Was He Serious? Is He Mad At Me?

OK, so work kind of took a funny turn yesterday/Friday as I was pulled from my default job to work in The Third Department.  One form has been updated, but federal requirements mandate that all companies from a certain date forward have to use these new forms.  They didn't, and so we have to tell them that all the information given in this old form has to be attested to be good for this new form.  That's a lot of faxes that need to be sent out, and a lot of faxes that are sent back to us, which means there is a lot of work matching these up so we can update our systems.  This seems to happen whenever there is a new form, the frequency of which I do not know.

That means that for the past couple weeks, these guys have been somewhat inundated with all these faxes that need to be matched up and processed.  They do what they can.  But maybe because they were absolutely overwhelmed or they thought about this but hadn't gotten around to implementing the idea sooner, they asked me to go back there for some quick matching.  It was about 90 minutes before lunch and an hour before I had to go, but I was back there, and I matched, and it was a nice change of pace, and I liked it.

The people back there ... uh, I don't know what happened.  They've been swamped with this stuff for a while now, and I believe they have had to stay long in order to at least get more of the work done.  Maybe, however, they got fed up yesterday.

Now, there's this guy.  It's not as if we know each other well, but he seems to be a chill dude.  I'm working around him, and he goes, out of the blue, "So, you're staying till 4:30?"

And I am fucking stunned.  I wasn't mad or anything.  Frankly, I think I just sat there staring at him because my first instinct was to say, "Yeah, OK, I can stay, I can help," but I couldn't because ... well, I really didn't want to stay there.  Why in the hell did he ask me that shit?  He has never asked me anything like that before.  In fact, I never thought he would ask me anything like that, well, ever.

But he looked at me.  And I looked back at him.  And then, to break the tension, another person starts laughing.  And then I say something about not knowing when someone is jerking my chain.

But that remark has stayed with me.  And, frankly, saying that to me, and him stunning me into silence because I was so gobsmacked ... that ain't cool, man.  I had a call that I had to receive after my work was done (which it turns out I didn't get because her phone system is all wonky or something), and that evening after dinner I slept for six hours.  So I couldn't have stayed late ... if he were serious.  And I still don't quite know if he was joking or not.  So I don't know if I should feel a tad guilty or not.  And then why would he ask me if I could stay late like that?  Shit, man, why didn't you tell me earlier than an hour before I thought I would leave?  And I didn't even know if I could stay late if I wanted to; I came in early yesterday, and I'm not sure if my boss would be OK that I would stay late to help these guys in this department.  If it were Data Entry I think it was fine because overtime was permitted all week.  But here?  Because you just asked out of nowhere if I could stay?  And since I said no, is he mad at me?  Shit, man, don't fuckin' put this on me.

Fuck, I'm now all confused and anxious.  And to start the weekend too, goddamn. ...