When you cross a boundary at work, chances are, you KNOW.
You know and you know intimately.
And if your story is anything like this construction worker's, you definitely know. And what's worse for him is now the entire internet knows.
DarkoEnterprises made the post in the popular form, "[That] Time I F***ed Up."
from tifu
The story starts innocently enough, if not a bit trepidatious:
"So I (27M) work construction. I'm comfortable with my sexuality but the trade is inherently very macho and homophobic.(important later) So anyways, I had been looking for work for about half a year and finally landed a job with a local contractor. We seemed to get along fairly well so I was looking forward to working for him."
But a belt full of tools would quickly lead to disaster.
"Well, me being fresh out of trade school, I was naive and had a toolbox chock full of "gimmicky" tools and apparatus that were supposed to make my life easier but any veteran tradesmen would know is absolutely useless crap. One such example, my toolbelt had 'new and improved!' hammer loops, which was a partial loop with two little spring loaded arms (they looked like pinball paddles) so you could just slap the hammer into the loop instead of sliding it in from the top. Sooo amazing..."
And then suddenly, the OP and his boss were joined at the waist.
"I show up for my first day decked out in my future-age carpentry gadgets and about 20 pounds of clothes because it was the dead of winter. After exchanging pleasantries with my new crew, I was shown where I'd be working: 30 feet up on a narrow scaffold plank with my new boss. No biggie."
"So him and I scale the scaffold and begin working. At some point, my boss needs to get on the other side of me, so I scoot to the edge of the plank and he starts sliding behind me...
CLICK."
"The front of his belt promptly gets lodged into my hammer holder. Like I said, we were wearing lots of clothes so it took a minute to see why we were stuck butt-to-crotch, and we embarrassingly chuckled before trying to free ourselves. My hammer was in the loop already, so with his part of the belt in there as well, there wasn't enough room for the little arms to fold back and release me from my nightmare."
And they stayed stuck together until someone else happened upon them, an absolute nightmare first day at a new job.
"For about fifteen minutes we shared that intimate moment on that scaffold, before another coworker came around the corner. After asking what we were doing, he proceeded to take a wedding's worth of pictures of us while laughing hysterically."
"I had had enough. I took my pliers and ripped off the arms on the hammer holder. Free at last, we worked the rest of the day in silence."
"I promptly went home and threw my belt into my wood boiler. If you ever want to break the ice with a new employer, just force them to spoon you on your first day."
Nothing says unwanted intimacy like literally being joined in the nether regions.
It's an uncomfortable position to be stuck in no matter who you are.
Other Redditors had similar stories.
"I'm glad I had older guys explain to me early on not to fall for gimmicks. There is so many out there. I had a similar situation happen when my Foreman's safety vest got stuck on my face shield Halo. Pretty much nuts to forehead."
"Great story. This reminds me of the time I saw my wife (or so I thought) at our gym, walked up behind her and gave her a nice pelvic thrust. Oh lord, it wasn't my wife but another woman that looked just like her from behind. Very awkward."
"My SO commonly ends his phone calls with 'I love you'. Did it to his boss. She thought it was funny."
"My old boss and I were trying to fit a door into place. So he switches with another worker to get better positioning and starts to crouch and move under my raised up arms, which were holding the top of the door in place. He says 'Okay ScumbagGrum I'm gonna come inside you..' We then lock eyes and stare at eachother for a moment in silence and continue on.."
"I still think about it years later and cringe..."
"Yeah one time me and my friends were out on a job together in Oregon, and we all decided to get a 2 bed motel room together, the four of us, two of us were a bit older and wouldnt sleep together in a bed, but me and the other guy didn't think much of it, were millennials and all, and we slept two to a bed."
"I woke up to a bit of yelling and laughing, I had a rock hard dick in my sleep and rolled over and put my hand on the dude and poked him with my hard on and muttered something with the word baby in it 😂 it freaked him out. He wouldn't sleep in the bed with me for like two days."
Sometimes embarrassment is unavoidable.
And sometimes we can all relate on the same, embarrassing plane.
Happy Monday-enjoy your laugh.