The Evident Reality: The Happenings When You Don’t Think It Through

The Evident Reality:  Happenings When You Don’t Think It Through:






Blog is fiction: Citations are fact

Mack (aka Schmack in old 1762Broadway Blog entries) caught up with me at a local hang out in North Valley Stream.  He was hyper as usual, but very tense and totally absorbed by another problem in his life that he couldn’t get a handle on.  He talked to Biker Bob who told him to get ready for hard times and bitterness because this involved the kind of things you don’t do when you hang out.

Now Mack faced consequences that come with playing outside the rules.  It’s the same old story.  Needless to say the problems are real even although the blog is fictional (right).  Apparently Mack had a fling with a woman he met at work about a year ago.  This young woman is in the United States on a work visa from Chile.  The woman is married to a big nasty Irishman called O’Duffy.

The woman, ‘Lupita’ got pregnant with Mack’s baby but didn’t tell Mack, she just dropped out of sight when she could not hide the pregnancy.  O’Duffy, who has doubts that the kid is his anyway is not happy with Lupita to say the least.  Lupita told Mack the kid is his and she is going to make him pay.  Mack has no problem with ‘paying’ but wants to know definitively the kid is his.  Lupita, with her options getting limited may run back to Chile with the kid.

Mack wants to do everything he can to keep Lupita at work, calm and happy while he figures out how to nuance the paternity issue and actually find out if the child is his.  Also known to him is that O’Duffy will torture the shit out of him physically, psychologically and spiritually if O’Duffy finds out Mack is the daddy.  So here we are, at the beginning again.  There are many ways this scenario can go, but this blog entry will concentrate on ‘prevention’.

Prevention? That is, how to keep from getting in this kind of position in the first place by thoroughly reviewing the consequences. I will address this from both a social and physical point of view (although some spiritual consequences cannot be totally neglected).  Everybody is a good Christian until caught sinning by other so called good Christians.  Then everybody is a lowlife and a sinner.

There are two issues here, coworkers who got it on and the issue of ‘adultery’ getting it on with a married man or woman.  As far as pursuing a coworker goes you have got to observe some discretion when operating within the politics of the office and the risks of having sex with a superior or subordinate dealing with your employment.  Things get messier when dealing with a married coworker.

Here are some facts to wrap your head around (pardon the pun):

• More than 60% of married men will have at least one affair during their life.

• Close to 45% of married women will have at least one affair during their life.

• When younger age groups are studied, women are just as likely to have an extramarital affair as men are.

• 70% of women who were married were unaware that their spouse was having an affair, while 54% of married men were not aware of this activity with their spouse.

• Many people may have numerous affairs during their marriage, and this is true of women as well as men.

• When affair partners do get caught, and end up getting married eventually, the rate of divorce is more than 75% for these couples.

• At least one in every three couples will be affected by an extramarital affair, and the actual numbers are believed to be higher than this.

• 10% of all extramarital affairs will last a day or less, and are usually considered one night stands or one time occurrences.

• 10% of all affairs will not last a month, although they do last longer than a single day.

• Roughly half of all affairs will involve a time period of more than one month but less than one year.

• Between 35% and 40 % of affairs may last at least two years, but not more than four years.

• Very few affairs, generally less than 3%, will last for four years or more.

• 46% of men believed that an online affair did not constitute cheating, and that this activity was harmless.

• Around 70% of online activity is romantically related, with chat rooms and emails playing large roles in affairs.

• Between 43% and 55% of women who were married reported having an affair at some point in the past, while the numbers for married men was between 55% and 65%.

• Up to 80% believe that it is okay to chat and flirt with the opposite sex online.

• A 57% majority have reported that they are married but flirt using the Internet anyways.

• Around 33% of affairs have started because of online activity.

• 65% of married women and 75% of married men have reported at least one affair with a co-worker, and many reported numerous affairs with people they work with.

• More than 80% reported frequent flirting at work, and this percentage is true for both men and women. (from http://www.affairs-guaranteed.com)

If you choose to pursue sex at work you should have some guidelines according to Abigail Pesta in her article ‘Sex@Work for Marie Claire’.  Here are the rules according to Abigail: 

Rule #1: Choose your partner wisely. If he's above you, then he can't be above you. If he's under you, then he's not under you. If you're on the same level, then give it a go. 

Although sideways is complicated in so many ways, it's the best way to avoid popping up on HR's radar and becoming another casualty — like former Red Cross president (and subordinate-shtupper) Mark Everson. After six months on the job, he was very publicly axed. Gruesome.

Rule #2: Have the talk early. Right after you've endured those key conversations about protection, sexual history, one pillow or two, no pulp or some pulp, discuss worst-case work scenarios and establish rules for downshifting back to platonic colleagues, if that becomes a necessity — i.e., no tears, no anger, and no loose talk in the break room about how his stuff bends to the right.

Rule #3: Play it cool. No physical contact, no telling glances. First of all, offices tend to have cameras in every corner these days. Secondly, while most people never pick up on the cues we give off, the smart ones do: They can tell when you're pregnant, shifting alliances, or looking for another job. And they can certainly spot the way you sweetly finger his tie, or suddenly snipe with a fury that sounds more like "What the fuck am I doing fucking a married guy?" than "You forgot to put the 11-by-17 in the copier!"

Rule #4: Confide in no one. Not even your closest officemate, who held your hair while you repurposed that unfortunate fourth Appletini at the quarterly sales conference. Because no one can be trusted to hang tight to this secret. And when she does tell all, everyone will assume the plum projects and promotions that come your way have nothing to do with your unparalleled brand-marketing skills and everything to do with those liaisons at the Marriott downtown.

Rule #5: Deny, deny, deny. If there's no e-mail trail and nothing on the cameras, how are they absolutely sure you two have hooked up? They're not going to dust him for prints. Then again, best to keep your resume up-to-date and know that one or both of you may have to move on. Most importantly, do your job really, really well. Most places hate to lose great people, even if they exhibit — all together now — really poor judgment.

So that’s about the best way to deal with this issue, know the facts and know some common sense rules.  

For guys when the little head rules the big head (dick thinks and not brain) the consequences could last your lifetime and the lifetime of your bastard offspring (including all the grief and heartache that goes with it).  Homicides and suicides have occurred over much less.  Don’t mess with trouble and you won’t be in trouble.

For women the consequences could be much worse.  The physical consequences could be venereal diseases, STD’s like HPV (human papillomavirus) of which there are 40 types.  The Ovarian damage from pregnancy, complications from having an abortion, not to include vulvar cancer and vaginal cancer are just a few of the physical problems for women.  Unemployment and reputation damage are some others.

So there it is:  Maybe not as brief as I could have been but you can find out more on your own if you haven’t already found out by personal experience.  Here is a proverb for you:  A smart person learns from their mistakes, a wise person learns from someone else’s mistakes.

  

You might be smart but you best be wise!

RJ.

http://www.cdc.gov/std/HPV/STDFact-HPV.htm

http://www.affairs-guaranteed.com/

http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/relationship-issues/sex-at-work

http://infoforfamilies.typepad.com/blog/2010/05/40-consequences-of-adultery.html

http://infoforfamilies.typepad.com/blog/