party…. I hadn’t planned on going, but at that moment, I hatched a plan… go for a couple of hours after work, see if she stops by and go from there…. I was living with a girlfriend of 3 years and I swore I would kiss this girl if given the chance. I did go to the party after work. She didn’t go till way later.
Winter went by… spring… a group of us started going for motorcycle rides every now and then… yes, she rode a motorcycle also. Our last outing of the year was through VT… up to Bromley / Stratton / Okemo and home… one big loop. So, I guess this is good right? Going from tripping every time I see this girl to going on motorcycle rides.
In august I became single… Christmas came around and so did the party. Being that I lived so far from work, I could never really do Christmas parties or any parties for that matter… a bunch of the guys from work all decided we would get hotel rooms and party like it was 1999. After work, we had dinner and loaded the hotel rooms with beer and started in before the party.
We took a cab to the party, so we wouldn’t have cars there and wouldn’t be tempted to drive home. We arrived… drinks, drinks, more drinks… Somehow her and I were talking at a table… we got up to get more drinks… my confidant is at the bar, the girl and her hug and say merry Christmas! My confidant is a girl I worked with who knew my whole crush on this girl. She walks away and I say to her… wish I got a hug and kiss from her…
Time went by and her and were standing by the bar… she said to me “are you single?” I said, yes, I just got out of a long term relationship, she replied that she had just also. She then said “I am kinda interested in you…” I started shaking…
We talked for hours that night, then the group went to another party and we all crammed into a taxi. We went to the bar ordered a round of beers, I passed them out to the group. I then blacked out. When I came to, I was making out with her, the lights were on, the band and everyone in the hotel had left.
She told me another co-worker was staying at her house, so I couldn’t come over and she couldn’t let him stay at her house alone, so she couldn’t come with me… I didn’t remember where that came from, it just came out of her mouth… I went to the bathroom, she went to the bathroom, I got disorientated found my friends and left. She went to Denny’s with another group and passed out on the table.
The next morning I drove home and collected my dog from my ex who was watching him over night. I was sick, probably alcohol poisoning.
I wondered what was going on… should I call her? The next day she text’d me on the two way pagers we all had… “Sorry about that, I don’t want anything weird at work”. So after all the obsessing over this girl, I finally get a chance to kiss her and I don’t remember a damn thing! It just isn’t fair.
When I got to work the next week, I asked people about the party… seems a lot of people blacked out that night. I began to suspect we were all drugged… I started treating her a lot more professionally at work, limiting our conversations to work only. The real Christmas shutdown came, as she was leaving the building, she stopped by my desk gave me a plate of cookies and said merry Christmas. I didn’t know what to make of it… I didn’t know where this was going, but I knew she ran marathons, I quit smoking that day.
The more I tried to distance ourselves, the more we seemed to be working together. I thought, that if she thought, “hey, we hardly see each other at work…” things would be different…. We seemed to be working together more and more… until the day, she became my boss.
More maybe…
Posted by busterthedawg 
