Sweater Guy and Cubicle Girl

New Guy at Work

It was just like any other work day. I had gotten up at an ungodly hour, I got dressed in a half-assed office-chíc outfit, and stuffed a bagel into my purse for the road. I soon got the courage to finally get going as I walked out the door tucking the stack of rent notices under the doormat and then headed downtown to the subway station.

The subway ride was always boring, same people same stops, nothing interesting ever happened on the subway. Nothing interesting ever happened well... ever. Same house same clothes same coffee same subway same work. 'Gee I could really use a change,' I thought to myself leaving the subway and walking to the office park.

At work
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The office was always quiet, aside from a few people typing or going to the water jug. My cubical had pictures all over of places like Hawaii and Japan, I know its a cliche. I put them up when I first started working, thinking soon i'd be living large and vacationing in Honolulu. I sighed at my pictures, even they were getting old.
Then suddenly, something different happened. A loud thud and the sound of paper wrinkling everywhere. I turned away from my screen and saw someone I didn't recognize, it was someone new! He was a young man. He had straight blonde curtain hair looking like a Korean bowl cut E-boy, very stylish actually. He had wire glasses, and he was actually really tall. He was a little chubby but in sort of a way where it seemed like he was just a naturally big dude. He was apologizing to the whole office and quickly picking up the items he dropped.
"Oh SHIT I'm so sorry everyone! GAWD I wouldn't be surprised if I got fired on my first day."

Of course John, the professional office asshole had to say something about it, he scoffed and said, "Are we through with the interruptions today Mr New Guy?"

"Oh hush John, leave him alone it's his first day." I scoffed back. "Need some help?" I offered to the new guy.

"Oh no thank you though I'm just fine, guess I have some adjusting to do here huh?" He said as he picked up his last paper.

I watched him go to his cubicle which was about two down from mine. I was oddly intrigued and felt the need to befriend this man. So what did I do? I marched over confidently and aggressively introduced myself because I'm sOcIaLlY aWkWaRd!

"Hi! I'm Ella, you're new here huh? Rough day?" I loudly exclaimed, much too loud for a near-silent office.

"Oh yes haha! You have no idea" He said as he stood up to properly introduce himself. "I'm Corey, I work in I.T."

"Oh I.T? I thought maybe you were the boss's new assistant or one of the insurance managers guys—you know, just cuz you were holding so many papers."

"Oh no, no. What had happened was as soon as I came in here the boss guy started yelling at me that I was late and just handed me a stack of papers to make copies so I guess he had mistaken me for his new assistant but like, I didn't wanna correct him on my first say—and he just seemed so angry like geez that dude needs like a fucken chill pill or some shit."

"Yea... he's a little intense. Well, I hope you'll get used to working here real soon."

"Thanks, me too. Hope it's not like my last job."

"What happened in your last job?"

"I worked there maybe a week but was fired because the HR guy was power drunk and got mad at me for spilling his coffee by accident. Ugh—I hate HR people."

"Oh haha... well actually I'm an HR assistant." I just laughed at the irony.

"OH SHOOT IM SORRY. I didn't mean it about you I just—"

"No don't worry about it, HR people really do suck. We're basically just office narcs. I guess we are pretty good at keeping peace though. But—sorry about your last job, I promise I won't fire you—also I can't. I'm only an assistant."

"Thanks." He laughed. Something about him was odd though. He was tugging at his cat pattern-tie with his right hand, and covering his doughy midsection with the other.

"Uhh are you alright there?" I asked feeling nosey.

"Yeah, just um extremely uncomfortable." He then laughed awkwardly and crossed his arms now covering his body with both.

"What's wrong? not used to ties?" I asked trying to dissolve the awkward situation.

"Well um in a way... more like I kinda really want to cover up in an oversized hoodie... heh... yea. Not used to wearing office people clothes." He had said 'well' like kombucha girl.

After that I understood, he was self conscious. I wanted so bad to tell him he had nothing to worry about, but I thought he might've thought I was hitting on him or something. I didn't want to make him more uncomfortable, so I told him, "Why don't you buy one of those big knitted sweaters, you know, the really nice kind they sell at Kohl's and they're like office professional looking or whatever."

"That's actually a really good idea, wow, why didn't I think of that?" That DAY he left at lunch to go buy one and came back wearing a really nice oversized blue knitted sweater. He wore a sweater every single day after that.

And from that point on in the office he became "Sweater Guy."