Man & Work

The Office Affair

Everyone knows that business and romance don't mix, but practically everyone takes a shot at making water-cooler whoopee at some point in his career. If you're contemplating a plunge into the secretarial pool, you'll probably want to give some thought to a report compiled by Robert E. Quinn, a professor of public administration at the State University of New York at Albany.

Professor Quinn discovered that 78 percent of couples carrying on in the office were seen together away from work. So much for supersecrecy. In addition, about half of the cozy co-workers in the professor's sample were spotted billing and cooing over extended lunches and 42 percent of the brazen libertines advertised their activities by disappearing together behind closed doors for "long discussions." As if that weren't scandalous enough, fully a third of the couples couldn't resist openly displaying physical affection during office hours.

Who was doing whom? By far the most popular pairing for office hanky-panky was the male boss and his female subordinate. But lest this line-up conjure up images of one-sided chauvinist exploitation, Quinn is quick to point out that many of those liaisons were described by both parties as a lighthearted fling.

The second largest category of boss-subordinate affairs was the true-love match that led to marriage, or at least to a long-standing commitment. Surprisingly, the smallest category in the Quinn sample was that of men being flattered by the attentions of women in the office who hoped to use sexual involvement to advance their careers.

Conventional wisdom would probably be right, however, in predicting that the old hot-and-heavy would tend to interfere with job performance. A fifth of the men and a fourth of the women involved were judged by their colleagues to be doing either less work or work of inferior quality. What's more, a whopping 72 percent of the men were perceived to show favoritism toward their mistresses and 14 percent of the women were described as "flaunting" their new status---real or imagined.

But not all of Quinn's statistics are so bleak: A full quarter of both men and women having intraoffice flings were judged by their co-workers as easier to get along with.

The Art of Writing a Resume

As a literary form, the résumé may not be as challenging as, say, the epic poem. But a bad epic will earn its writer nothing worse than a nasty review. A bad résumé can keep him out of a job.

For some insight into the art of these crucial documents, we called on Robert Lundry, a personnel recruiter for a manufacturing firm in New York, whose collection of real stinkers that have come across his desk could fill a book titled How Not to Write a Résumé.

Every day, Lundry reads up to 200 résumés; hence his first recommendation: Keep it concise. Two pages is the ideal length and a single page is perfectly acceptable for someone just entering the job market.

In his collection, Lundry has résumés submitted on oversize computer sheets, Fulton Fish Market wrapping paper and even one hand-inked on a swatch of genuine buckskin. Such gimmicks, Lundry warns, are fine for consumer advertising: but, as a recruiter, he can't help asking himself what's wrong with the applicants' real qualifications when they require such flamboyant cover-ups. There are some other red flags it's better not to wave:

• Too many job changes. This is relative to profession, of course, with computer folk switching more often than, say, lawyers. But a string of one-year jobs usually will rate the applicant's résumé a trip to the trash basket.

• Too few job changes. If you've been in the same rut for eight or ten years, your gumption quotient looks low. At least set up the résumé so that it seems your responsibilities have changed over the years.

• Poor typography or reproduction of résumé. This is no small thing, since your résumé is you to the man who reads it. Use good-quality letter-size white paper and crisp typing for clear copies.

• No home address. Hotel and P.O. boxes spell instant instability to the recruitment crowd. Even if your wife has given you the boot, keep using the old address.

• Misspellings and sloppy punctuation. If you're shaky in this department, it might be worth your while to look into a professional résumé-preparation service. A seasoned personnel officer can probably detect the work of a service, but it triggers no prejudice. It may even suggest that you can delegate authority well or simply didn't have the time to do it yourself. In any case, if he asks if a service prepared it, say, "Sure."

If you write a cover letter with your résumé and you don't type, make sure your handwriting is legible. Such letters can be useful for including information of special interest to the company to which you're applying. The tone should be confident and friendly, but avoid clichés or business jargon. Sell yourself, but don't go so far as the Lundry funny-file applicant who casually touted his "unlimited intelligence and undying loyalty." All he got to show for it was unlimited unemployment.