My coworker thinks I eat lunch at my desk because I am ambitious. I am translating soap operas for the janitor

Everyone at work thinks I skip lunch to impress management.

This is irritating because I have never impressed management in my life.

The truth is that I spend forty minutes each afternoon translating a soap opera for Rafael, the man who cleans our floor.

It began when I stayed late during a storm. Most people had left, but the buses were delayed, so I sat in the break room eating crackers and watching an episode of a dramatic series on my phone.

Rafael came in to empty the bins. He glanced at the screen and said the actor playing the wealthy grandfather had been famous in his country when Rafael was young.

The show was from the 1990s. I had found it online after my grandmother mentioned watching it. The available videos had no English subtitles, but I understand enough Portuguese to follow the plot if people speak slowly and nobody is confessing beside a waterfall.

Rafael understood the dialogue. I did not.

He sat down for one scene. When a woman opened a letter and slapped her fiancé, Rafael explained that the fiancé had secretly purchased her family’s farm. I asked why that deserved a slap. He said I had missed three marriages and a disputed inheritance.

We started the series from the beginning.

Rafael translated into English while I typed subtitles into a document. I cleaned up his wording when five people spoke at once. We watched one episode every weekday after most employees went to lunch.

At first we used the break room. Then a manager complained that the cleaning cart blocked a cabinet, so we moved to my desk. Rafael parks the cart in the hall and sits in the visitor chair. From a distance, it looks as if we are reviewing serious files.

We are usually deciding whether a missing twin has returned with amnesia.

The routine changed my workday. Rafael began bringing coffee in a dented thermos. I learned that he had studied broadcasting before moving here. He knew why scenes were cut a certain way and could predict a commercial break from the music. He learned that I was considering leaving my job but had not applied anywhere because rejection felt easier to avoid than survive.

We did not discuss those things directly for long. The show gave us somewhere to place them.

Then my supervisor praised me in a team meeting for “working through lunch with support staff to improve operational documentation.”

Rafael nearly choked on his coffee.

I should have corrected her immediately. Instead, I said, “We have a good system.”

Since then, the misunderstanding has grown. A director mentioned my “cross-functional initiative.” Someone asked whether Rafael was helping me audit supply usage. I kept giving vague answers because telling the truth would expose that we stream a television show on company Wi-Fi during paid time.

Last week, my supervisor nominated the project for an internal efficiency award.

There is now a form asking me to describe our method and measurable results.

Rafael thinks this is hilarious. He wants the method listed as “pause when anyone enters the room.” He also says I must decline before the joke reaches his manager, who may not find it funny.

I agree. But simply declining lets everyone keep believing I created a worthy project and chose to be modest about it. Correcting the story may put Rafael at greater risk than me because his schedule is monitored more closely.

We have fourteen episodes left.

How do I dismantle an invented workplace achievement without turning a harmless friendship into evidence against the person with less power?