the cost of having fun with coworkers

I can’t believe I am still sitting here at my desk.  I should have been fired today. Hang on to your panties this is going to be a long one.

It all started last week…insert Wayne’s World dream sequence song here.  

I finally got a chance to go have lunch with the “popular girls” in my office on Thursday.  They are seriously just like the cool kids in school…but in grown up land, and I got invited to go to lunch with them! I was so excited.

The girls are my supervisor and her assistant, who are also BFF’s outside of work, and have been for years.  I was honored to get to hang out with them and to be accepted into their little clique.  We decided to go to a local Mexican food restaurant at around 12:40 and we left behind the two other girls we work with to handle the phones.  This was probably not the best idea.

It’s a little hard working with all women.  When I first started working here there were very defined groups.  Office politics had separated them a bit before I got there, its understandable.  It was really easy to choose which clique I fit in with…and so I had to choose.

We began by ordering a pint of margaritas…and then before we knew it, we had been gone for way longer than we should have been and had refilled our glasses a little more than we probably should have.  At the time we were all having so much fun talking and sharing opinions and laughing, I honestly wasn’t worried because I was with my boss you know?  She called the other two girls in the office to let them know we were still waiting for the bill and that we would be back soon.  She even offered them the chance to leave early for the day in return.

We may have been a little louder and gigglier than normal, add that to the two pissed off co-workers that were left behind and that spells trouble. After about 20 minutes another supervisor from another part of the building came storming in.

“You, you, and you; get your things together you are all leaving for the day without pay”

We were like “what???”…

“You took an extended lunch and you came back intoxicated…it smells like alcohol in here and you are slurring your words.”

“no we are not!”

Yikes…I never thought anything about it, I was with my boss you know?  I figured she calls the shots (no pun intended) I guess not.  She fought her ass off for us though. There was yelling and tears and lots of flailing arms. She ended up being pulled upstairs to the corporate offices and I don’t know what happened after that.  All I know is that we were practically escorted out of the building.

I was called that night and asked to show up at my normal time on Friday and that whole day the office was just buzzing around us.

Flash forward to today. 

I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined what would happen next.  I thought we would all be pulled into a meeting and be reprimanded and I would have promised never to do that again etc.  The two disgruntled girls got called in first of course.  I’m pretty sure they threw us all under the bus. In hindsight, I knew at the time that they would be mad at us.  I shouldn’t have gone to lunch.  The clarity of hindsight.  Why do I do these things to myself?  I knew better.

My supervisor was called in by herself.  She came out stoic, no expression on her face and returned to her desk.  I watched her for about five minutes looking for some glimmer of hope, but there was none.  The HR lady came to our office door and said “come on, get your things.”  I was instantly nauseated.  She got fired!

I cried and cried to RD last week about how I couldn’t lose this job, not this one.  Friday I guess I thought they had put it all in the past and we were moving on.  I guess not.  Instead my supervisor and friend was fired, and I was given a slap on the wrist.  I can’t believe she’s gone.  It should have been me.

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(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´ ¸¸.•¨¯`•. jenni