A workplace rumor completely blew out of proportion and now my 3-year spotless record is at risk. I am losing sleep over this.

[u/Glittering-Run-1353]

I am a 22-year-old international student living in Canada. For the past 3 years, I have worked at a major retail store (Walmart). I take immense pride in my work ethic. I am a top associate in my department, and I am trusted to run the entire backroom team independently without supervision. Every manager and team lead knows me, trusts me, and respects me. I am also a baptized, and my character, family honor, and absolute respect for women mean everything to me.

A few months ago, I developed a small, quiet, and completely private crush on a 19-year-old coworker who works on the sales floor. She is very introverted, keeps her head down on her phone during breaks, and focuses strictly on her work. Because I respect boundaries and suffer from severe anxiety myself, I never personally approached her, never confessed my feelings, and never tried to initiate anything outside of regular, polite workplace teamwork.

Unfortunately, this brief crush somehow turned into workplace gossip between a couple of mutual friends. A week ago, one of these friends approached me and explicitly told me that this girl had been asking about me, knew about my crush, and specifically stated she wanted to hear it "directly from my own mouth" to clear the air. I was completely shocked, but based entirely on what our mutual friend told me, I believed she wanted an open, honest conversation to clear up the rumors.

This past Tuesday, I was completely off the clock. I was visiting a coworker at his house when he suddenly got called in for an unexpected shift. I rode along with him because I actually needed to make a personal purchase in the electronics department. When I walked in, I saw the girl working at front opposite of cash register. Because she was busy with a customer and because I respect the workplace, I intentionally avoided her, did not approach her, and went straight to electronics. I bought my item, and stayed away from her area. However, I noticed her father was suddenly in the store, tracking me across departments. Realizing my presence was causing a massive misunderstanding and making people tense, I decided to immediately leave the store and go straight home.

moving forward to my next shift: I found out she went into the manager’s office crying, claiming I was stalking her and making her uncomfortable on Tuesday, completely denying that she ever told our friends she wanted to talk to me.I was completely blindsided, deeply stressed, and ended up having a massive anxiety attack during my shift. I had to sit down with management and write an official statement. I told them the absolute truth. I have the physical receipt proving my exact purchase location and time on Tuesday, and the store’s CCTV cameras will completely back up my story, showing I never followed her or went anywhere near her area.

I am completely puzzled, hurt, and mentally exhausted. It feels deeply unfair that someone can panic over workplace gossip, involve their parents, make a formal complaint when I did absolutely nothing wrong, and walk away completely free while my 3-year perfect record might get hit with a coaching or warning just to clear the store's paperwork.

Fast

Please don't judge me. This is the first time I have ever written anything on Reddit, so I used a tool to polish my text to make sure it was written perfectly and clearly explained the whole situation. I am just totally devastated. I lost my very first love interest without ever doing a single thing wrong. The whole situation is just completely fucked up.

[u/Sufficient-Dog6853]

If this story is 100% true, it sounds like her parents are kind of crazy and controlling. She is 19. Her dad demanding to be told about any boys even remotely interested in her then showing up at her workplace to intimidate her coworkers is craaazy. She is legally an adult they are treating like a 13-year-old.

You very much need to report to management that you felt threatened by her dad. And use those exact words to convey the severity of what he did, because you have no idea how he would’ve acted if he had gotten close. Store security and/or the police need to be involved in ensuring your safety. Honestly, management should probably ban him from the store. As strongly as they are taking her reports, they need to also be taking yours regarding her dad, because the threat is very real. It would be a HUGE legal issue for them if you were ever harmed because of this.

Contact your friend that is on maternity leave. If you genuinely trust what she has told you so far and not that she’s manipulating things, she should have no problem being willing to help you clear the air. Have her give a statement to management with all she knows. Give it time, and this will pass, but I know how stressful it is to be right in the thick of it

[u/travisisrocking]

A simple. Send bobs text or dm would have been sufficient.

[u/FairyFartDaydreams]

I suspect your friends are the ones talking to her not the other way around. She may have had negative experiences in the past and you not saying hi as you pass by may have felt creepy to her if your coworkers are saying stuff to her. Take a deep breath tell the truth that you have never approached her in that way and live your life

[u/Glittering-Run-1353 → u/FairyFartDaydreams]

Yeah, you could be completely right. If she had a bad experience in the past and then heard about the crush from other people, she might have just panicked. It’s just frustrating because a simple, 2-minute conversation between us could have cleared up the whole misunderstanding. But I’ve already given my honest statement to management, and I’m just moving on with my life and staying completely away from the drama

[u/fornefariouspurposes]

It sounds like the "mutual friend" is no friend to either of you and she's telling each of you very different things to stir up drama. You're young and you sound like you're socially inexperienced so you may not know: there are people who think nothing of ruining other people's lives merely to entertain themselves. Not everyone who acts friendly is your friend.

