I slept with my boss

[Waffflewaffle]

No judgment please, I know that I have massively fucked up here and I feel awful.
We had a company event with overnight stay, several of us stayed up late and we ended up sleeping together. I accept that this is my own fault and probably serves me right, but I have been feeling really anxious since this morning. I know that I sometimes have a tendency to drive myself insane with worry but I’m so worried that I might have completely messed up my career now. I haven’t been in the job for long and just passed my probation and I love my work and the company, and I know that this will look absolutely unprofessional if anyone finds out.
I haven’t spoken to him about it but he seemed as usual and not worried at all this morning. The others in my team could tell that something was off with me but thought I was just hungover, but I’m going insane thinking that someone might have seen something.
Am I driving myself insane here, or could this really impact my career? I’d be mortified if someone thought that this is what I do :(

Wow some people are really acting holier than thou aren't they. Op what's done is done. Your boss hasn't mentioned it so I would just carry on as normal. Don't tell HR for goodness sake.

No judgement at all from me about what you did.

I do judge him however as the boss because it's very unprofessional behaviour but I suppose there's a chance he could turn out to be the exception.

Definitely do not report this even in a 'it was consensual' way. A truly terrible idea.

I am afraid to say that my own experience of the workplace lead me to think you should prepare yourself for one or more of the following possible developments:

• you find out he is married or in a LTR
• others confide in you that he has a reputation with young female coworkers
• someone does know what happened between you by some means/putting 2 + 2 together/previous form etc
• he chances his arm again when a suitable period of time has passed and he hasn't been reported/gossiped about etc

Don't beat yourself up about it tho. We have all done ill advised things in the workplace/overnight conferences!

How old are you OP?

Agree with all of this.

Please don't worry yourself over it.
I know that's easier said than done!

This is not exactly wise - but it's hardly uncommon. It happens a fair bit.

As long as you can continue to perform your job well, you are going to be absolutely fine.

Just put it behind you, move on, and DO NOT DO IT AGAIN.

Make a bit of a plan for how you will avoid that. Eg don't drink around him again. Have a script ready in your head for how you'll reply if he ever tries it on again.

I would say that the latter bit is the trickiest. The issue with this sort of thing - and to be clear, this issue can very much arise whether you sleep with the boss or resist their advances - is that ultimately you have to find a way to stay on good terms with your boss while also potentially rejecting them. That can be hard and is something that affects women much more than men, unfortunately.

If he is a decent person, he won't make further advances. If he is a half-decent person, he will respect your saying no to any future advances he makes, and not hold it against you professionally.

But to stress - the above is an issue for anyone whose boss takes an unprofessional interest in them, and is not a situation that specifically results from you sleeping with them... Ie it's a him/boss problem, not your fault.

Tell HR?!! 😂😂😂 this place.

I'm shocked by the number of 'cool' posters minimising it. It's not catty to tell her this is shit.
I think people are annoyed because it's unfair to have preferential treatment (someone mentioned a glowing reference) based on work in the bedroom. If he becomes an arsehole to her, then the consensual sex will be something else and HR involved. It also reinforces old men in power's ego. So a sleazy middle aged boss and a young woman exploiting her sexuality to rise up the ranks. We've been trying to move towards equality and being taken seriously at work.

I don't think you can treat each other like nothing has happened once that line has been crossed AND colleagues were around you when this happened, probably they noticed flirting for months. If she was my colleague I would be grossed out by both of them.
I can understand if it was a proper relationship between equal colleagues, dated properly out of company events and time.. but flirting at work and then sex following a work event with a big age gap and power imbalance is so mucky.

The advice to report it to HR has completely spun me 😂 what planet is that poster living on?!

Glad you had a good shag, don’t do it again until you move company

Unacceptable behaviour from your boss.

Sleeping with a young employee who has recently joined the organisation with alcohol involved (which would have impaired your judgement) is really unprofessional and there is a concern about power imbalance and what will happen next.

It is likely you will find out he is married and he has a track record of trying his luck with new recruits.

