How awkward it gets when your ex is your boss

The affair started in Mombasa, during a team building trip. Still new in the company, Tom Mwale found the lady very generous and accommodative as he eased his way into the company and tried to get around. Within weeks, she had become his and their love blossomed. Fast forward and two years later, the two are sworn enemies and to make matters worse, she is now his boss.

“Every meeting is now a struggle. She always tries to undermine me and on my part, I exert my voice to save my manhood and respect,” the banker says, adding that he dreads Monday mornings. “Any meeting I go in and she is there, something inside me collapses. She will pick out the small errors that I do and blow them completely out of proportion. She has even threatened to report me for insubordination on several occasions. A woman I have seen naked, been comfortable to the extent of letting out a fart in her presence and shared intimate personal details with,” he says.

The drama started when Tom got acquainted with more people in the organisation and naturally, acquired more friends, some of them from the opposite sex.  His then girlfriend became so jealous, she made it known in the office that the two were an item and thus, there was no room for anyone else in his life.

“I thought she was petty and of course, I kept the friends. Well, we broke up and she has held that over me since, always reminding me that nilikua mshamba (I was from the village) when she met me. She always finds a reason to remind anyone listening on how green I was, that I did not even carry swimming costume for that coast trip,” says Tom, who admitted that changing jobs will give his ex the last laugh, which is a pleasure he is not willing to grant her.

“I’m not going anywhere, tutaenda naye sambamba (we’ll fight it out),” he swears while he sips his black coffee at a trendy café in the city’s CBD. “Eventually, one of us will give in and move on,” he says, then pauses thoughtfully, “But I think she has mental issues.”

Unlike Tom, Awiti could not believe it when she changed jobs and came face to face with a man she had vowed never to talk to ever again. The primary school teacher in a high-end private school in Karen went through the interview and orientation stage without knowing who the big boss was.

“I had actually settled down… about three weeks into the new and exciting challenge when the man I deeply hated walked into the staffroom and we were introduced. It was the most awkward two minutes of my life. I think I perspired for the first time ever,” she recalls. Her boss had gone for a one-month course abroad when she landed this new job, and he was not consulted when the recruitment was going on.

“The reason we broke up was because he was, ironically, a very bossy person who always wanted things done his way. Also, he had made some sexual advances on a friend of mine, and had insulted me to my friends so as to convince them that he had no value for me. Luckily for Awiti, the friend showed her the texts and their relationship broke up. The two former lovebirds lost touch to the point that she did not know where he worked.

“I had grown to hate him for the mental abuse he put me through, and had deleted or deliberately cut off all the mutual friends we had shared for the time we dated. Now here he was again, in flesh and blood, this time as my boss,” an exasperated Awiti lets out.

Their relationship, sadly, picked up from where they left; he started to be bossy, and within a few weeks, as she explained, fellow teachers had picked up there was a negative vibe between the two. “There was so much tension whenever we were in the same room. Out of fear that I might jeopardise my position by doing something stupid, I asked management for a transfer to a sister school. Fortunately, they agreed to my request,” she says.

“I have dated a number of men, but he was the worst. People disagree and break up all the time, that’s life. Some end up being friends or very good colleagues… but there are people you break up with and pray to God never to see them again. Sometimes, like that time, the prayers are not answered,” she adds cynically.

According to an account executive of a leading Public Relations agency in Nairobi, organisations that employ a lot of young people are prone to have this type of relationships. The Twitter bigwig, who asked for anonymity, explained that millennials are always hooking up and breaking up in quick succession, to the point where a middle-level team leader will have two or more exes among his or her team.

“I know of an agency in Westlands where half the office had dated or has hooked up with a colleague. Meetings are always a test of nerves, everyone trying to make another person appear less cool, or incompetent,” he explains. Amos Wainaina is dating a lady who has not been on an office trip for over a year now. According to the cab driver, the lady has been frustrated by her boss to the point that she is contemplating resigning from her position as the company deputy HR officer. “She was dating this guy, who is her immediate boss. They broke up over his infidelity and he vowed to make life difficult for her.”

“Before, she would always accompany him, as his deputy, to trips all over the country. Her name was usually the first in the list, and of course she was viewed favourably.” Amos, who has met the man twice while picking his girlfriend from the office, expressed his own concerns about the lack of trips.

“She gets frustrated when she misses these trips, plus the stipend that comes with them of course, but on the other hand, I would be worried if she was to start going to places again,” he argues, adding that at this point he would feel unsettled if she became ‘acceptable’ in the organisation all of a sudden.

Worse still are those instances where an ex is promoted within the organisation, giving them the opportunity to exert payback for all wrongs that happened during the affair; real or imagined. There have been numerous cases where the entire office figures out whenever two exes are fighting over past issues, say at a meeting. Usually, weird glances are exchanged by those colleagues who are watching and the drama provides fodder for office gossip.

When Christine was promoted at her place of work when they were renewing her contract, many of her colleagues suspected that it was because of her more-than-normal relationship with her immediate supervisor.

When the rumour got to her then boyfriend, John, who was working in another department, their relationship hit the rocks and they parted ways. The only problem was that in her new position, John was supposed to report to her directly and almost on a daily basis, compounding the shame of having another man snatch your girlfriend and then make you ‘bow down’ to her. Were it not because he needs the money, many a times John has contemplated quitting the job altogether.

“The whole concept of working with an ex goes back to the people who advised against office affairs,” says Tom.