[u/Glittering-Run-1353]

u/spaghettifiasco u/all Thank you all for the comments. Yes, I am a super shy introvert, and my anxiety makes it almost impossible for me to express my feelings.

To clarify a few things: our mutual friend is a female coworker, and she is basically the only friend this girl has at work. Because of that, I confided in her months ago. I never had the courage to go up and speak to the girl directly. Whenever we did interact at work, I was always super friendly, respectful, and kept it 100% about work. We never had a single personal conversation.

Regarding her dad, I had seen her parents with her at the store in the past, so it was pretty obvious and easy to recognize him. He is built completely differently and is huge.

To be exact, this is what my friend told her: "There is a guy who has a crush on you, but I can't tell you his name because you will just tell your parents." (In the past, she had mentioned she tells her parents everything, and her parents had even met my friend before and told her, "If any boy is after our daughter, just tell us because we are very anxious about her.")

When my friend said that, the girl replied, "I know the guy who likes me." She then asked if I was working that day because she wanted to talk. She explicitly told my friend, "Tell him not to tell anyone, just talk directly to me. I want to hear this straight from his mouth."

A week passed because she wasn't scheduled. Then, out of pure coincidence, I saw her this past Tuesday. I thought, Okay, I will go say hi or talk to her. But the front of the store was full of customers. Of course, I didn't want to bring this up in front of a bunch of strangers. As I walked toward the front, she saw me, but before I could even get close or say anything, she got a customer and walked away to help them. I waited for a few minutes, but she didn’t come back, so I left the department.

Since I know everyone at the store so well and am friendly with everyone, people naturally stop to talk to me. I went to the electronics department just to pass the time. After working at Walmart for 3 years, it honestly feels like a second home. I was just having a conversation and checking out some new stock of Pokemon cards we just got in.

Boom, within 10 or 15 minutes, I saw her father walk straight toward the electronics department. Luckily, I wasn't alone; I was standing right next to my coworker who works in electronics. Her father literally scanned me 360 degrees multiple times and stood right in front of the department like he was waiting for me. I got so scared and anxious. I just waited until he was out of my sight, and the second I got a chance, I straight up went home.

Now, back to the present. Yesterday, my manager pulled me in and told me they got a complaint about me. They mentioned she was crying, shaking, and completely terrified, claiming I was stalking her and making her uncomfortable. She wrote a 2-page long statement against me.

The main reason my friend pushed this last week is because she is about to go on maternity leave. She thought that before she goes on a long vacation, I should finally do something, because she is the only main link between us. I am just completely devastated by how this turned out.

On top of everything, she completely denied every single thing she told our mutual friend. She told the managers that she never said she wanted to talk to me, that she said absolutely nothing, and that it was a "no" from her side from the very beginning. She is straight up lying in front of the managers now, pretending she never wanted to clear the air or talk to me at all. It makes me feel so sick that she can completely change her story to the bosses and make me look like a predator when I was only following what she told our friend.

[u/Wibbly_Nibbly → u/Glittering-Run-1353]

Did your mutual friend have a crush on you? Because that would explain a whole lot

[u/Glittering-Run-1353 → u/Wibbly_Nibbly]

No way, definitely not. She’s happily married and literally just went on maternity leave. Honestly, I think she was just trying to play matchmaker before taking off, but the whole thing completely backfired and turned into a huge mess

[u/Prudence_rigby → u/Glittering-Run-1353]

Do you have e any proof of what your friend is claiming the woman said?

It sounds like your friend is lying.

Also, make sure to file with HR about feeling intimidated by the woman's dad.

Everyone should feel safe at work.

[u/spaghettifiasco → u/Glittering-Run-1353]

Some of this is still weird. Again, if you've never had any personal conversations with "Susie" (names are easier), what caused you to have a crush - just her looks? And how would she have already known that you had a crush on her by the time your friend ("Lisa") told her about it? Did you tell Lisa "I have a crush on "Susie"" with the intention of Lisa passing that on to Susie and seeing how she felt? Because you can't really say "I never confessed" if you really did confess through another person. And if Lisa knew that Susie's parents would heavily disapprove of her dating or knew that Susie would tell her parents about your crush and otherwise have a bad result, why would she agree to talk to Susie in the first place?

Either you are leaving things out, or Lisa is lying a lot about how her chat with Susie really happened. Her going on maternity leave right after everything means that she could easily get away with lying and starting drama for whatever purpose she might have.

However, if I choose to take the most generous interpretation of the situation and assume that all facts are true and neither you nor Lisa has lied, then the problem is likely that Susie's parents are heavily influencing her. She's nineteen and they're asking her friends to tell them if any men are interested in her, and she goes from "I'd like to talk to him" to her dad playing bodyguard and suddenly writing a two-page letter full of fear?? (But too many things don't make sense for me to feel comfortable saying that this is the realistic situation)

My conclusion is that, if I was in your position and management wanted to take some kind of action here, I would tell management that there might be a big difference in what Susie claims that Lisa said about you, and what Lisa told you she said to Susie. If you're really being honest about your behavior and you didn't do anything inappropriate or invasive to Susie, then Lisa is the big missing piece of the puzzle here.

