Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
Helaine & Stephanie

This story originally appeared in The Huffington Post under the title "Who Says It's Settling?"

A few weeks ago, The Atlantic published an intriguing essay by memoir writer Lori Gottlieb. Titled "Just Settle: The Case for Marrying Mr. Good Enough," Gottlieb used her own example as evidence that maybe, just maybe, a woman shouldn't hold out for the guy who earns seven figures annually, looks like Brad Pitt, and promises to make her heart go pitter-pat for the next 50 years. Instead, if a woman approaching 40 wants a life partner, she might have to learn to lower her standards. She might have to -- gasp -- settle. After all, many of Gottlieb's friends have done just that, at least according to Gottlieb.

That's right: Gottlieb's friends apparently married Mr. or Ms. Just-OK so they could get on with the business of making babies, scheduling cocktail parties, and opening joint stock accounts. Not surprisingly, the blogosphere went wild, and commenters accused Gottlieb of everything from denigrating the single life to suffering from rampant immaturity.

We'd argue that Gottlieb's mistake was in thinking any female who marries someone who isn't a combination of Romeo and Prince Charming had given up on romantic love. See, most people who end up married to such non-stars don't view themselves as settling, even if that is what it looks like to Gottlieb.

We recently published a book on workplace romance. We discovered that most of the women we interviewed for the book who ended up married or otherwise romantically committed to the guy in the next cubicle had known the guy for months -- if not years -- before they became intimately involved. Over and over again, we heard the refrain "I would not have married/dated this person if we had not worked together first." Why? At first glance, the dude just wasn't their type. Not Romeo. Not Prince Charming. Not even Brad.

So how did these pairings come to be? It turns out our workplace couples enjoyed the luxury of time. They got past first impressions to see how well this non-Romeo performed day after day under pressure. How he treated his colleagues, his bosses, the administrative assistants -- and how he was viewed by them. Time gave women the perspective not to prioritize the guy's poor taste in clothes, or propensity for bad jokes, or excessively obnoxious favorite rock band. In short, they got the chance to determine what qualities really mattered to them in a life mate.

It's easy to see how Gottlieb and others could think such couples are settling. After all, our culture teaches us to call it true love only if it's the product of instant chemistry, whether the spark happens while viewing someone's witty write-up on match.com or nectarine choice at Whole Foods. The fact that a potential life partner could slowly grow on you ... well, that's so unromantic. That some folks might understand better than others how lovely a life you can make with a non-perfect human who is only a soul mate 75 percent of the time apparently isn't in Gottlieb's world view.

Can a gal be happy staying single, as many of Gottlieb's critics have argued? Sure. But the fact is few of us want to spend our days alone. It was not wrong of Gottlieb to point that out, no matter how incorrect such desires and needs are in certain feminist circles. So here's our advice for the single and searching: Give the guy some time. Agree to go out on two or three dates before dismissing him. And Lori -- consider getting out of the house, giving up the freelance life, and getting a job. You never know who you might meet...

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
Helaine & Stephanie

This story originally appeared in The Huffington Post under the title "The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name. "

When we began researching office romance for our current book on the topic, we were warned that we were entering dangerous territory, legal and otherwise. We were encouraging sexual harassment. We were suggesting that the lovelorn become romantic predators, going from job to job in search of a spouse. Our subject was distasteful; stigmatized. When the book was published, we could expect a flood of disparagement.

It is true that we have been deluged, but not with criticism. Instead, we're awash in tales from people who simply want to share their stories of finding love at work. "It's odd," a public radio host observed of the day's callers after our appearance on his show. "They don't have a point to make. They just want to talk about how they met their husband or wife."

Well, that is the point. Far from its sleazy reputation of business trip flings and supply closet gropings, it turns out that workplace romance is one of the last bastions of old-fashioned courting in our society. Yet no one seems to know it.

Surveyors such as the Vault.com and Careerbuilder.com, who run the numbers on this subject every year, routinely report that about half of all Americans will date someone they met on the job at least once, with one in five of those pairings leading to a committed relationship or marriage. If Internet dating services had that sort of success rate, you can bet we would see it plastered all over their advertising. But since no one stands to gain from couples meeting at work, no one stands up for them and, as a result, almost every happy workplace couple we encounter continues to believe they are an unusual exception.

