Page 3 from: January / February 2013
V I E W P O I N T
Manfred Beck
Editor
Although I could be called new-media illiterate, meaning that I am not on Facebook, do not
twitter and seldom send text messages, I am a ‘mem-
ber’ of Linkedin, the social networking website for
people in professions.
While I value the website and quite often make use
of my network, that is obviously not enough for the
people at Linkedin. In their infinite wisdom, they
think they know what I am interested in, so every
once in a while they send me e-mails that read: ‘Hi
Manfred, check out the top six news articles for you
this week’. These ‘top’ news articles have titles such
as ‘The career mistake women make that’ll set you
back US$ 500 000’, ‘How to beat digital disruption
by seeing the big picture’, ‘What young women in
business need to know’ or ‘Start designing your life’.
Just the kind of articles I’m desperate to avoid.
Recently, Linkedin sent me an article by US writer
and blogger Gretchen Rubin, who has precisely
72 397 followers and has written some self-help
books like ‘The happiness project: or why I spent a
year trying to sing in the morning, clean my closets,
fight right, read Aristotle, and generally have more
fun’. Well, this book title does not make me happy
– it makes me nauseous.
Far more entertainingly, however, Linkedin also
sent me a Rubin article called ‘Six tips for avoiding
an office affair’. In short, it read:
‘A friend told me that when she started her job at a
big company, a family friend, who also worked
there, pulled her aside to give her some advice.
Many people in their workplace had affairs, he said,
and he’d seen lots of relationships break up. He’d
kept his own marriage strong by following some
rules, and he urged her to keep them too:
1 Never take a first step in flirtation, even in jest.
2 Never have more than one drink with people
from work.
3 Never allow yourself to have a “special friend” of
the attractive sex (sometimes called a “work
spouse”) to whom you turn for particular support.
4 Unless it’s in an unmistakably professional con-
text, don’t meet alone with a colleague or client
of the attractive sex. When a client calls with tick-
ets for the baseball game, don’t go in a twosome.
5 Imagine your spouse/partner as audience – cc’d
on the e-mail or walking suddenly into the con-
ference room. If you’d feel uncomfortable in that
situation, you’ve crossed some line.
6 If you develop a close relationship with someone,
get to know his or her family.’
Gretchen asked for feedback on these tips – and,
boy, did she get it. Below are some of the best from
the many hundreds of comments:
Mark W: ‘I think office affairs should be encour-
aged because men need variety as do women.
Monogamy is invented by wives and is pointless.’
Natasha D: ‘I’ve been happily married for seven
years as a result of an office affair.’
Jens Henrik K: ‘I’ve broken several of the rules
repeatedly and never had an affair. Maybe I just have
outstanding moral character. Or the advice is rub-
bish, as in “I’m on a deadline
and have to make up stuff to
justify my salary”.’
Scarlett W: ‘Oh, lighten up
and have some fun. You’ve got
eight hours to kill.’
Barbara S: ‘I have NEVER had an affair, but my two
former husbands did, and that is why they are now
former husbands.’
Joel B: ‘To be perfectly honest, this list was really help-
ful to me. I was just about to sleep with half my office.’
Gary B: ‘Never fish from the company pier!’
Robert B: ‘How about these for the easiest rules
ever: keep it in your pants; and don’t go out for a
burger when you have steak at home.’
But the comment I like most came from Alessandro
V, who wrote: ‘I totally agree with the above six tips,
but…. these are not valid for Italians.’
Call me self-
absorbed if you like,
but I have no
interest in knowing
that the woman
down the road has
just bought a new
cooker or that my
neighbour’s second
cousin’s baby has
just got her first
tooth. But while
social networking
media throw up a
stodgy mass of
unwanted
information, they
can also enliven
those quieter
moments….
Media mania
‘ I was just about to sleep
with half my office.’
RI_1-Viewpoint.indd 3 28-01-13 15:57