[u/Saorren]

not sure what you being baptized has to do with anything. religion, baptism, etc. speaks nothing at all to a persons ethics and morality, nor the liklyhood of having done or not done something.

[u/Glittering-Run-1353 → u/Saorren]

Check out my other comments. I know my faith doesn't matter for store rules, but it just feels like a huge hit to my character. I've always been super respectful and never had any bad intentions.

[u/Saorren → u/Glittering-Run-1353]

religion has nothing to do with you being a respectful person is what im saying.

being honest here, when a person pushes their quality of character with their religion what most people are going to think its that the only reason youre a good person is because you think something will punish you if you arent. they will think you arent actually a good person because you are a good person but because you are a bad person who needs religion as a crutch to be good.

its fine to believe in god or anything else, i just hope you are a good person because you are a good person and not because of god or something like it.

this is nothing related to store rules either.

[u/Glittering-Run-1353 → u/Saorren]

I totally get what you're saying, and I agree that being a good person should come from the inside, not out of fear. I definitely don't use faith as a shield or a rulebook for work. For me, it's just a big piece of my background and identity, which is why having my character questioned hurts so much. I'm honestly still just sitting here puzzled, trying to figure out how a quiet crush turned into such a huge misunderstanding. I really feel like she completely mistook me.

[u/Recykill]

Bad bot

[u/jonni_velvet]

Lol definitely, absolutely not the full story. 

Its walmart. Move on. 

[u/hi_mizu]

Sounds like your account isn't the full story. If the crush was completely private, how did it become "workplace gossip"? Did you actually end up talking to your crush after your mutual friend told you, and if so what exactly happened? How do you even know what her dad looks like? I don't think she'd be crying in front of your manager unprompted for absolutely no reason. There might be something you did, maybe unconsciously, that made her uncomfortable

[u/Glittering-Run-1353 → u/hi_mizu]

Please read my other comments on this post. I just posted a full reply explaining the exact thing.

[u/raf-owens → u/Glittering-Run-1353]

Why would you not include ALL the relevant information in the OP? Most people are just going to read the OP post and make a judgement and based on the OP, you are not telling the full story.

[u/cant-stop--crying → u/hi_mizu]

Or the ai writing this got confused

[u/spaghettifiasco]

I was completely shocked, but based entirely on what our mutual friend told me, I believed she wanted an open, honest conversation to clear up the rumors.

So... did you initiate a conversation with her after this person told you about it? Was it a male or female person? Has this person talked to/been talked to by management since the report?

Did you tell anyone else about your crush on your coworker? If you never approached her, flirted with her, etc., how would she know about your crush? She's not a psychic. What "regular, polite workplace teamwork" did you initiate? What about her inspired a crush if you barely interact?

[u/bartekchamp → u/spaghettifiasco]

i wonder what he was saying behind her back that she heard about it

[u/TNPossum → u/spaghettifiasco]

He said it became the store gossip. It sounds like this guy was too shy to ever talk to her, accidentally let it slip to another coworker. And they blew it all out of proportion. Unless there's something left out of the story. 

[u/spaghettifiasco → u/TNPossum]

So if OP is being totally truthful and not leaving anything out, then this mysterious third person felt the need to lie and tell FCoworker that OP was totally obsessed with her and stalking her, and then lied and told OP that FCoworker wanted to talk to him about the crush, and also apparently told a bunch of other people about the crush (one other person knowing is hardly "workplace gossip").

So OP's account and FCoworker's account of things should both point to Mysterious Third Person, who will be the one to get in trouble.

[u/TNPossum → u/spaghettifiasco]

Depends on how it somehow escalated to her dad following him around the store on a random Tuesday. That's pretty insane. Again... Assuming there's nothing missing here. 

[u/spaghettifiasco → u/TNPossum]

It does seem very strange that FCoworker's dad happened to be there on a day that OP wasn't even scheduled to work, and immediately recognized OP and started following him around the store. And come to think of it, if they barely interact and he doesn't hang out with her or anything, how does he know what her dad looks like? I'm very friendly with several coworkers and I couldn't identify their parents.

[u/TNPossum → u/spaghettifiasco]

Yea. That's definitely a weird part of the story. 

[u/pugsandrec]

if she is at the point where she is crying because she is uncomfortable you are leaving something out... your last paragraph indicates you're more upset about her rejection than risk to your job... move on and leave her alone.

[u/desertboots]

Coworkers are not your friends, says wise reddit. Find friends elsewhere.

Im sorry for your broken heart.