Obstacle #5: Confessions of a Work Wife

Every morning, I walked into Shane's office with two cups of coffee.

I handed one across the desk and sat down for 10-15 minutes… sometimes venting about another coworker, sometimes describing the weekend's events, sometimes vetting ideas for an upcoming campaign.  Some afternoons, we'd step out to grab lunch.  If something ridiculous was happening in the hallway, an IM from Shane, only two doors down, immediately popped up, "Did we just hear what I think we heard?"  When one of my presentations went horribly awry, he was first to hear me lament and relive the pain. When a big sales deal fell through, he'd slump in the chair across my desk and walk through what went sideways and when.

Was I a work wife?  I didn't think about it until recently - long after I had left that job, and Shane.

Work spouse: A significant other you work with, whom you connect, share, and spend time with exclusively and intimately in the workplace. Both parties are mere acquaintances outside of the workplace and are completely unknown to each other's true and respective domestic spouses. (Urban Dictionary)

So, let's talk about the "work wife."

You're in a tight knit environment, sharing the same peer group, the same bosses, the same projects, deadlines and pressures.  You rely on your cohorts in the trenches alongside you, whether it's getting through a difficult meeting or celebrating a project's success.  These relationships can be empowering and fun, but they can also lead to politics and drama.

Consider your work spouse: what role does he play in the organization?  Does your counterpart have influence over your position - the type that can get you promoted… or fired?  How do your coworkers view your relationship and does that impact how they engage with you?

Our independent, cavalier persona responds to those questions with a "Who cares?"  But we do care.  And we should.  The nature of our relationships at work makes up a large component of our ability to be productive and effective in the work environment.  Our work spouses feed and empower us, supporting our success.  But any drama, or perceived drama, can minimize us and our ability to have an impact.

The "power work wife" is the ideal work wife relationship.  Your counterpart is a peer and a true partner in your work projects and initiatives.  You're an internal power couple, essentially, working together towards a common goal and with mutual respect and agreement around how to get things done.  Your ideas are respected, your suggestions given even weight and you do not feel like you are pushing or fighting with your partner to be heard or understood.  While this relationship will still entertain its share of gossip, the balance of power is that of equals and this is visible to the organization.

The subordinate work wife is a trickier matter.  The earliest usage of the term work wife was a

reference by a CEO to his administrative assistant, and historically, that has been the perception.  The work wife takes care of the husband's needs at work - ensuring he's organized, receives and responds to messages, gets to meetings on time and has lunch/coffee as required.  Then he goes home and the home-based wife fills in the gaps.

The balance of power here can be challenging.  In an admin/exec relationship, the roles are clear and the power balance is dependent on the personalities involved.  But what happens when you are the work wife to someone higher on the food chain but who is not your direct boss?  If his position can influence your advancement within the company, then you're still a target for the rumor mill.  More so because the relationship between the executive and the executive admin is easily explained - it's a stereotype - but a close relationship with an imbalance of power and no direct reporting ties leaves much open to overactive imaginations in the work place.

Confessions of a Work Wife
So here's the truth: there was no Shane.

But there was a Shirley. Seriously. Same scenario in my opening paragraph - daily coffee, occasional lunch, lots of IMs, phone calls and hallway conversations. If you look at the definition of a work spouse, she was it.  It was only later, as we left our place of mutual employment, that we really became personal friends (and then Dirty Girl partners).

Was I still a work wife?

Or are we just friends?

If you're about to tell me the sexual undertones of a male/female friendship is an old fashioned view, then you're ignoring the truth our work mores place before us daily.  No one cared if every day I walked into Shirley's office, handed her  cup of coffee and spent ten minutes telling her about the idiot barista who interpreted my soy mocha as soy milk and gave me a hot steaming cup of milk… like I was a toddler getting ready for bed (yeah, that really happened).

Perception matters.

As always, your comments, questions and thoughts are welcome. 
And don't forget to share this blog! 

Natalie Hahn O'Flaherty is a principal at Dirty Girls Consulting, offering special programs that coach women moving into leadership roles. Women work differently, think differently, and it is up to us to allow this difference to become our strengths. We explore breaking free of traditional standards, accomplishing professional and personal goals to cultivate an authentic, fully loved life. Read more Dirty Girl Consulting blogs here.

Obstacle #11: To flirt or not to flirt at work

Flirting is a power tactic.

