When I worked at a newspaper I used to joke with some of my co-workers that without The Bakersfield Californian some of my cohorts would find a date. I knew plenty of people who dated, broke up and even married within the newsroom. I didn’t date at work because, well, I like to keep things separated if at all possible. But with men and women being human and working together in close and sometimes horny confides relationships and couplings (and the occasional sexual harassment lawsuit) are bound to happen.
Enter the case of late night talk show host David Letterman, recently blackmailed for about $2 million dollars by a fellow CBS staffer, threatening to reveal a sexual affair Letterman had with an employee. Other than the fact that Letterman is a married man I don’t quite get the shock over this “scandal.” If having sex with co-workers were scandalous, my word, they’d have to lock up half the journalists I’ve befriended over the years, just about every thespian I know who treated musical theater like sex camp and they’d have to re-impeach Bill Clinton. You’d think Monica-gate would have killed any fascination anyone ever had with a person having some kind of sex, on the job, with a subordinate, but apparently it has not.
I think dating on the job can cause muy problemas as Letterman is fast learning, so I almost always advise against it unless you’re both on equal footing (re: please try not to screw or be screwed by your boss) and are willing to have the whole office all up in your Kool-Aid. Sometimes workplace romances can work out great (see President and First Lady), ending in marriage. Sometimes it just ends in a huge blow up, anger, apathy and mean forwarded emails that manage to make their rounds in everyone’s browser.
What’s your take on sex in the workplace? Is it a do or a never, ever do and what do you think of the Letterman scandal?
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