The Confession No One Needed

From awkward oversharing to confessions no coworker should ever have to hear, sometimes “clearing your conscience” just creates a whole new mess. This story is a reminder that dragging your spouse — and a horrified colleague — into your penance can turn workplace professionalism into pure cringe.

The Confession No One Needed

Many years ago, I (34M) worked in a laboratory alongside several engineers, project managers, and admin/staff. A young engineer (Katie) was hired and mainly kept to herself. She was assigned to work with a project engineer (David) who was 20+ years her age and married. As far as we were aware, everything was strictly professional and on the level.

As part of their normal job duties, they had to conduct business travel as a team. I want to reiterate that there was never any real concern about Katie, since she mainly kept to herself and expressed no real interest in socializing; she was strictly there for work. Over the course of the year, Katie and David both ended up going on several business-related trips. Nothing negative was reported back, and as far as anyone else was aware, the trips were professionally handled.

However, one day, David went to Katie’s desk during work hours and confessed that he’d been having “immoral thoughts” about her and knew it was wrong. He explained that he had told his wife, which had upset her so much that he ended up sleeping on the couch for a while. As part of his “penance,” his wife insisted he confess directly to Katie — so there he was, telling her about his thoughts, his wife’s reaction, and how he’d been “set straight from his wicked ways.” He wrapped it up by saying that Katie didn’t need to worry anymore and that he felt relieved to finally get it off his chest.

Needless to say, she was safely reassigned to a different project after that. And no, David was never reprimanded.