Read any company policy definition of sexual harrassment and it will mention “any unwanted attention”. That could include small-talk and glances.

If you are accused of “any unwanted attention” by some woman in your company an investigation will be started by HR that will include an interview of all employess who could be affected by the “incident” including all managers all the way up the chain of command to the CEO.

Your interview will actually be similar to a legal deposition that can be used in a court of law against you. Not a fun time.

So boys, like Adam said, don’t even talk about anything other than work with any female in your office. For men, women in the workplace are like kryptonite was to Superman; very pretty but very deadly.

I just wrote a story that mentioned a company in an area of the country where it’s hard to attract qualified professionals in that particular field - so hard that the company had to end its official policy prohibiting married couples or SOs from working together. Now not only is it OK, they actively encourage it, and when they’re interviewing one half of a working couple for a job, they’ll look for a job inside or outside the company for the other. The CEO told me the story of a time they hired both a husband and wife. The couple were going to have a baby soon and they asked him to choose which one of them was going to stay home on paid family leave first. Times have changed.

From the beginning, we both agreed to be discreet and keep our relationship a secret even if it meant attending the holiday party separately. I worked in accounting and was privy to confidential information including the company’s financial position, payroll and human resources. Even though I took the confidentiality aspect of my position seriously, I am sure senior management would have been more cautious sharing information with me if they had known about our relationship and may even have thought twice about promoting me to management.

My future husband was a consultant with sales goals he needed to meet and projects he had to manage under budget. After we had been dating a couple of years, I was promoted to Controller. I then had to sit through uncomfortable meetings and had a few awkward moments as my future husband’s performance was reviewed and critiqued in front of me. I left the company a month before we were married. After our marriage was made public, my former female co-workers claimed they had been on to us for quite some time; whereas senior management all of whom were male had been completely taken by surprise. My husband left the company three years later.

In retrospect I believe we were fortunate our workplace-hookup worked out as well as it did. We had been good friends for a year and a half before we started dating which I am sure made a difference. Also, I have never regretted our decision to be discreet and to keep our relationship a secret.

Here, the young lady in question had a workplace relationship and got engaged to the guy. They subsequently broke up after two years, and a few months later she began dating another person from the job. Well, surfice it to say, that every man on that job began (unfairly) to think that she was easy, and she was hounded to death. NOTHING is secret about an on-the-job romance/fling.

To make matters worst, eventually, the other females on the job started saying things about her rather than defending her; actually, this helped encourage the wouldbe Romeos. They said things like, “She has to try every new man that comes to work here…” and other much, much meaner things.

I do not discourage intra-office dating, but I do caution that things can get pretty ugly pretty fast when it does not work out.

Now on to the gossip, over 80 percent of marriage breakups particularly in the entertainment industry, are due to intra-workplace hooking up. Husbands, things ain’t like they used to be. Be your wives’ best friends or someone else will be;) And it may not be Natalie from Accounting… but these days, it just might be:)