We get that you want to succeed professionally at this enormous company, but is your online banter witty enough to sustain a meaningful faceless relationship with your coworkers? Take a break from dinking against the glass ceiling and spend a little time in front of your glass laptop screen. Before you know it, you’ll be flirting with the guy in Accounting who you have never met faster than you can say, “work-life balance”!
Start with work talk.
Send a quick message asking about that project that the both of you have been working on. DO NOT try to walk over and speak to him. You are setting yourself up for a prime rom-com encounter in the office kitchen months down the road.
Add in a winky face.
Round out that work-related conversation with wink to easily segue into something casual: what you do for fun, how you care more about being a submissive and how much you will drink later because TGI Friday, right??
Talk about a coworker nobody likes.
The best way to bond with someone is over the mutual hatred of that sad fuck in IT. This is your time to show off your wit and mean-spiritedness in a way that says, “I’m a bitch, but I’m a fun bitch.”
Be cool about it, okay?
Don’t message him everyday. Be “signed off” sometimes. Nothing will shut down an online work friendship faster than quick replies and an annoyingly reliable 9am “sup”. Leave conversations hanging – make him feel like he did when he was 14 and the “door close” noise rang in the middle of a flirtation that he thought was going well. You know how, girl. Get that work husband.
Whether you’re in finance, tech, publishing, or the arts, it is imperative to save a 90% chunk of your work productivity for fostering a relationship that is neither sexual nor functional outside of the context of the office. Whatever you do: Do NOT have sex with him—you can’t ever, ever date your work husband!
