(*note: names in italics have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty.)

i know that the burning question on every new employee's mind is one and the same.

"what would i do if my boss/supervisor/manager/authority figure, after hitting on me all week, spontaneously proposed to me?"

well, ladies and gentlemen, there is finally someone you can talk to, if -- nay! when -- this situation happens to you. that person is me.

so gather round, and i will tell you what happened.

rufus, my supervisor, has been hitting on me since monday. nice enough guy, totally not my type. those who know me know my type... so it's pretty easy to imagine what rufus is like. which isn't a bad thing. to put it more ambiguously (and yet somehow more specifically), rufus is much more pelowski's type, except slightly more awkward in everyday conversation. he's a whiz at the job, though.

anyway, rufus has been getting slightly more bold with every passing day. on monday, it was not really enough to notice more than minimal flirting that could easily have been his idea of being helpful and nice to a new employee.

on tuesday, it was noticeable. not a huge deal, but it was definitely there. my co-worker leonard took me aside at lunch and said, "so rufus is taking a pretty solid liking to you, eh?" i responded with a strong "bah," but definitely noticed it more now that someone other than me had observed it.

today, however, was ridiculous.

first, he would not leave me alone all day. i'm trying to do my job, and as much as i appreciated the distractions between calls, it was really hard to concentrate on my pitch, and i lost not one, but two sales in the verification status because of him, resulting in a tally for the day of ZERO! zero.

at one point in the afternoon, i got excited about al franken appearing in the wall street journal today. "you listen to talk radio?" rufus asked me. "air america, yes," i replied. "wow," he responded. "that's... that's awesome. you like _____, you watch ______, you listen to _____, you know, i don't meet many girls like you." [fill in the ____s with things you know i would like. you know me.]

"well, i am one of a kind," i said, being my usual egotistical self.

"if only you were six years older," he responded, wistfully.

i got an eyebrow raise from leonard from across the cubicle walls.

later on, we were talking about an obscure television show that my brother and i watched faithfully. rufus was thrilled to hear that i had watched it... thrilled to the point of tom cruise-style love, to which he burst forth with a "please please please marry me right now."




so if, and when, your boss/supervisor/manager/authority figure spontaneously proposes to you, you should immediately start working underneath his best friend franklin.

and i do mean underneath.


ahahaha! ba-zing! my reputation preceeds me, even here.