People Disgust Me

[5kcandlesinthewind]

Storytime!

So. I found out a couple of days before the end of the program that two of my participants were sleeping together. (Well, it's likely more than 2, but we'll stick with these two for now, as this pairing is confirmed.) We'll call them Sue and Tom. Both married to other people, he has two kids. And they were SO OBVIOUS about it. Everyone in the group knew. I went for drinks at Park one night with a co-worker, and as we were about to leave, those two showed up and sat right near me. I totally ignored them, paid the bill and ran out of there.

At Final Dinner, my colleague and I got stuck at a table with Sue. And she told my colleague (who is currently 7 months pregnant) all about how she and her husband had been trying for a kid, but it wasn't working out, and on and on and OH MY GOD, YOU FILTHY CHEATER, SHUT UP! Ahem. So then she dropped Tom's name literally about 30 times in an hour, told us all about how her mom sent Tom something (???I can only imagine what my mom would say if I asked her to send something to a dude who wasn't my husband), and then he walked over to the table to check on her, like you do when you're dating someone. I assumed this was the lowest they would go.

Until. I checked the group's (unsanctioned) Facebook page. Tom is posting pictures of his kids on vacation, which is where he went immediately after the program. And Sue has a fake name on Facebook, which I thought maybe was just for the group, but then saw she has four hundred and something friends, so obviously not. She's just crazy. (For more reasons than this.)

Tom got a package delivered while I was out on Monday, so I sent him a note asking where he wants it sent. Yeah, he wants it to go to Sue. I'm tempted to send it to his wife, whose name and address I have in our system as his emergency contact. But I won't. I will just sit here and think about how EFFING DISGUSTING some people are.

Fin.

(Sidenote: this happens all the time in our program. It's entirely possible that both people have a standing agreement with their spouses, but frankly, I don't give a shit what you do or don't do as long as you keep me out of it. Otherwise, I will judge the hell out of you and shame you on the interwebs, heh.)

[5kcandlesinthewind]

Well, I've got a whole new group coming in a couple of weeks, so I may have plenty more.

[drloretta]

Oh dear.

We had that happen when I was working at my last job, though not people at my company. One of our clients (married with a kid) was hitting on one of our vendors. Who happened to leave her husband because he'd cheated on her. Cue the pot and the kettle.

One of my CWs said he heard them flirting at the bar once our project was over. One of those "come to my hotel room, but you have to stop at CVS for condoms" kind of conversations. Ick ick ick.

[5kcandlesinthewind]

Oh, that is icky, drl. Bleh.

I am pretty sure at least two other people were cheating on their spouses with other participants, but this is the only one I have confirmation of. In one of our other programs (not mine), some (married) woman slept with like three or four other dudes in the program. It got to the point where her roommate requested that she be moved, because she couldn't take it anymore.

Oh! The other funny story is thta one of my participants left behind three vibrators in her apartment, haha. The housing manager sent me an email telling me they found something that would be really interesting for our Yankee swap at the holiday party, hee! And I totally know who it is, because I have the housing list. My theory is that she bought them here but didn't want to take them back on the plane. Though I don't have any theories as to why she left them in a drawer instead of wrapping them up and dropping them in a dumpster if she was the embarrassed.

Oddly enough, I've gotten emails about journals, sunglasses, and books left behind. But nothing about these.

[drloretta]

LOL! I can't imagine having to find something like that.

Oh, another good cheating story. I worked in a major research lab right out of grad school. Found out pretty quickly that my boss (married, one adult kid) was cheating on his wife with not one, but 2 different women. One was his secretary, and one was a research fellow in our lab. They didn't know about each other until about halfway through my stint there, then all hell broke loose.

The secretary "handled" it by badmouthing the research fellow constantly. The research fellow would just randomly explode in the middle of the lab, and you just had to hope you weren't anywhere near her to get sucked into the drama. And somewhere in there, the research fellow had also had a brief affair with yet another research fellow, whose wife was abroad at the time. I felt like I had to keep a scorecard.

My boss seemed to think this was all oh-so secretive, but every grad student knew about it, as did anyone else with half a brain. There was a student who wouldn't sit on my boss's office sofa "because I know what it's used for". And one professor didn't want an office next to his (with a back door to the secretary's office) "because I don't want to sit next to an adulterer".

I seriously considered writing a mystery novel where my boss was killed and they couldn't sift through the plethora of suspects.

[rikki]

What type of program is this?

[5kcandlesinthewind]

This one is a professional development program for people who work for municipal/state/local government, with some non-profit peeps thrown in as well. It's three weeks long, so people usually treat it like summer camp. And there's always people sleeping around, but usually they're less blatant about it.

This program has the distinction of being banned from one of the University event spaces for a couple of years because they found women's underwear stuffed in one of the couches in a room they weren't supposed to be in after a final dinner. There are some GOOD FREAKING STORIES with this group, heh.

And drl, I would totally read that book. That is HILARIOUS, but so, so awkward for everyone involved. My husband's friend has the most horrific being cheated on story (including a kid he thought was his for 3 years), but I will have to share it at a GTG or something. (I know she was on the Knot before her first wedding, so it makes me nervous because it's really identifiable.)

[drloretta]

Any excuse for a GTG

And I have to roll my eyes at the unprofessional conduct at a "professional development program"

[rikki]

Yuck all around. Speaking of a GTG, Magic Mike comes out this weekend! We should start planning something.

[rikki]

I am busy the next 2 weekends, too. I think that we should wait until you're healed and better! We don't have to see the movie. I was just reminded of the GTG when I saw an ad for the movie this weekend.

[elfinia7]

Eh, I don't know that something like this disgusts me per say. But it is entertaining and makes for good gossip