Affairs at work

[HeyThatsNotMyName]

How common are affairs in the workplace?

Now in my early 30s and before the last fortnight, I thought workplace affairs was something that happened very rarely or just in the media (tv, films etc.) Now, after learning not one but four colleagues have been having affairs at work, I'm not so sure.

Was I being naive this whole time?

Work in a large company and they are going on all the time but also single people getting together too.

Used to work in sales and recruitment and it's rife there.

I was visiting a 70 year old woman about 20 years ago, and her friend and workmate said "Here, Dor, do you remember when we all threw in the keys?". Dor said no she hadn't been at that party. It turned out that on a Friday their office, about 6 people, used to unwind at the pub, often being joined by their partners, and sometimes they'd end up at somebody's house to carry on the party. One night somebody suggested throwing in the keys, and it turned into an all night thing. Daisy said it was 3-4 weeks before they could look each other in the eye again!

I work in a school as well, you may be on to something 😄

Happens lots in my work place too, and it's always the most random couples you would never in a million years have imagined together

There are about 100 people in the building where I work, and a gobsmacking amount have shagged or are currently shagging each other. Most are young and single, but not all.

My current workplace had a reputation for hotbeds. Seems to be much lower key now, far fewer people at it, or they are much more discreet.

I think it depends a lot on the organization. I've worked at some where you had to knock on the door to the supplies closet for fear of what might be going on in there and others where it was either not done or very effectively concealed.

Not necessarily an affair as such, but many people meet their spouses at work, I did. Impossible to keep it secret.

There have been several over the years - I was always the last to find out though.

Not exactly "affairs" as such but I used to work mainly with gay men and they didn't think anything of slipping down to the gents for a quick rub and tug with someone else in the office if they got bored. And they'd return to their desks afterwards and carry on working, no awkwardness or anything like that.

Always been common. Working for the same place usual means having a lot in common.

There’s one guy at my work who has the fucking cheek to bring in cakes to share that his SAHW made (she also makes his lunches) whilst everyone knows he’s shagging the (unmarried) woman in his team. They barely try to hide it. They leave bang on 5pm or even earlier for drinks and he always catches a later train back from London probably claiming he’s working back. It’s awful. He’s not the only one.

In twenty years of working within a formerly nationalised v.large industry I only knew of one.

The atmosphere in secondary schools must be roaring with pheromones!

I've had come ons every time I worked in a large organisation and I am, well, nothing to look at, shall we say.

There was once a couple who were having an affair (they thought they were hiding it, they really weren't), but I didn't know either of them very well. The bloke found me irritating, as my job depended on information feed from him and he wasn't good at providing it, because he was shagging when he should have been working. So I had to pester him a lot and he didn't like it.

Then one day, he and his partner came across a few photos of me looking very unlike how I do in the normal working day (this is a long and boring story, but I will say that that much was all above board). The change was immense. I suddenly got all the information I needed within half an hour of requesting it, and the girl was dropping by my desk to say hi and chat (before this, we would nod good morning, that was it). Then she invited me to go and have dinner with them one evening. He was married, she wasn't (he isn't married now). I politely declined. I'm married, and I value quality over quantity.

But yeah, it happens all the time. It stopped dead when I had a child though.

I work in a private hospital and can say it's rife there! Especially consultants with their secretaries or if they have a nurse that helps out in clinic! Infact only recently one consultant and his nurse were suspended while being investigated for carrying out their affair during clinics inbetween patients! It had become fairly obvious when he was going from running on time to suddenly being half an hour behind!

Really common in our office. The resident womaniser left last year and left a distraught group of women. They were all sobbing at his leaving party. They all knew about each other! It was so weird

Currently my boss is pursuing one of them because he sees an 'opportunity'. He's told me numerous times he wants an affair. I really feel for his poor wife and boys.

It was rife when I worked in local government. I reckon the average town hall is a hotbed of shaggery. The librarians were the worst. There was always somebody getting caught out for extracurricular shagging. One poor chap caught his wife shagging his boss in their beach hut!

Where I work now, there have been a fair few relationships formed, at least a couple of which have ended in weddings, but only a couple of affairs. Although we never did find out who had been at it in a car in the underground car park ...

So they wanted a 3some, ayn?

Tv led to believe it was more common in hospital settings than primary schools, life has confirmed the opposite is true!

I worked in a school once where everyone was sleeping with everyone else. It was like musical beds! I remember finding it all rather ridiculous- especially when on a night out I was threatened with a beating in a nightclub bathroom because I was there with a woman who had "stolen" someone else's man....! Needless to say, I made a hasty exit, never slept with any of them and left that job soon afterwards.

@81Byerley forgive me, but what is 'throwing in the keys'?

My mind conjures up an orgy

AllIHaveToDo

It's where, whoever's key you pull out, you get to be with them that evening.

More swapping than orgy

So they wanted a 3some, ayn?

I guess so. I think they wanted me to be their unicorn. I seriously don't know what they were smoking, they were both far better looking than I am.

Decades ago I worked with a chap who was engaged and living with his fiancee. I was fairly new so didn't twig, but others in the dept. enlightened me as to why he seemed so lukewarm about his forthcoming nuptials. He was having an affair with a colleague in another department. In spite of this, he went off and got married. We bought him a present, had drinks before he went etc etc, lots of sideways glances at the time, all a bit grim really.

Within weeks after the wedding, he'd left his new wife and taken up officially with the colleague. Why he couldn't have the decency/courage to do that before, I don't know, but I suppose he just couldn't face the horror of telling her when the wedding preparations were at such an advanced stage.

That was far from the only affair there. I can think of at least two others that were extramarital, in both cases involving married men with young children. One led to a divorce, the other was possibly more of an emotional affair and didn't.

Years later there were electrifying tales of our primary head (married, male, youngish children) leching after the young female teachers and eventually being chucked out by his wife. He moved in with his latest squeeze, who he'd just appointed to a promotion post . He claimed the interviews were before there was anything going on between them but nobody else believed that.