SUBTEXTSLEEPING YOUR WAY TO THE TOP
Is Art's story unusual? If he had started an affair with his boss
could he have used it as a boost up the corporate ladder? Or
would it have been a mistake? We've all read the glitzy novels
about people who sleep their way up the corporate ladder. But
what's the real story?
In a recent poll of one thousand working men conducted by a
national magazine, almost half of those thirty-five years or under
felt that a man could indeed sleep his way to the top. Those
over thirty-five were more doubtful, but still one-third of them
felt it could be done; and yet only 6 percent of the men polled
say they have tried it.
To pin it down a little more, 71 percent of the men polled
had worked for a woman, and a quarter of those said they were
sexually attracted to her. A fifth said the boss was attracted to
them.
Art, who was forty and divorced, felt that dating his boss would
lead to "professional suicide." But more than half of the baby
boomers in the poll allowed that they would feel comfortable in
such a situation. The generation gap is in strong evidence here.
What about the woman who tries to use sex and its subtext to
get ahead? Consider the story of Cynthia and Leslie, stock traders
at a brokerage house in Chicago. "We were both hired at the
same time," Cynthia recalled, "and there was always some friendly
competition between us. It came out in the open when a really
good position as vice president in charge of trading opened up.
We had the same seniority, and our work was on an equal level,
but Leslie dressed in a way that I couldn't help admiring, but
would never dare imitate. The signals she sent out were pretty
clear.