Ok listen. I swear I’m not making this up.
I work in a small office that’s part of a larger department. Our office is just me, my three coworkers, and my boss, Josh*. Josh and one of my coworkers, Ethan*, have been working in our office for almost 10 years and are in their early 30s. Another woman, Annie*, started at the same time but moved to another part of the department. They used to all be close friends, but Josh stopped hanging out with Ethan outside of work when he became his boss. Annie got married but didn’t have any kids. Josh is super quiet and doesn’t talk about his personal life with us. We only know through Ethan that Josh lives with his parents, only plays video games in his free time, and has probably never had a girlfriend. He and Annie are still close friends at work and eat lunch together every day. Their friendship weirds everyone out because Josh is so shy and quiet and Annie is loud and often unpleasant. This goes on for years. I hear rumors that Annie’s marriage is in trouble in early 2019. I joke that maybe her husband is jealous of Josh. My rumormongering coworker rolls her eyes.
There is a global pandemic. My office is still going in to the office because we have to, but the rest of the department is working from home. I hear no updates about Annie or my boss’s personal lives until early summer of 2021, when my boss announces that he is going on paternity leave in October. His tone is grim and invites no further inquiries. I offer a hesitant congratulations. Josh nods and returns to his desk. Later my coworkers speculate, scandalized, as to how Josh might have become responsible for a baby while living with his parents during a global pandemic. Ethan feigns astonishment as well. The depths of his duplicity are yet to be revealed.
Our department head accidentally reveals that Annie will be going on maternity leave in July. She was not supposed to share this information with the whole department, but it explains why Annie was able to claim a medical exception to returning to work in person. I assume that Annie’s marital problems have been resolved. I am not close enough to Annie to extend my congratulations via email, and in any case I learn through Ethan that she is super pissed that everyone knows she’s preggo. It seems strange, but she’s a strange lady.
My suspicions begin when Josh takes off a few days in July for the birth of his child. At first, I think the baby was born premature— by 3 months! Oh no! But when I ask, Josh says his “partner” is taking three months of maternity leave and then he’ll take his paternity leave. I ask if the child is a boy or girl. Its a boy. I wait a moment. I ask what the child’s name is. He says, Alex*. Josh goes back to work. I buy him the most generic congratulations card I can find and make everyone else sign it. Annie goes on maternity leave.
I start gently probing Ethan, since I know he works on projects with Annie. “Annie is coming back before Josh goes on paternity leave, right?” He says he thinks so. “Have you seen Annie’s baby on zoom?” I ask. Yep. “Is it a boy or a girl?” It’s a boy. “What’s his name?” It’s AJ*. Oh! My theory is dashed. But wait! Alex… AJ… could these be two names for the same baby? I tell my friends about my suspicions and they call me a lunatic. It’s just a coincidence. No one would create such a strange web of secrecy around the birth of a child.
Then, yesterday, when we are talking with the department head on zoom about the holiday schedule, she casually mentions that Josh and Annie will be taking their time off separately TO TAKE CARE OF THEIR CHILD. I kick the back of Ethan’s chair very hard. Luckily we are wearing masks, and the department head seems oblivious to the revelation she just imparted. As soon as we hang up, the office is screaming and cackling. My other coworkers had the same suspicions I did, of course. Ethan says he feels like a great weight has lifted. Apparently, Annie got divorced in the summer 2019 and she and Josh moved in together that fall. Annie apparently SWEARS to Ethan that she didn’t leave her husband for Josh which is well. Fine. In addition to telling Ethan, they apparently filed all the necessary HR forms, so management is aware of the situation, but for some reason are insisting that it be kept a secret from the rest of the department.
Ethan told Annie about the department head’s slip and now she’s writing an angry email to the department head’s boss. What is their endgame? We all wonder. When they are both back to work in person, will they come in though different entrances? Keep calling their same child by different names? And why? To what end? Have we treated them so cruelly that they are unwilling to share even the most basic facts of their lives with us?
I don’t think this story has a lesson. I just really want to tell it because its so crazy that they did that lol.
*names have been changed