4.5/10.
Sweet story, fun characters at first, average art, romance left a lot to be desired, bad ending. The author wasn't 100% comfortable with the romance idea and it showed. Strong season 1, comedy, slice of life, fluff. Season 2 felt rushed and the ending hastily wrapped up loose threads in an unsatisfying way. Could have had a few more chapters to flesh out the ending.
-SPOILERS AHEAD-
I don't know if this was an author issue or because we lost chapters, but suddenly the main character jumped from vaguely blushing at the things Jim did to unambiguously liking him after the jump from S1 to S2.
Despite my gripes with the story, I really liked Jim. I found him frustrating at first, but came to understand him and relate to his social awkwardness. Ilene was... Ok? Sometimes I loved her. Season 1 Ilene was funny and her reactions were totally believable. Season 2 Ilene seemed juvenile, despite these characters being adults. Adults can also be 'bad' at romance, however, both characters are frustratingly like tweens who can't figure out how to say they like each other. It's unreasonable to assume that Ilene has never been in a relationship or been in love by the age of 27. While there are understandable reasons why Jim would find it difficult to get a girlfriend, Ilene is well adjusted and is initially attracted to her Evangelion looking co-worker (who I also really liked by the end despite the rushed conclusion making his actions unbelievable at this point). One of the draws of a story set with adults is that you can explore the actual relationship of these characters without the boring- will they won't they- plot a huge proportion of shojou manga utilises. I was waiting for Ilene to take the reigns and confess so the good stuff could happen. Then the ending cucked me out of even the token first kiss. It's a real shame there was so much there to explore here- an office romance is interesting. He's her boss; if they got into a relationship the dynamic in the office would change, she'd likely have to move to a different department and the couple could navigate their new workload without the support of one another. Give the office a redemption arc, particularly Evangelion boy. He was already pretty cool, but it would have been nice to see him become friends with Jim more naturally. The internal conflict around whether he should betray his friend or stay loyal to his company would be interesting (Unintentional Love Story is a BL that explores this idea but with a lover. However, it is far from perfect and falls into its own traps and tropes).
This is really only a josei because the love interest isn't initially conventionally attractive and we are told they're adults. But this really is just a story aimed at a shojou demographic. The tropes it fits into are the same, Jim (despite being a really sweet guy) is not someone most adults would choose to date. He's a total oblivious idiot in a childish, naive way. Ilene, the adult in the situation, falls in love out of nowhere and has a weird cliche 'we both like the same guy so I'm gonna tell you' moment. When you stop and think- this woman is 27??? This whole thing seems silly.
HOWEVER, this doesn't make it all bad. For its audience, teens, this is an alright story with plenty of things to enjoy about the characters and their lives. A story for adults? Nah, this ain't it chief. For a better comedy-romcom for adults, I'd suggest Wotakoi. The characters are superficially similar to this story but better in almost every way. The romance is also a slow burn but in a realistic and (mostly) mature way.
Yes, My Boss!