Whether at work or at play, the art of flirtation is about persuasion and control.  And fun.  I am not asserting that flirting is positive or negative in any situation. This obstacle is one each of us needs to figure out individually, the way in which we're most comfortable working through it.  So let's consider the art - and obstacle - of flirtation at the office.

First, just what is flirting?  For the purposes of the work environment discussion, and as evaluated in various studies, flirting is defined as personal charm that incorporates playfulness, flattery and a level of sexiness.  This is a step beyond friendliness, which is defined as exhibiting warmth and interest.  Flirting is deliberate attempts to have the opposite party notice your particular charm.

So, what if you knew that flirting benefitted you in negotiations?

Women who flirted during negotiations in which a clear "zero sum" exchange needed to take place (goods for money, for example) obtained better terms when their counterpart was male.  If you knew you could receive a higher discount or a better set of terms, would you smile a little more brightly or offer a compliment?  Put so bluntly, it feels icily calculated.  But think for a minute about the men you work with - if you share a private joke, a sidelong glance, if you touch his arm or tell him you like the way his shirt brings out the color of his eyes, are you friendly or flirting? When men have an elevation in mood due to what they perceive as flirting (and flattery), they are more amenable in negotiations.

But not all the time.  When women flirt with men in negotiations where both parties are trying to achieve a gain, they are less successful. The overall success of a mutual negotiation is higher - a larger pie is carved out between two friendly parties.  But the slicing of that pie does not favor the flirting woman.  She managed to improve the benefits to both of them, by helping to expand the potential rewards, but statistically she isn't able to claim her competitive share of that pie.

So perhaps you could argue that you'd rather not take chances on the type of misunderstanding flirting at work can bring and since not all negotiations are successful, you will rely on your no-nonsense smarts to work through those delicate conversations.  And that's certainly an option.

But this obstacle has another slippery slide.  It's not your standard eight foot wall to scale.  It's more like that inverted wall where you have to pull your weight up the inverted side and then use all your strength to haul yourself over the inverted top and avoid toppling down the "easy" side, which can result in injury.  And mud.  There's always mud.

Consider the challenge of likability.  Women in leadership roles fight the likability battle regularly.  If we're assertive, we're bossy or a less kind b-word.  If we insist or debate, we're pushy and hard.  We use "male" qualities to manage and get ahead in a man's environment, and yet those same qualities that brand men as strong leaders make women brassy and cold.  The social cost is high. This impression also leads to misconception around competence - women who are viewed as overly aggressive by their male peers are also viewed as less competent.  Women who flirt with their peers, on the other hand, are perceived as friendly.  When women are perceived as friendly and competent, their ability to be heard and negotiate is amplified.

What if you knew that men flirt more than women in the workplace to get what they want? 

Catherine Hakim, social scientist and author of Erotic Capital: The Power of Attraction in the Boardroom and the Bedroom, says we should unabashedly use our feminine charms.  We have them, why hide them?  Men have no such qualms about using their charisma or looks if they believe it will provide some leverage, so why are we ashamed to?

Of course, there is also the risk of misunderstanding.  Is a real relationship blossoming here or is this merely bantering fun at work? We - men and women - can feel taken advantage of once we realize the other person wanted nothing more than that moment of flirtation - and perhaps  for you to help write that update for the CEO's pet project.

So where do you stand on the concept of flirting in the work place?  Victoria Pynchon advises that if you're going to do it, do it genuinely. Don't fake compliments, don't flirt with men you're not comfortable with.  Rather, play into the positive qualities before you. "I've never known anyone who was so thoroughly repugnant that I couldn't find something to love in them."

So how do you overcome this obstacle?  And how do you handle others who flirt with you?

Studies used in this discussion: 

Feminine Charm: An Experimental Analysis of its Costs and Benefits in Negotiations by Laura J. Kray, Connson C. Locke and Alex B. Van Zant (July 2012)
SIRC Guide to Flirting by Kate Fox (2014)
The Five Flirting Styles by Jeffrey Hall (2013)

As always, your comments, questions and thoughts are welcome. 
And don't forget to share this blog! 

Natalie Hahn O'Flaherty is a principal at Dirty Girls Consulting, offering special programs that coach women moving into leadership roles. Women work differently, think differently, and it is up to us to allow this difference to become our strengths. We explore breaking free of traditional standards, accomplishing professional and personal goals to cultivate an authentic, fully loved life. Read more Dirty Girl Consulting blogs here.