Stephanie Kisee - Office Mate: Your Employee Handbook for Romance on the Job

office
mate

The Employee Handbook for Finding
and ManagingRomance on the Job

Stephanie Losee and Helaine Olen

The authors wish to acknowledge that some names, identifying details, and
characteristics have been changed to protect the lovelorn (and the formerly lovelorn).

Copyright 2007 by Stephanie Losee and Helaine Olen.
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any
form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are
made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

Published by
Adams Media, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322. U.S.A.
www.adamsmedia.com

ISBN 10: 1-59869-330-1
ISBN 13: 978-1-59869-330-0
eISBN: 978-1-44051-648-1

Printed in Canada.

J I H G F E D C B A

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Losee, Stephanie.
Office mate / Stephanie Losee and Helaine Olen.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59869-330-0 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 1-59869-330-1 (pbk.)
1. Mate selection. 2. Dating (Social customs) 3. Single women.
4. Sex in the workplaceUnited States. I. Olen, Helaine. II. Title.
HQ801.L65 2007
646.7'7082dc22
2007025299

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the
American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations

This book is available at quantity discounts for bulk purchases.
For information, please call 1-800-289-0963.

For our Office Mates-turned-husbands
... of course

Acknowledgements

Were grateful to everyone who told us their stories of finding love on the job. Wed name names, but some of you asked for anonymity. Numerous others generously shared their expertise, including Harriet Brand, John Hourigan, Pam Anderson, Esther Perel, Janet Lever, Andrea Phillips, Alan Deutschman, Amy Dickinson, and Michael Cohen.

We are grateful to our agents, Lauren Pearson and Joe Regal, for seeing the potential in this project when it was a page-long query letter. At Adams, wed like to thank our talented editor Jennifer Kushnier, Beth Gissinger, and Karen Cooper. Kudos to Lynn Goldberg and Laura Pillar of Goldberg McDuffie Communications. We also want to give a shout out to all who advised us on the book biz.

Office Mate would not exist if our husbands had not been friends long before they knew either of us. So wed like to thank our in-laws, Ron and Bunny Unger and Howard and Sylvia Roshkow, for deciding that their younger sons would be a great friendship match many years ago. Last, we are indebted to our children, parents, siblings, and good friends, all of whom gave up something, sometime, to make the completion of this book possible.

Contents

Part 1
Why Work Just Might Be the Perfect Place to Find True Love

CHAPTER 1
It Takes a Village to Make a Marriage, and the Office Is a Modern-Day Village

CHAPTER 2
How the Village Is Built, or Why You Should Love and Adore Human Resources Even Though Theyre Always Sending You All Those Annoying Memos

CHAPTER 3
Office Mate Orientation, or the Anti-Rules

CHAPTER 4
Youre in Good Company (in More Ways Than One)

CHAPTER 5
You Think Were Not Talking about You, But We Are

CHAPTER 6
How to Indicate InterestWithout Indicating Yourself Right Out of a Job

CHAPTER 7
Lets Give Them Something to Talk About

CHAPTER 8
What about the Office Spouse?

Part 2
Office Mate Etiquette: Managing Your Workplace Romance

CHAPTER 9
So Youre in Love: Dos

CHAPTER 10
So Youre in Love: Donts

CHAPTER 11
When Do You Tell? Not to Mention, How Do You Tell?

CHAPTER 12
Dating the Boss or a Subordinate

CHAPTER 13
Dating an Equal

CHAPTER 14
Dont Go There, or No, No, No

CHAPTER 15
When Hes Out of Your Life But Not Out of the Office Next Door

CHAPTER 16
Serial Office Dating: Possibly Inevitable but Not Necessarily Lethal

CHAPTER 17
Should I Stay or Should I Go? Or, Leaving the Village

Part 3
The Global Office (Mate)

CHAPTER 18
Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

CHAPTER 19
When Your Workplace Is a Romantic Wasteland

CONCLUSION
Happily Ever After, Which Is the Point

FROM THE DESK OF
Helaine

I wanted his office.

I know this doesnt sound like the typical, starry-eyed beginning of a story about getting to know the man with whom one recently celebrated ones sixteenth wedding anniversary. But its true. At the time I met Matt my life seemed defined by its lack of space. Tiny cubicle at work. Cramped third-floor walkup shared with my agoraphobic roomie and her two rabbits. Rush-hour commutes so jammed that a subway conductor would warble over the trains crackly loudspeaker, Were all crammed in like sardines, were all crammed in like sardines... to the tune of Hi Ho Cherry-O.

But Matt, my future husband, had a private space. Inexplicably, and unlike the rest of us overworked and underpaid editorial assistants, he had an actual office with a door where he could get away with combing the sports pages of every New York daily and engage in raucous long-distance phone chats with former college buddies, leisurely takeout lunches, andthis we found particularly gallingthe occasional nap. All this while the rest of us, stranded in a makeshift hallway, did our best to avoid getting nailed by mailroom carts and speedwalking executives.

So I took action. Speaking on behalf of my fellow editorial assistants, I knocked on Matts door and demanded a few minutes of his time. But before I could get around to delivering the speech Id prepared in an effort to guilt-trip him into handing over his junior executive digs to a more worthy occupant, a weird thing happened. I found myself laughing.

First, there was the hilarious collection of awful manuscript pages hed read and then taped for posterity to his wall; contrary to my suppositions, he did do some work. One featured a phrase so ludicrously clunky that Matt had challenged his colleagues to define exactly what it meant, with the winner getting a free lunch.

Then there was the charming, self-deprecating, you caught me way he admitted that yes, he did occasionally use the office for napping. But, he added, always in his chair. The offices small love seat was too crowded with manuscripts to allow for a truly relaxed snooze.

It seemed like years since Id had that much fun just talking with a member of the opposite sex. My last date had been with a guy who told me all about the various twelve-step programs he was in. Programs, plural. When I returned to my cubicle my fellow editorial assistants were all poking their heads over theirs, demanding the dish on this much-anticipated showdown. Were going out for drinks after work next week, I told them. Ill ask about the office then.

A year later, after I changed jobs, I found myself missing my office mate. A lot. Soon, we were sharing a workplace again. Permanently. Some people would call it home.