I am really surprised that more people are not commenting on the fact that the boss is completely out of order here....

Best outcome: this is never mentioned again and you manage to continue to work there.

Worst outcome: he tries it again.People start gossiping. Your boss starts dangling promotion opportunities in front of you if you continue to sleep with him in exchange or he gets you fired because he does not want a daily reminder of one of his indiscretions.

Obviously don't get involved in anything further but also make sure that he does not use his position of power to make life difficult for you.

I work in HR, don't report it unless you want them to DO something 🤷‍♀️

As far as I’m aware rhe op is a grown woman. She is equally responsible for her decisions.

women are aghast when men treat fhem with double standards, yet keep,perpetuating this shit by doing it themselves.

Wow, tough crowd! There are some very harsh comments here. OP, I agree with everyone who says chin up, draw a line under it and move on. I get that you fancy this man but I think you're better off not flirting with him or anything: that might get messy. Out of interest, how old is he? If he is only a few years older than you, I think that is different than if he is for example in his fifties.

It’s a cliche OP but not a massive deal. Just pretend it never happened, don’t tell a soul and forget about it.

there is nothing shameful about having sex but you should never shit where you eat. It has potential to get messy.

Actually I left him in the end 😁

The fact that he had condoms with him suggests he was expecting he might need them.

Seriously?? 😂

Why would a single person not carry condoms with them?

Sorry - but what an idiotic thing for both parties to do. But shit happens. What I would say is that it v much depends on your company and the size of it. Have a friend who was fired (yep - really. He was in a bank) because he didn’t report that something like this had happened and he knew about it because it needs to be declared as a possible conflict of interest. Didn’t the BP boss lose £32m compensation because he didn’t ’fess up about a casual relationship (which is what this might be categorised). So apart from potential gossip and awkwardness, he may have to report it - depending on internal code of conduct and type of company.

Yeah £10 he's married with kids

Of course I judge him. He’s the boss and has the power. I wouldn’t be judging a random bloke she had a one-night stand with if the power dynamic wasn’t there.

You mention ‘flirting for months’ and ‘flirting at work’.

Why? Where are you getting that from?

The OP hasn’t mentioned that at all.

@Cosywintertime

''As far as I’m aware rhe op is a grown woman. She is equally responsible for her decisions.

women are aghast when men treat fhem with double standards, yet keep,perpetuating this shit by doing it themselves.''

Of course she was a willing participant but that does mean it is not seriously dodgy for a boss to sleep with a young woman who has just joined the organisation.

You can't ignore the fact that he has the power to hire and fire or promote her and that adds another dimension to this and what happens next.

It is silly to suggest that you should just ignore that fact.

This man should know better than to have drunken one night stand with a member of his staff. Doesn't mean she was not unwise to do this too but for the boss it was completely inappropriate.

I would say the same if it was a female boss and a junior male employee.

It is not about the gender it is about the position within the organisation and the impact this could have on the employee's career.

He didn't take her on a date properly and sober, he didn't have to escalate to sex. They could have agreed to date, kissed at most that night after declaring attraction.
There were many opportunities in that night to stop and cool it off. He could have distanced himself when he knew they had been flirting at work and alcohol is going to be flowing. He wanted this to happen.
He only wanted a shag. Now he's seen you naked he will be moving on to the next conquest.

@BayCityCoaster it's called reading between the lines, it's her first proper job, she's been there for a few months and fancies him. You don't go from zero flirting to sleeping with your boss. There would have been a build up or 'grooming'
This is directly copied from op
this is my first “real” job and I got scared to lose it.
I haven’t been in the job for long and just passed my probation and I love my work and the company,
I do fancy him but I also know that realistically nothing will come of it because he won’t fancy me.

😂😂😂

Honestly read that as you’d had an orgy with those that stayed up late

That's how I read it too.

Racy minds think alike ...

Yes they’re wonderful kids (adults).

I could write a book on my shenagagins at work (I started work way back in 1978). It would no doubt displease some on here.