Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood: After Dark

My manager’s manager is a fairly nice guy. He is bald, always wears argyle cardigans, and has a friendly attitude that earned him the nickname Mr. Rogers. He self-identifies as gay, though you wouldn’t know it if you didn’t see him attending a company meeting with his husband and didn’t notice the pictures of him and his husband that his office was bedecked with.

My coworker in my department self-identifies as a lesbian. She also self-identifies as a “riot grrrr” and dyes her hair bright colors. She’s very loud and proud about her identity as a lesbian, and her cubicle is equally bedecked with pictures of her wife, political cartoons about lesbianism and feminism, and office plants. I get along with her pretty well, though sometimes I have to tune her out when she gets upset and starts ranting while she works. I think it mostly she just rants to calm herself down.

Because I’m one of the few people who doesn’t get into arguments with [Coworker], my cubicle is near hers.

One day, I come into work, and [Coworker]’s cubicle is completely empty. I was expecting to work with her on a client together today, so I find this surprising — and upsetting as I need her portion of the work as well as mine.

I manage to reschedule the client so I can actually have time to either find or remake her work, and I go to management to ask what the heck happened.

“Mr. Rogers’” office is also completely sterile and empty. My manager’s title has been changed; he’s been promoted.

I ask him what happened.

It turns out that a janitor walked in on “’Mr. Rogers” performing a sex act on [Coworker] in the office after hours.

Normally, cheating on your spouse — even with a coworker — is not grounds for dismissal, but the fact that the sexual acts occurred on the premise was determined to be cause for immediate removal, as per the “morals” clause of our contracts.

According to my manager, both “Mr. Rogers” and [Coworker] maintained their innocence, insisting that it wasn’t cheating because they were doing it with someone of a different sex than their spouses.

Last I heard, they were both divorced and had found work again in different accounting firms. “Mr. Rogers” sent the whole office a letter when he was hired by his new place, and my coworker emailed me, though no one else. I guess I made an impression on her?