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Should affairs in the office be forbidden? After a City firm sacks two staff for having work romances, two writers give their opposing views

10th September 2020 by Helena Leave a Comment  

NO By Helena Frith Powell

How would you feel if you had to sign a ‘no romance’ clause when you started a new job?

Astonishingly, this is now common practice in the U.S.

Meanwhile, BlackRock, one of the world’s largest asset-management firms which has a huge London office, has announced workers must now disclose any personal relationships to HR — or face the sack. Last year it even fired two executives who failed to disclose an affair.

Surely this goes against some sort of basic right to fall in love (never mind the right not to have management prying into your intensely personal business)?

I had an office romance in my 20s, while working at a magazine with the snappy title Project & Trade Finance. If that isn’t enough to propel you headlong into the nearest man’s arms, I don’t know what is.

It wasn’t love at first sight. He was promoted above me, so I spent a few months scowling behind my computer screen. Then I realised I was never destined to go far in the world of financial trade press, so I forgave him.

I wonder what it would have been like if our relationship had been banned. At what point would it have been appropriate to go to HR to fess up — before or after we had decided we were a committed couple?The frisson was addictive and made me work harder 

We didn’t get together for a year, as I was scared to make the first move. Then I was hit by a car and ended up in hospital. A few days later, he called and hung up saying: ‘Don’t get run over again without telling me.’ That’s when I knew he felt the same.

The funny thing is, I think I worked harder as a result of our romance. It made me more interested in my job, and I spent a lot more time in the office. The frisson was addictive.

This silly move is yet another curtailment of human rights, and we have seen more than enough of those over the past few months.

It is also a worryingly divisive trend. I was horrified to hear from a friend that her son was told, on his first day in the City, never to get in a lift if there was a lone woman inside. Apparently, the firm is terrified of potential lawsuits that might result from a man and woman spending more than 30 seconds together behind closed doors.

If anyone is allowed in their office long enough to form a relationship in these days of Covid then, frankly, good luck to them. Thanks to curfews and social curbs, the workplace is just about the only place you can meet someone now — so why should businesses put the boot in?

YES By Rachel Rounds

After having my own ill-fated office affair when I was in my 20s, I support a ban wholeheartedly.

I met the man at my first big media production job. We shared a kiss in a taxi after an office night out. I knew there was chemistry; I also knew I was already in a relationship.

Suddenly I had a second full-time job trying to stop the office gossips from spotting what was going on. You become paranoid about every look, every gesture and every word you say to each other — whatever the topic.ADVERTISING

We stole the odd kiss in the stairwell and sent love notes over the internal messaging system, but the strain got so tough that I ended things and stayed with my boyfriend.

Then things went from bad to worse. My ‘work ex’ started seeing another colleague, then dumped her as he missed me too much.

I finally decided I felt the same and finished with my boyfriend of three years. It was traumatic for him and I deservedly lost plenty of friends.

I made my new relationship public and became a source of fascination at work. Any time we were talking to each other, heads would appear over screens. The jilted female colleague made my life a misery. She turned other women against me and I regularly spent my lunch hour crying in the loos. In the end, I quit the job I loved because of her. As for the man for whom I inadvertently sacrificed my dream job, we lasted two years, but the trauma had left a shadow.

Disastrous as it was, I was still lucky in one respect: at least the man I dated wasn’t my boss. For women who find their superiors coming on to them, it’s a different story. It’s virtually impossible to say ‘no’. You feel scared and vulnerable, and don’t want to lose your job.Flirting at the water cooler these days is creepy 

I was assaulted by a senior director at a Christmas party in a hotel, aged 19, and had I not been rescued by an older woman who knew what this creep was like, I dread to think what would have happened.

A ban on office romances would not have aided me in that moment. But what of other men like him now? It would help to shut down this sort of behaviour early, ending the excuse that work predators are ‘only flirting’.

In my experience, most women want to be professional, do their best for their employer and form relationships outside of the office — that’s what online dating is for.

Some guy chatting you up at the water cooler these days is a bit, well, creepy. An office romance may sound the stuff of Hollywood movies, but in real life it’s nothing more than a bad soap opera.


Filed Under: Love, Women, Work, blog --> Tagged With: affairs, after, forbidden, office, sacks, should, staff

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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