Open bars, a touch of exhaustion after a long day, that festive cheer… Christmas parties are notorious for prompting office affairs. If you’ve found yourself a bedroom buddy at work: proceed with caution.
When it comes to bringing sex and the workplace together, there are Dos and Don’ts – and Lady Friday is here to give you RESCU’s top tips on how to manage office flings.
Don’t gossip unless it’s become a relationship.
Offices are the home of gossip – and once you’ve got involved with Geoff from Accounting, it can be near-torture not to tell all around the water cooler.
Hold off – and tell your new bedroom buddy to keep quiet too. It’s your private business, and people could use it against you – or just be paying far too much attention to your shenanigans and not enough to your work.
Keep the two spheres separate.
Work and play have to be two distinct parts of life – that’s what makes them so enjoyable.
So keep the sexy you for the private space, and maintain your professionalism (albeit with a hint of intimacy) at work. It makes your time alone together hotter, and will make you both anticipate it more keenly.
And don’t talk about work when your clothes are off, either. It’ll ruin the fun.
Don’t do anything unprofessional.
Wearing sexy lingerie to work (and letting them know about it beforehand), or letting a hint of stocking show while you’re showing your honey a file is acceptable – or borderline so – but going beyond flirtation is letting yourself in for criticism.
Check your office guidelines about in-office behaviour so you can defend yourself if somebody says something snide. And don’t get so distracted by your liason that you stop doing your job!
Oh, and in-office trysts? Even after hours, or at the Christmas party, it’s a no-no. Naughty kisses snatched in the photocopy room are one thing (and should be done with supreme caution); full-on romps could get you fired.
Make sure his/her home life is what it seems.
We only know as much about our coworkers as they want us to know. You’ve hidden away your embarrassing prom photos and break-up disasters, haven’t you? So have they.
So don’t fall for what’s presented – dig a little further, if you want to be with somebody unattached.
Sometimes the fancy-free executive with the great smile can have a wife, a drinking problem, a complicated divorce, or something else you don’t want to be involved with – so get the full information, from other co-workers or your own snooping.
Check you’re both on the same page.
I know it’s deeply unsexy, but this is something you’re going to have to talk about – ‘what we’re actually doing here’.
Define what you want – is it just sex? Will you be a couple? (Go for the former if you can – it makes the whole thing a lot less complicated) – and make sure you make that clear.
If you’ve hooked up with somebody who clearly doesn’t want the same things you do, drop them. The world’s bigger than your office anyway, and it’s not worth the hassle unless it’s going to be a truly spectacular time for both of you.
If it ends, be discreet and don’t act like a teen.
Office flings end; people get fired or move away or get promoted and suddenly can’t see you any more.
Hard as it may be, you have to be an adult and act as professionally as possible in your interactions with them. Just because you know what they look like naked, or know that they cheated on you with half of Marketing, doesn’t mean you should sacrifice your job.
This is, unfortunately, the downside of hooking up with a workmate – the fallout afterwards. Applying for a transfer or a change of jobs because life’s become too embarrassing or upsetting at work is not the way you want to go.
So do it properly – and think before you act. Just because he or she is hot doesn’t mean you need to get involved. After all, sometimes it’s OK just to window shop…
Lady Friday xx
Taking the pillow talk out of the bedroom, every Friday
Image credit: Office Affairs Mad Men image via unitcritic.blogspot.com
