Home > Views > Blogs > Mixed Media > The Long Shelf Life of the 'Office Wife' Meme
EMAIL
PRINT
RSS
SHARE
TEXT SIZE:
SHARE
Send a copy to me

Separate multiple email addresses (max 20) with commas.

0/1500

Main
Diet Book: Rogue Science or Common S...   Idle Chatter: Wenner, Zell, 'Grayson...
Oct 11 2007 8:21AM EDT

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...

See more in

Loading...

Add Your Comment

Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*)
Add a comment

Archive

Previous
Oct
2008
Next


Also in Portfolio.com
Most Read
Most Emailed
Recently Commented