I (mid-level corporate associate) feel like I might have massively screwed up and am hoping somebody can advise me on what to do next.
I’ve worked in a niche specialist group since starting at my firm and for a long time I’ve been the most junior person in the group. For the last few years it’s been frustrating seeing others in my cohort get more responsibility while I’m stuck doing all the grunt work. Thankfully, one of the seniors is out on mental health leave and the group brought in a new first year associate. So now I’m getting a lot more substantive work and communicating directly with clients. I don’t feel like I was trained properly on this and I’m still trying to adjust to this new role.
Last week I had a call relating to a deal and it was supposed to be myself, a partner, and our client. However, the partner was in a meeting that ran late, so the first 20 minutes of the call were just me and the client. I didn’t want to get started without the partner so I decided to do a bit of small talk. We had a nice chat and it turns out we have a lot of the same interests and similar senses of humor. We talked a bit about plans for the long weekend and she mentioned she was going on a “gal-entines day” trip with some friends, so I know that she’s single. I recognize that it’s totally unprofessional to pursue anything with a client, but at the same time, why would she go out of her way to mention she’s single if she wasn’t at least somewhat interested?
I wasn’t planning on doing anything, but over the weekend I had a serious lapse in judgment and I looked her up on instagram. Her profile was public and I saw she had posted on her story. I know it was stupid but I watched them and saw she was at a beach somewhere. I immediately realized that she would be able to see I viewed her story. There were swimsuit photos and I was afraid I’d seem like a creep who was online stalking her in the middle of the night. I decided that the best move was to (very respectfully) slide up on her story and ask how the trip was going. She didn’t respond and initially I assumed she was just too busy, but I looked up her profile again this morning and she blocked me.
Now I’m freaking out. Nobody has said anything to me yet, but I’m super anxious and feel like I’m going to be fired over this. I haven’t been able to focus on anything all day and multiple people have told me that I seem unwell. I really can’t afford to lose this job because I still have significant debt from law school and have very little in savings. What should I do here?