When it all goes wrong ... Desdemona twittered and blogged her way to oblivion with salacious details of her in-firm affair ... Dorothy advises young female paralegals how to keep their jobs after the horizontal relationship fades
Desdemona is a young paralegal who, until very recently, was in the employ of A Venerable Firm (VF). She is fun loving and blonde.
Jorge has the pallid features of the overworked and sports the figure of a man who is approaching middle age on a diet of pate de foie gras and the red woine he frequently speaks of. From the Kernaworra.
He, a partner in the VF, is married with three small children. But his life is troubled. His wife, so he says, is a lazy person, who does not clean the house properly or discipline their son in the proper manner.
But for the fact he is otherwise absorbed as a partner of a law firm, he would be a world famous road cyclist and would probably have won the Tour de France.
In fact, recently he went for a ride with Lance Armstrong. And probably would have beaten him if, like Lance, he had a carbon bike worth $25k (instead of a carbon bike worth $14k with a Dura Ace drive set, whatever that is).
Jorge is also irresistible to women.
It is this latter attribute which is the subject of our cautionary tale today.
Jorge was so irresistible to Desdemona, she felt the need to give an account of her feelings, for the benefit of her friends and acquaintances.
For a time, it seems that her feelings were requited. Robustly.
She chose Twitter as the vehicle to publish the ups and, later, downs of their relationship.
Her twitter updates were also hyperlinked to a blogspot, which ensured that the record of the romance was more or less permanent.
Aren't Gen Y weird? They publish the strangest things about their lives. Mostly, it is as banal as Big Brother. But occasionally they insert some salacious details, which will cause an older person to suffer through the banal bits to read.
Here's a tip for Gen Y: examples of those classes of people who might be interested in salacious details of one's musings about, and activities relating to work are Jorge's partners, and the HR department, and persons from rival firms who enjoy a bit of schadenfreude.
A grad at yet another firm (YAF) had as her Facebook photo a picture of her pole dancing. Thanks to email and hyperlink, her fame quickly spread (if I can put it that way).
And, while we are on the subject of permanent records of the follies of youth, tattoos ...
But I digress.
Anyway, Desdemona, straight and true1 shared the details of her temporarily requited love with the world, in considerable and colourful detail.
Desdemona did not identify Jorge, not by name anyway, just by the capital letter "J".
She also said that J's wife can't clean and does not know how to discipline a three year old, and does not understand his complex but sensitive nature and, but for an accident of fate and a cheap bicycle, J would have won the Tour de France.
This helped to identify him.
Later on in the blog, as Jorge's affection for Desdemona waned, and he began to criticise the quality of her housekeeping , she started to express doubt about the veracity of his claims, particularly the one about the Tour de France. This further assisted identification.
Unfortunately for Desdemona.
As I have intimated, she and the VF shortly thereafter parted company. Possibly on terms, although nobody can tell me there were any or what they were or might have been. They must have included removal of the blog from the public record. And a confidentiality provision.
Desdemona and VF parted company not, you must understand, because she had an affair with a partner but because she also mentioned the name of the VF, and said that it sucked.
She said that quite a lot during the course of the blog.
In fact, it is quite a diverting read, for the first 20 or so pages, if you are not a member of the VF and can get past the grammatical mistakes and the mental pictures it conjures up of Jorge in various states of undress.
And what became of Jorge?
Well, he was told by the VF equivalent of Ivan to desist from fishing off the company wharf.
I was not privy to the conversation but it would not surprise me at all if the VF Ivan delivered a congratulatory high five with the dressing down. The VF Ivan is that kind of a guy.
Would Desdemona's peers have high fived her? Probably not, one would think, after the waning of affections.
The morals of this tale are these: first, if it were not for the salacious details of the affair nobody would have read the blog, and the complaints about the VF, and Desdemona would still have a job and secondly, if an office affair goes awry, the partner is never the one who "moves on to explore other options".
Dorothy, your law firm correspondent
1Paul Kelly