It is common knowledge that an office affair can have a detrimental effect on your career and on the dynamics of the workplace in general.
Still, most offices are awash in romance and rumours of romance today.
The lure seems too attractive, like a moth to a flame many are drawn.
Most employees around the world have either observed or been in a
romantic relationship at their workplace. The most talked about of all
such relationships, obviously, are those between the bosses and
lesser-ranked staff.
There's always the same signs, inadvertent pats on the bottoms as
colleagues pass one another, overly long hugs, inexplicable stares and
more drive the point ‘we've-got-something-running-between-us' home. The
rendezvous are then set to a downtown motel later in the evening. No
one seeing them in the motel would even allow the thought that the two
are boss and employee. They would only fit in the description of a
happy couple - husband and wife. Pats on the back, pecks on the cheeks
and lips and luscious chinwags, that cause paroxysms of laughter, grace
their evening dates.
Most of their tea and lunch breaks are spent in the internet café that
is a stone's throw away from their place of work. Other times they send
steamy emails to each other in and around the office or spend time
discussing work at each other's desks. To further spice things up there
are even incidences of female bosses seducing their junior male
employees just for the fun of it or to satiate their wild lusts. Such
male employees are pampered and mollycoddled by this female power that
hovers over them.They lose their sense of authority over themselves and
in effect relinquish their power of reasoning to manipulation.
There is a case of a certain junior clerk who had a blooming affair
with his female boss. The boss is the one who had brought the essential
spark onto the scene. She kept asking him to her office for the
flimsiest reasons, pronounced his name funny, gave him preferential
treatment. She had blown the spark into a flame and fanned the flames
into a roaring fire. Revealing tops, a little too much cleavage, short
skirts, high heels. He couldn't say no. It had been a steady love
affair and would have grown into something even more ‘sinister' had it
not been for the discovery of their lascivious affair by his wife. She
was devastated that all this time something of such gargantuan
proportions had been going on behind her back.
A worker who is a beneficiary of this system, of entertaining an affair
with the boss, appears untouchable and may intimidate fellow
colleagues. Who would want to get in the way of the one the boss calls
'darling'?It goes without saying that if such state of affairs is
supported by the high and mighty in the corporate ladder then
rottenness pervades the very heart of the system they claim to lead.
Authority structures are compromised and the jealousies and rivalries
unleashed may bring mayhem on the organisation.
Even then there's no denying that some office affairs have given birth
to relationships that led to marriage. A brief grope in the
photocopying room and wedding bells and happily ever after a while
later. Be that as it may, for any organization aspiring to be effective
in these days of corporate and social responsibility, moral cleanness
is like two sides of a coin.
It would never be a coin without either of the two sides. Bosses and
leaders should be epitomes of moral perfection, which the juniors can
resonate with. Higher-ups should try to maintain platonic relationships
with the employees and juniors. Suggestive discussions and gestures
should not be entertained between employer and employee; unless, of
course, the employee is your wife. And even then, the privacy of the
home is the best place to propagate such actions.
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The life of a policeman is not idyllic and I spent many nights called away to work. Also the danger aspect presented itself everyday. My sweet second wife, Anastasia tried hard to cope but in the end she found comfort in the arms of another cop. He was a caring batchelor neighbour who would wait until I had left the house before calling on her "to see if she was alright".
Their affair went on for months. With my mind on my work and my work on my mind I did not notice a thing. One afternoon I got a "number with-held" call on my mobile. The caller just whispered, " Jaya, please watch your back" and rung off. The caller never came back and I assumed it was some disgruntled crook that I had shut down way back. Months later I lay dying at the National hospital. The doctors suspected that I had been poisoned but they could not work out the what or the how. Just when they thought that I was finished a trainee doctor from the University suggested that they treat me for Vesiliconemyocoapiea ingestion. VCP was a drug commonly used to treat constipation in horses. Her diagnosis was correct. Within a few days I was well enough to leave the hospital.
As I came down the stairs in the bright sunshine a young lady asked if she could speak with me for a minute. We walked back to the cafeteria and ordered some coffee. Her name was Gwendoline. She was employed by Internal investigations to monitor employee communications. It did not surprise me that there was a section of our force that spied on its own members in a bid to curb corrupt practices. They had listened to cosy converstions between Anastasia and lover-boy. They heard my cheating wife and Romeo plotting to kill me so that they could be together. I was devasted.
When Artur the lover was comfronted with the evidence he had no defence. There was CCTV footage showing him breaking into the Veterinary labs of the Kenya Police Mounted Division near Karen. In his house, police found dozens of vials of the deadly medicine. His accomplice had administerd the drug using an eye dropper whilst I slept. Even as I snored away dreaming happy thoughts I was slowly being poisoned by my beloved. In court the judge took just half an hour to find them guilty. They were jailed for a dozen years each with a recommendation that Artur be deported upon his release.
Next month, I will be celebrating 8 years of wonderful marriage to delightful Gwendoline. She just loves to listen