Longtime readers of GQ will recognize the term. As Tom Prince wrote a few years back, the work wife is the person who "knows you better than anyone." My office spouse and I were confidants who shared a cubicle pod. Sprightly banter ping-ponged between us all day long. We never hesitated to tell each other stuff too intimate or cringe-making to share with the rest of the office. On the occasions when we were driven to talk nasty smack about our co-workers, we would switch to stealth mode—IM—erupting into synchronous cackles that turned nearby heads. And we stuck close together, for safety, when office parties threatened to turn superweird.
Ours was a beautiful work marriage built on a mutual affection and understanding. I let her prattle on about her idyllic life with her (actual) husband, cooed over photos of three-bedroom condos she hoped to buy, and gave her a big, happy hug when she announced that she'd become pregnant. She let me prattle on about my disastrous romantic misadventures, helped me draft polite but firm text messages declining second dates, and repeatedly assured me that I would not die alone, at 53, via aspiration of unheated minestrone soup chugged straight from the can.
And then one terrible day—citing the onset of morning sickness and a plan to freelance from home once her baby arrived—she up and quit. Our cubicle pod went silent. I'd been work divorced.
It was obvious to me that I needed to work remarry. And soon, before my office-bachelor habits became too ingrained. I surveyed my options: the high-powered execs, the lowly assistants, the randos who sit over by the printer station whose jobs are still not entirely clear to me. I even eyed—vowing to remain open-minded—the hulking mailroom guy with the forearm tattoos and graying ponytail.
I'd been lucky. My first office marriage was pretty much work love at first sight. This time would be different. I'd need to have a game plan.
So I drew up a set of guidelines. Should, heaven forbid, your own work marriage ever dissolve, you may wish to consult and abide by these suggestions.
by Seth Stevenson, GQ | Read more:
Photo: uncredited
