Excerpt From The Book

CHEATING WITH AN OFFICE GIRLFRIEND OR BOYFRIEND

Take This Job And Love It

Infidelity comes in so many shapes and sizes it can boggle the mind. One of the fastest growing ways to meet your extra-relationship love interest is at the office. And why not? We work longer hours than ever before and have little time or energy after work to join clubs, go to bars, play on intramural teams or whatever anyone might normally do to meet new people. So what's the busy office worker to do when he or she gets the itch? Scan the expanse of cubicles stretching out to the horizon and start choosing.

Apparently, this method of selecting a special friend is so popular that one study has reported that 70% of single employees will become romantically linked with someone at their office during the course of their career. Another study reports that up to 60% of married people indulge in affairs, and that the office is the number one place to meet a willing partner. If you didn't know it before, now is the time to recognize that your office is less workplace and more roiling dating pool. Huzzah! Let the games begin.

To make matters even more entertaining, it seems that most people are so actively enthusiastic about inter-office dating that church socials and singles bars are fading into the background in favor of high times in the boardroom. 30% of office managers polled in a national survey admitted that they had dated a co-worker and 67% said they approved of dating in the workplace. The only cloud in the sky regarding workplace dating is when superiors date their subordinates. While 96% of those polled had no problem with peer relationships, only 24% were ok with bosses dating their employees. While this may be sobering news for upper management, chances are that employee censure isn't going to get in the way of a determined canoodler.

Another intriguing aspect of dating on the job is that there are two different levels of workplace romance in which the rogue lover can indulge. One variety is the tried and true full-on office romance, complete with fumblings in supply closets, accidental butt Xeroxing, coded messages that everyone else can decode in a nanosecond, and drunken Christmas party promises. The second variety is the "emotional affair". This in-between type of affair has all the longing, clandestine intense discussions and passion of the classic office affair, but never makes it to physical consummation. The "emotional affair" is an insidious little beast as it can carry the same intense wallop as the full-blown affair and can still herald the demise of the primary relationship, but doesn't deliver the climactic payoff. People fall into this one because they think they're still being faithful and are trying to be well behaved. But they're not. Once the horse is out of the barn, it's awfully hard to get him back in.

Once again, if you're not into cheating...go ahead and find your office sweetie and dump your significant other before you let things progress behind cubicle walls. For those of us who like to hedge our bets, there's the "office boyfriend/girlfriend".