With some forty percent of workers logging more than 50 hours a week on the job, the office has become the village of the 21st century: the place where we spend the majority of our days, make our friends and, yes, meet our dates. Human Resources acts as the gatekeeper and inadvertent matchmaker. Our colleagues--much like the gossipy neighbors of a hundred years ago--steer good pairs toward each other and warn against bad characters. Couples we interviewed for Office Mate routinely spoke of the value of being able to observe each other's behavior over time, getting past first impressions, and becoming friends, all before the first date.

We discovered, in fact, that the vast majority of potential workplace couples were friends for months--sometimes years--before acknowledging or acting on their attraction. They don't make the leap until weighing the risks to their jobs and to a valuable platonic relationship if things don't work out between them.

Take Barack and Michelle Obama. When they first met, Michelle was Barack's supervisor at the law firm where he was a summer intern. Concerned about the propriety of such a relationship, she refused to date the future presidential candidate. Then he offered to quit his job. The couple's first date: A trip to an ice-cream parlor.

As long as there is no fiscal or supervisory conflict of interest, bosses don't object and few co-workers are opposed. Office romance has become so common that it has become part of the lingo at many firms. At Charles Schwab, for example, "schwupples" spend weekends attending each other's "schweddings."

We don't deny that dating at work can cause all kinds of complications. Dating anyone, anywhere, can cause all sorts of upsets, particularly if it ends badly. Our point about workplace romance is simply this: It's ubiquitous. And it works. Instead of shaming folks this Valentine's Day for dipping their pens in the company ink, let's celebrate those who find love on the job instead. If Bill Gates and Barack Obama can meet their life partners at work, why can't you?

Thursday, January 24th, 2008
Helaine & Stephanie

It's less than a month into the New Year, and already a mayor of a major American city finds himself embroiled in an office romance scandal. This time it's Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who denied under oath that he had an affair with top aide Christine Beatty and is now confronted with dozens of goopy love texts Beatty had on her city-issued pager.

What was the mayor thinking?

First off, memories of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky should have entered Kilpatrick's head (or at least the head of one his advisors) before he lied under oath about his doings in the bedroom. But as mayor of a major American city, he might be expected to have had the smarts to realize email is not private.

Putting aside for a moment how all this came out -- the testifying happened during a police whistle-blower lawsuit and the texts were made public after the Detroit Free Press got hold of them through some method they're not divulging -- the fact remains that it is simple stupidity to fail to recognize that the emails, IMs, and texts you send as an employee are not your property. And not to bash a certain New York mayor who happens to be a presidential candidate, these communication means and the other resources afforded you by your office are not yours to use for romantic pursuits. Anyone who can't - -or won't -- recognize that fact deserves to have his competence questioned by the electorate that put him there.

People fall in love on the job. Unfortunately, some of them are married to others when it happens. We won't get into the morality of extramarital office romances or the implications therein. But as we discovered when we researched our book Office Mate: The Employee Handbook for Finding -- and Managing -- Romance on the Job, there are still people out there operating under the mistaken impression that these communication methods are private. They're not. They're company property, and, like a diamond, they are forever. Whether you're a single person perfectly free to pursue a single colleague in your department or a mayor who thinks he's above, well, everything, making a permanent and public record of your liaison is utter folly.

Kilpatrick may be comforted to know he is in such formerly well-respected mayoral company as San Francisco's Gavin Newsom, who lost his chief of staff after it was revealed that he once had a fling with the top aide's wife, and Los Angeles' Antonio Villaraigosa, who took off his wedding ring while he was romancing Spanish television news reporter Mirthala Salinas, whose job it was to -- and we hate to say it -- cover the mayor. But it's an ignominous distinction at best.

We recommend another method of communication for office romancers, whatever their rank or marital status. It's called speaking. In person. It may be low-tech, but at least you can't print it out.

Monday, December 31st, 2007
Stephanie

It is a sad day for office romance; one of our favorite celebrity workplace couples, Sean Penn and Robin Wright Penn, filed for divorce after 11 years of marriage.

The deterioration of their relationship seems to have had an extra measure of drama, since Penn filed papers earlier in December and Wright Penn followed up yesterday with papers of her own. “You can’t divorce me—I divorce you more!” Perhaps one of them had a dalliance; maybe there were career tensions. No doubt we will hear further details in the coming weeks.
 
The couple, who had worked together several times both before and after they became a couple, are skedded to star together in Milk, a biopic on the life of the late San Francisco Mayor Harvey Milk. The film is set to begin shooting in early 2008. There is no word on whether the two will continue on in the film.

