How to have a secret office relationship (and get away with it)
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Version 0 of 1. News that American Apparel has banned office romances made me think back to my own. Being a nervous, controlling type (form an orderly queue etc), I made sure mine took place when I had nothing to lose. I was in my teens and temping at Marks & Spencer. I had no interest in the job, which was working mainly in the food department. My sole ambition was to get enough drinking money for two rounds. So the stakes were fairly low. The girl I ended up seeing – let’s call her Chrissy – was just marginally superior to me: she was full time, and in her 20s. We did our fair bit of sneaking around, probably because it made the job at hand – mostly shelf-stacking and checking the best-before dates – more interesting. Here are five rules I have for those embarking on a work romance. 1) The toilets are now Valentino’s bedroom Where do young hearts run free? Well, sadly, your choices are very limited. There is no mythical stationery cupboard you can retreat to. Really, the sole place of privacy is the toilets. You’ll have to deal with the fact you have some dusty old cans of Febreze and a rusty mirror for company. And you’ll have to train your eyes to not look at the floor tiles too much in case you vomit when you see the state of them. Chrissy and I also had the “cold room”, where all the frozen meats were kept. It was dark and not particularly populated, but also freezing. I found this romantic until I thought I had arthritis in my immobile knuckles from the cold. 2) Accept that everything becomes euphemistically loaded Linguistically speaking you become your idiot brother. Tragically, your language descends into the kind of desperate euphemisms you only get in panto. The most common-or-garden phrases become filled with heavy double entendres. In our relationship there were lots of unrepeatable, cringe-making comments involving various fruit, vegetables, three-for-two meal deals and, for some reason I can’t quite remember now, taramasalata. 3) Make cigarettes your new buddies Previously a nonsmoker, I took it up when I was seeing Chrissy. Necessity dictated that we spent as much time together as we could, and there was no better, more acceptable time to do that than the fag break. We held hands as I took the occasional puff, secretly hoping I wouldn’t cough my guts out and the ruse would be up. Long-suffering asthma condition be damned! 4) You are living in cheap romantic fiction. Roll with it. At the beginning of my office relationship, I was filled with an exhilarating sense that I was living a grownup life for the first time. I felt rebellious but also strangely alive. There was also a sense that my life had turned into the plot of a limited-release romcom. I was living cheap fiction, and I loved it. 5) Prepare for loneliness When the break-up comes, the aftermath is made even more difficult because no one knows about your relationship. I’ve never felt more lonely than when we split, and I shamefully realised that I had no colleagues to chat to because I’d spent months ignoring them in favour of spending time with Chrissy. My advice? Don’t forget about the other people in your office environment who could help you when times get tough. Otherwise you’ll end up spending your lunch breaks alone listening to lots of Alanis Morissette – and no one needs that. |