Sign In
SHARE
The Long Shelf Life of the 'Office Wife' Meme
To merit coverage in the style pages of newspapers, a trend can be real or imaginary, but usually it has to be newish.
Not so the office marriage. Though it was described, in its modern form, by David Owen in The Atlantic Monthly a full 20 years ago, lifestyle writers are still trotting out trend pieces on office matrimony as though it post-dated Wii parties*.
Today's contribution to the genre, "Let's Play Spouse," comes from The New York Post's Mandy Stadtmiller. You'd think the Post would've been hip to this trend earlier, considering that it declared, in January 2006, "Having an office 'wife' or office 'husband' can make you a happier worker, and improve your chances for promotions and raises."
Some other notches on the office spouse timeline:
-March 2005: "Do You Have an Office Wife?," GQ
-Nov. 17, 2004: "Prexy Sks Wrk Wf," Slate
-Sept. 24, 2003: "How Workplace Couples Keep Each Other Happy," The Wall Street Journal
-Oct. 17, 1996: "Sharing Your Mate With the 'Office Spouse,'" Toronto Sun
And check out the Wikipedia entry for "work spouse", which traces the concept back to the 19th century.
*By the way, I had never actually heard about Wii parties, but it sounded like something you'd read about in a trend story, so I Googled it, and sure enough...
Loading...
Thank you for registering as a Portfolio.com Insider. Your comment has been added.
Create Your Public Profile
- Conde Nast Closing 'Portfolio'
- Apr 27 2009 10:02AM EDT
- Newspaper Circ: 'WSJ' Gains as 'NY Post' Tumbles
- Apr 27 2009 9:32AM EDT
- Idle Chatter: The Prognosis for Newspapers, more
- Apr 27 2009 8:55AM EDT
- Late Breaks: MySpace, NYT, 'New York'
- Apr 24 2009 4:01PM EDT
- Nostalgia, Entitlement and Murdoch's 'Journal'
- Apr 24 2009 4:00PM EDT
- Huffpo's Lerer on the 'New and Better' Journalism
- Apr 24 2009 12:44PM EDT
- Ailes Heats Up Cold Spring with Newspaper War
- Apr 24 2009 12:33PM EDT
- Happy Friday. Now Watch This.
- Apr 24 2009 10:24AM EDT
- Idle Chatter: NPR Cutbacks, Jon Meacham, more
- Apr 24 2009 8:50AM EDT
- Late Breaks: Twitter and the 'Times,' more
- Apr 23 2009 5:59PM EDT
- CNN Partner's Polling Finds CNN Fair, Balanced
- Apr 23 2009 4:10PM EDT
- 'Scientific American' Editor Out in Reorg
- Apr 23 2009 3:19PM EDT
- Idle Chatter: MySpace, Nerve, 'Millionaire,' more
- Apr 23 2009 8:20AM EDT
- Late Breaks: 'Observer' Editor Resigns, more
- Apr 22 2009 4:15PM EDT
- One Marriage, One Memoir, Two Opinions
- Apr 22 2009 2:31PM EDT
Archive
Categories
Links
- Contact Me
- News After Newspapers
- Romenesko
- Gawker
- Ad Age
- WWD's Memo Pad
- Keith Kelly
- NYT Media
- Jon Fine
- TVNewser
- Magazine Death Pool
- HuffPo Media
- Galleycat
- News Hounds
- Newsbusters
- Jezebel
- Editor & Publisher
- Hollywood Wiretap
- The Media Pundit
- FAIR
- I Want Media
- Viral Video
- Nikki Finke
- MediaFile
- The Business Insider
- Paid Content
- Valleywag
- Cover Awards
- Talking Biz News
- SI.com - Richard Deitsch
- Gapper Blog - Media
- Jon Friedman
- Nieman Journalism Lab
- NY Observer media page
- Media Shift
- Tyndall Report
- Media Nation
