Workplace Romance: A Grumpy Boss Enemies-to-Lovers Romantic Comedy by Elle Sharpe

Author:Elle Sharpe [Sharpe, Elle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-07-22T04:00:00+00:00

Max

Going to work every day is now excruciating. But the plan seems to be working. Caroline and I are extremely cordial to each other, and speak to each other as little as possible. We barely make eye contact. We hardly even glance at each other. Whenever I need anything from her I use her wonderfully impersonal ticketing system, and if it something doesn’t get taken care of right away, I just fucking deal with it.

Which is fine. This whole arrangement is fine. I realize that this is the way I should have been acting from the start. Keeping my distance. Sure, it’s a little depressing—no longer trading jibes, going back to meditating alone. But I’m less distracted this way. Not only did I let a dumb, school-boy crush make me act like a brain-dead idiot, I also lost some of my focus on the company. And the company is the most important thing.

I decide to take more of a back seat when it comes to Caroline’s work. I don’t need to get hung up on whether I’m being biased towards her, either by showing her favoritism or by being too hard on her. Let Jeff be the one to say yes or no to her suggestions. That’s how it always should have been anyway.

“If you’re for it, I’m for it,” I tell him, regarding that productivity software she’d been talking about, and all other future decisions about workplace operations.

I can tell he doesn’t believe me, so I go on.

“Really, I trust you. We originally decided to divide up our responsibilities so that you could focus on operations and I could focus on the app. And that hasn’t been happening. I’ve been stepping on your toes.”

I see the tentative smile creep across his face, and I have yet another shameful realization. Buried in his arguments about “being more sustainable” and about me “letting go of control,” there was a hidden message that I hadn’t seen: back the fuck off and let me do my damn job. He’d been far too kind to say it to me directly. Stupid, sensitive Jeff. Stupid, insensitive me.

So Jeff approves the new productivity software. And Caroline gets everyone trained up on it in record time. She holds fun afternoon training sessions, with lots of snacks, and a PowerPoint full of animated GIFs. She makes jokes as she runs through the key features (I hear as I pass by the door), so that no one feels like it’s a chore. Everyone gets on board with the new system. Things begin to run more smoothly. I’m proven wrong, again.

We even spend an awkward hour in a darkened conference room together as she gives her training presentation to me—privately, since the only time I can find to do it is after hours. She doesn’t make any jokes when she explains the software to me. She talks like a robot and looks at the wall above my head.

I keep my eyes fixed on the screen, and don’t make any snide remarks about features I think are unnecessary.

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