Welcome to the Shit Show – It’s Gonna Bring You Down

The Hot Mess, the Train Wreck, and the Dumpster Fire

Everything in me is screaming to run away from the shit show that is my friend X’s personal life. This very messy personal life has leaked over and turned into his very messy work life. It is not a good look and quite disappointing. I am trying to not take his failures personally but as his work mentor, I am very disappointed with the choices he is making.

These choices aren’t the sorts of mistakes that you think back on fondly. These are a true shit show in the making. I don’t even know where to begin. But I’m going to try. Breaking it down to the basics. The hot mess he is currently in, the train wreck he has made of his personal life, and the literal dumpster fire his choices have landed him in at work.

I have an additional stake in the game. At work, I am his mentor. I personally taught him everything I know, and continued to mentor him after I trained him to be my successor. I don’t have an issue separating his personal life from his professional life, except that he has decided that he wants to intertwine the two by starting a relationship with one of his coworkers.

I don’t usually care what anyone does in their free time, except that this personal sitch he is in has begun to affect his work life negatively. A situation I cannot save him from, and I am not putting my career on the line for him and his foolishness. That is the dilemma. I don’t think he understands but if he goes too far, I will have to cut ties.

The hot mess

The adage goes: Don’t shit where you eat. Don’t mix business with pleasure. Don’t date your coworkers. it’s not a good look. Do workplace relationships occasionally work out? Sometimes. Depends on the persons involved. Past experience has resulted in frowning on fraternizing at work, but in the private sector there is less regulation on who you choose to sleep with.

The official stance is nobody cares until it becomes a problem at work. And that is where we are. He chose to get involved with this kid. Age is just a number, but in the case of this individual, his age is equivalent to his IQ. So why is X getting involved with him? I have no idea. What I do know of X and his past relationships is that he is a terrible judge of character, he has appallingly low standards, and sadly lowered expectations from a complete lack of self-esteem. Hence his current involvement with this hot mess.

The first time I met the vapid bag of bones was when the soup sandwich (my old cohort, and X’s current coworker) crashed a private function and showed up with this character while they were on a date. That was an awkward and inconsiderate situation, coming to a party to which you were not invited to in the first place and then bring a plus 1 to boot.

The second time I met the hot mess was when he was being interviewed for a position because the soup sandwich convinced him to come work for our company so he could get the referral bonus. And more unbelievably the hiring manager gave him a job. What a joke.

So when X tells me that he is thinking of seeing him because he really likes him and thinks he is sweet, it was clear that X did not recall AT ALL the history his cohort and this hot mess shared. The soup sandwich was keeping this boy on the hook (go see the HIMYM season 5, episode 16), and seeing as how X was his rival at work, having him appear as a rival in his love life, the soup sandwich was going to retaliate.

The train wreck

I am trying not to look at the train wreck that is my very good friend’s personal and work life. It is literally falling apart in front of my eyes, and he asks for advice which he does not heed. He asks me to weigh in on his situation, and then he does the complete opposite of what I recommend. In case you did not know me, I am not the soft place people come to land from their disasters.

I am the rock upon which many crash land.

I am not very good at making you feel better about how you fucked yourself over. To be fair, I am no harder on anyone than I am on myself, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Warnings unheeded – I told him not to get involved with the soup sandwich, that he couldn’t be trusted and he should keep his distance. I shared with him some of the things soup sandwich had put me through. I told him that he was a real asshole and a backstabber and given a chance he would come for him eventually if he began to show him up. If my friend put in more than the bare minimum of effort, he was going to look like a rock star and end up with a target on his back.

It all came to a head this last week. His current coworker is my past coworker, the soup sandwich. We started as friendly acquaintances from work until his lack of integrity/work ethic impacted me and my work. I don’t give two shits what someone chooses to do in their off time but don’t fuck with me at work. I will call you out on that nonsense and I am not suffering foolishness.

I used my experience as a warning. I painted a picture where the soup sandwich would use his petty grievances to mess with his credibility at work. That he would try to find some angle in which the slander he tried to spread would come back to bite X in the ass when he wasn’t at work to defend himself.

X’s mistake is that he gave the soup sandwich a chance. He assumed that he would behave with integrity. I don’t get it. My biggest pet peeve about X is that he is always making excuses for other people. Making excuses for why they are shitty. Telling me that everyone needs to be given a chance. I can’t with his Pollyanna view of the world because his peopl-ing blind spot has cost him big this time.

Did he listen? No.

And the dumpster fire

I have been watching X navigate these murky waters. He has made a mess of everything and now his job is on the line. All because he decided he wanted to date some guy at work. His first mistake? Forgetting that his coworker had not only dated him first but got him the job at the company. He may not be with him anymore, but the soup sandwich certainly hasn’t given him up. They still hang out. What the actual fuck?

And X doesn’t listen. He doesn’t care. It’s like he knows this is bad for him, but he would rather drown than let go of that dead weight and save himself. Only time will tell if he saves himself and lets go of this unsavable mess.