As pick-up lines go, Michael's was certainly exceptional in its own way. A senior staffer in the business side of a media company, hearing his far more junior editorial colleague, Clare, telling a work friend about the vagaries of dating, he sensed an opportunity and offered: "What you need is a balding accountant."
Clare was 24, Michael was 32 and both were unattached. Each prefer to use their middle names to discuss how they met and fell in love because the managers who pushed both out for becoming romantically involved are still in the industry. Also, they want to keep the past in the past, even though their behaviour should have been free of the kind of scrutiny surrounding several contemporary high-profile work partnerings.
Rachelle Miller and Alan Tudge in 2017, the year the couple had an affair.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Clare has not forgotten what she was put through after the couple went public at the office Christmas party. "I was getting picked on, I was getting warnings. I remember the jokes once it came out I was dating a guy at the office, just of lot of shitty innuendo - and being asked 'Did you get laid last night?'. It was really hard.
"We took it very slowly, and it was our own business, but all of a sudden it was like everyone had this 'right' to ask these inappropriate questions and the 'right' to an answer and to humiliate us," says Clare, now a mother of children aged 8 and 10 with Michael, her husband of 15 years.
Given her work relationship turned out to be "the best thing that could have happened to me", when Clare read an opinion piece on Tuesday suggesting a good solution to the thorny question of how to regulate love and sex between colleagues was that 'A Workplace Bonk Ban Should Be Universal', she was, to put it mildly, cross. "It doesn't work like that: you can't legislate or mandate in a workplace that you can't have feelings for each other," she says.
"It's not about 'bonking' – yes, that happens – but it's about having feelings and love for people. They appear when they appear."
It's not about 'bonking' – yes, that happens – but it's about having feelings and love for people. They appear when they appear.
Clare, a former media employee who met her higher-ranked husband at work
The so-called "bonk ban" referred to the directive to federal ministers by then PM Malcolm Turnbull that they not sleep with staff, following the revelation that then-married Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce had become an item with his media staffer, Vikki Campion.
Tuesday's column was a response to high-profile work-based relationships that hit the headlines and the [virtual] water coolers in recent weeks.
These included the consensual affair between Federal Population Minister Alan Tudge and his former adviser, Rachelle Miller, for which Tudge has since apologised, and the ongoing partnership between the then-single CEO of Nine (publisher of this masthead) Hugh Marks and his former corporate executive Alexi Baker, who was also single at the time.
Baker had already left the company before Marks announced his voluntary departure on Saturday, triggering nervous dinner party chat around the country about whether a work romance even when both parties are single is now potentially career-altering. It is a difficult question for employers and for staff of all levels because what "rules" exist are unclear.
Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins says the answer is disclosure: workplace lovers should tell their managers. Judith Beck, founder of the female leaders' organisation Financial Executive Women and author of the forthcoming book No Sex at Work, takes a harder line.
Financial services veteran Judith Beck has written the soon-to-be-released book No Sex at Work.
Beck, a financial services veteran, says if you are in a senior position "single or not, even if you do meet the love of your life [at work], someone has to go". Even in the open-minded 2020s, the problem is not the relationship but colleagues' interest in it.
"If the person in the lower position ever gets promoted, everybody is going to say it's because they were sleeping with the boss, even their merit is going to be in question. Every time you leave the office together it's 'where did they go?'. It could be innocent - they've gone to see a client - but the gossip machine is going to go crazy.
"It's not good for either person," says Beck. "It's never going to end well."
Companies are not having the right conversations with employees about what is and is not acceptable, she says. Either they should instigate "no dating at work" policies for clarity or should articulate clearly what appropriate behaviour is.
Beck's "golden rule" if you must date at work is "don't date anyone in your direct area and if you are going to, then start putting plans in place to transfer to another area of the business". "People need to remember work is not a fun zone. People will talk and if you think they won't – they will," she says.
One issue for employees who may feel starting something with a colleague is no big deal is that what policies do exist around workplace relationships are mainly framed around "conflict of interest", which is subjective and hard to interpret.
University of Sydney Business School fellow Dr James Donald says some firms have sought to define what's OK according to if any workplace power imbalance exists. "A number of top ASX companies are grappling with this as we speak," he says.
Where do you call it 'a relationship'? That's very difficult to define today.
Elisabeth Shaw, CEO Relationships Australia NSW
"Most have codes of conduct [regarding] specific policies around intimate relationships at work, but it's fair to say a lot of organisations are making decisions around how to approach this right now – given the attention it's received."
Donald, a lecturer in early career development, says a balance is needed between respecting people's right to private lives and "the point at which that meets work lives".
"One way of going is some kind of disclosure, a register where employees are encouraged – maybe not mandated, but potentially mandated – to provide disclosure around some kind of workplace relationship that may have some consequences for their role, or some kind of conflict of interest," he says. "But there are massive privacy concerns around that."
Vikki Campion and Barnaby Joyce got together when Campion was working for Joyce in Canberra.Credit:Channel Seven
Still, some organisations are considering it.
The question of how to protect the more junior employee, usually the woman in heterosexual workplace couples, is "very tricky" and some employers are eyeing prohibition of couplings where power is "significantly" mismatched.
"That sends a very clear signal, but of course it brings challenges around how do you enforce that?" asks Donald.
And if you are, at least technically, required to tell your employer when you start dating another staff member, how do you know when "a relationship" actually exists?
When is a fling a thing? This is the question doing the social rounds, according to Elisabeth Shaw, the CEO of Relationships Australia New South Wales.
"Every time these things appear in glorious display [in the media] it's such a great opportunity to discuss things that do end up becoming underground issues otherwise," she says. "I've been in many dinner party conversations about it."
You might have gone to dinner, met up a few times on the weekend, have had sex or kissed – where do you say 'this is a thing'?
Elisabeth Shaw
"It's very, very hard to regulate intimate relationships, and clearly I'm not talking about harassment, but the difficulty is ... where do you call it 'a relationship'? That's very difficult to define today when there's conversations about 'friends with benefits' and hookups."
Ambiguity about relationship status that did not exist in the past has "opened the way for a slippage in definition", which is confusing for those in the budding relationship, let alone their employer.
"You might have gone to dinner, met up a few times on the weekend, have had sex or kissed – where do you say 'this is a thing'? You usually don't want to tell your boss until you've got something to say."
And if employers are to effectively be invited into the bedrooms of employees, who gets to know? Outgoing CEO of the female leadership group Chief Executive Women, Sue Morphet, says as workplace relationships develop "the protocol is you at least must share that with your manager". At the very least this should help guarantee an end to the past practice of the junior person in the relationship, usually the woman, being exited if things became distracting or difficult.
"Absolutely the organisation needs to be aware: it doesn't have to be that everybody knows but somebody has to know," Morphet adds.
But, as couples including Clare and Michael already know, given so many Australians meet their long-term partners through work or via a work function, "bonk bans" are impractical. Morphet agrees: "Unless there is unprofessional behaviour, I can't see why [a work-based romance] shouldn't continue."
Wendy Tuohy is a Sunday Age senior writer.
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