I am NOT his girlfriend!

I have a male co-worker that spends countless unwelcomed hours in my office every week complaining and commenting on everything under the sun – his son’s baseball team, his middle son getting into the school they wanted, and work crap. For anonymity, let us call him “annoying guy”. For the most part, annoying guy is in and out quickly; I politely smile and nod at his stories and then he goes on his merry way. I consider this a win-win. Here lately, however, his stories are becoming more drawn out and frequent. I cannot tell you how many secret eye rolls I give this guy. In my head, I’m saying really, really bad things to him. I may or may not even be secretly flipping him off. When his presence becomes absolutely ridiculous, another co-worker with visual access to my office phones my husband with orders to save me. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see his number pop up on my caller ID. Yeah – I definitely owe that guy one. Or maybe ten.

I promise there is a point to this particular rambling. I will get to that now. At a party this weekend, I learned that I have become known as annoying guy’s girlfriend in our company. The example given to me was “So, does anyone know where annoying guy is?” “He’s probably in his girlfriend’s office again.” UGH!!  This makes my skin crawl! And this is what I get for being nice. My mission this week (and I definitely do choose to accept) is to make him feel completely unwelcomed so that he stays the heck out of my personal space. My strategy has been to not make eye contact, take bathroom breaks when he appears to be heading in my general direction (even if I have to go so often that people think I have the runs) and keep my radio turned up to a volume that is hard to talk over. Check, check, and check. So far today, I haven’t had to talk to him even once. Here’s hoping the rest of the week is just as successful so I can keep my secret flip offs to a minimum.