Ten rules to help you survive a sneaky affair at the office

Bridget Jones in Bridget Jones's Diary sent intimate emails to her boss. Beware of doing the same

When John Prescott and Tracey Temple embarked on their inarticulate love affair after kicking it up at the office Christmas party, they became the latest protagonists in a long and ignoble tradition. One in 10 workers has had sex with the boss, and three-quarters have had a fling with a colleague, according to a 2003 poll.

But many of these office amours have reason to be secret, and not only because one partner is a senior Government minister or has an embarrassing secret relating to cocktail sausages.

If you must re-enact Secretary, in which Maggie Gyllenhaal discovers her submissive side over a large wooden desk, do so with caution.

Here is our definitive 10-point guide to surviving the office relationship. Nothing should be attempted in red leather trousers, or with a man whose bosoms are bigger than yours.

Know your law
What you see as an exotic dance move at the annual knees-up could be interpreted as a breach of employment law. Corporal Stuart Milligan was taken to court last year by a female soldier, after she claimed he had sexually harassed her by re-enacting the orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally. When Corporal Leah Mates, a special forces spy, sought £686,000 ($1.98 million) for that and other alleged incidences of harassment, Milligan said glumly, "I was really just being an immature joker." She was awarded £12,000. If you are the recipient of over-friendly advances, make notes. Take photos if possible. Or take a leaf out of Tracey's book and keep a diary.

Promotion prospects
Be honest - among those dirty fantasies you have about your boss is there the promotion you hope will follow? Then wake up. You are not Joan Crawford and his desk is not a casting couch. "If you sleep with someone more advanced than you, or anyone who can do you any favours, you can assume that you won't get credit for anything you achieve yourself from there on in," says the relationship expert, author and TV presenter Tracey Cox. "It will always be: 'Well, we all know why she/ he got the promotion, don't we?' And if you are sleeping with someone 'beneath you' you'll be accused of slumming it."

Avoid the photocopier
Do not be tempted to do it on the photocopier. Not even in an ironic way. Canon last year confirmed that it has had to increase the thickness of its glass to cope with an alarming number of bottom-related breakages. A third of Canon technicians say they have had to mend machines that have been sat on. "It's so tempting, particularly if neither of you particularly likes the company you're working for," says Cox. "But not only will you probably break the thing, it's uncomfortable."

Beware email

If, like Bridget Jones, you spend the morning studying your boss's face through his glass-walled office as he receives your messages about your new lingerie, remember - email flirtation is fraught with danger. Check twice before hitting "send", then check again. Never "reply to all". Do not have an email to your beloved open at the same time as a global. A pitfall well-known to psychologists and those with burned fingers: if a person's name is in your head, the chances are it will end up in the send-to box. Remember this when gossiping with your beloved about others. Remember Claire Swire, whose saucy correspondence about her boyfriend's "yum" emissions was forwarded all over the world? Lawyers were called in, six people faced disciplinary action and her parents were "horrified".

Getting vaught

The idea of getting caught might add a frisson to a fading affair, but think carefully. Staff in the Deputy Prime Minister's Office may have made good use of civil service earplugs as the pair went at it with the door open, but would the reality of the tea lady walking in and finding you with your leather trousers around your ankles really live up to the fantasy? "Barry" was careering towards the end of his marriage and coming to terms with his sexuality when he pulled a man at a nightclub and took him back to his office nearby. The pair were so frantic, they had disrobed in the lobby when the proprietor walked in, wordlessly stepping over them and their clothes. "I crept in the next day convinced I was going to get the sack," says Barry, "but he never said anything." Barry left the company three years later.

Be nice to IT
Do not annoy the nice people in IT: they are wise and kind and infinitely patient - and can access company email. Or do you actually want them to know about those new knickers? "IT departments can access your emails if they want to," says one basement-dwelling friend, blithely. "They can screen your messages for words like 'secret', 'rendezvous' and 'stationery cupboard'. But why would they?"

Only do it once
There is a limit to how many office affairs you can have without developing a reputation. Sleeping with the boss is one thing. Sleeping with the boss, her PA, her friend in Accounts and the boy who takes away the used printer cartridges will only lead to names being whispered bitchily in your direction. "When Dan asked me out for a drink after work I thought he was sexy, powerful and tempting," says Annie, who, at 23, was an intern with a large PR firm. "But he had once been married to a woman who still worked for the company and there were rumours he had slept with several more. Who wants to be another notch on the swivel chair?" "Any more than one and you will be branded," confirms Cox. "If you are up to two and take your career even remotely seriously, leave." 

Lunchtime Trysts
"Sneaking off for a bunk-up in the park requires careful planning," says Jo, 28, who became a connoisseur of the office liaison after trying to keep quiet a long-term relationship with her line manager. "Most important is to make sure you both wear green. I learned the hard way, after my office paramour and I shuffled back for the afternoon almost completely covered in grass stains." The agony aunt Virginia Ironside advises: "Never, ever come into the office together. It's when people are seen together at 7am on the train that the gossip starts."

Flirting in the office
You have just spent the night with your office paramour. Your eyes meet across a crowded photocopier. You collapse into endearing giggles. Yeuuch. "All that dripping over each other is even more nauseating in a work environment because your colleagues can't walk away," says Cox.

"Save the soppy stuff for when you're in private. Which of course doesn't mean that you have licence to be late back to work and others have to cover for you. They'll only hate you."

The breakup
He breaks your heart. You never want to see that man's cheating face again. Do not make a scene. Do you want your colleagues to find out that you cared about the scumbag? "It is awfully difficult in an open plan office," says Ironside.

"The only thing you can do is to keep your head down and behave as if nothing has happened." Bite your lip. Then cry on the shoulder of that foxy new guy in IT. At least you'll know who's looking at your emails.

- INDEPENDENT