It is a dicey business to single out happily married couples for mention in a book, given the fact that somewhere around 40% of all married couples will eventually split. But we felt pretty secure when we highlighted the seemingly solid Sean and Robin. Yes, we knew they had once split in the 1990s, but surely Defamer would have known if there was trouble once again in paradise, right?
 
Our sympathies go out to Sean Penn, Robin Wright Penn, and their two children.

Thursday, November 1st, 2007
Stephanie

I’ve always heard it said that after years of marriage, couples begin to resemble each other. Now I know that after years of working together, writing partners begin to sound like each other. Helaine and I discovered this in a recent dual interview with a reporter who was asking us questions about Office Mate. I was thinking he wouldn’t have a hard time distinguishing our voices; Helaine drags out her syllables at the bottom of her voice like Samantha in Sex and the City, while I am the fast-talking Carrie. But the reporter kept confusing us and when he said he was worried that he would give the wrong one credit for the other’s quote, Helaine said, “That’s okay, I’m happy to take credit for one of Stephie’s quotes, and vice versa.” And that’s exactly what happened.
 
We continue to marvel at what a healthy team we are. I’m sure there are ways in which we make each other nutty, but they are compatible ways. We fill in each other’s gaps. Today we were trying to decide if we are learning from each other or if we are each becoming even less confident of our shortfalls in the face of the other’s relative ease. We decided it doesn’t matter, and that we can put our neurosis on a schedule. We’ll write another book together and then promise each other a window of writing time following that book in which we write a book the other wouldn’t be remotely interested in collaborating on. It’s better not to scrutinize these sources of light too much; they might dim.
 
Today’s press: good stuff. Vivianne Rodrigues wrote a charming and favorable review for Reuters, which named us their Business Book of the Week.

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007
Stephanie

Yesterday excerpts from our book were flashing on AOL at regular intervals, and I am here to attest that flashing on AOL will get you very far in life. This morning we were told that we got 1.9 million page views in the first six hours alone. Then we found out that Office Mate is going to be translated into Russian. Do they have offices in Russia?
 
One point nine million page views. Think of all the people reading these theories that Helaine and I put out there. I wonder what they are thinking. And what about the people who read the Times story, or the one in the NY Post? Do they think what we are saying is in poor taste? Are we just this side of inappropriate? I keep hearing my mother’s voice in my head, and with every bit of press I move a little further out of my comfort zone. As the days go by and more of the work we did goes out into the world, I feel like we really did flash on AOL.

If you want to reach the entire newspaper-reading universe, or the New York City newspaper-reading universe anyway, I am now convinced you need to appear in The New York Times and the New York Post in the space of five days. Add to those a mention today on NPR’s Morning Edition and you are certain to be contacted by everyone from your long lost Aunt Beatrice to Radio Free Europe. The only problem is that neither my Aunt Beatrice nor the listeners of Radio Free Europe can buy a copy of Office Mate after finding out about it via the above news venues, since all of this press is happening before the book is in stores. Well, the listeners of Radio Free Europe wouldn’t be able to buy the book even after it is in stores, since it won’t be in stores in Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. But then again, you can’t buy much of anything in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus to begin with, so your inability to purchase Office Mate there would be nothing new. Clearly we are worrying for nothing.

Friday, October 12th, 2007
Stephanie

Publicity is an art, not a science. Yesterday we had the outrageous fortune to be featured in a story on office romance in The New York Times. Stephanie Rosenbloom called our book “a kind of ‘The Rules’ for the office,” an advertising slogan so perfect we no doubt owe her a fee.
 
What ensued kept Helaine and me on adrenaline overload from the middle of the night, when the story posted online, until about five minutes ago. Our publisher moved the pub date from November 13th to November 6th. They ordered a new cover for the second printing that will feature the Times quote. Producers from TV shows and editors at magazines called. It was like we were Thursday’s literary prom queens. Or self-help prom queens anyway.
 
Unfortunately the answer our publicist had to give all these hungry outlets was, “Sorry, you have to wait until November 6th.” Which is a scary answer to give because their response to us might be something along the lines of sorry Charlies. And indeed, MSNBC and Fox News ran without us. But we have to keep the faith that even though the Times story broke early, there will still be interest in our topic when the books are actually in stores. Because, as exciting as it is to be considered office romance experts, the original idea was to sell a book or two along the way.

Friday, September 21st, 2007
Stephanie