To the Valued Employees of our London Office,

Congrats on another successful year of looking busy! We haven’t lost any clients, so we assume that you must be doing something when you’re not dishing about your love lives, making cheeky banter, and peering at each other from behind your desktops.

We look forward to seeing you all at this year’s holiday celebration. First, however, we must inform you that one joyless employee has complained about an atmosphere of “bizarre, unrelenting sexual harassment” in our Art Department. As a result, before we make merry, let’s have a little chat about professionalism.

Mixed messages about appropriate workplace conduct are, in fact, all around. Judging from the water-cooler conversation, it sounds like the Prime Minister knocked on most of our doors last night while pursuing his giantess of a secretary. (A lucky few even saw them snogging in the background of their children’s nativity play!) While one person may find office romances cute, however, another may consider them as out of place as a lobster in a manger.

Per the employee handbook, the following behaviors are classified as inappropriate and will not be tolerated:

  • Inviting a subordinate (let’s call her “Tara”) into your office in order to pressure her to tell a co-worker (“Blarl”) “the fact you’d like to marry him and have lots of sex and babies.”
  • Nut- or muffin-based innuendo.
  • Holding the company holiday party in a gallery of erotic Santa art.
  • Describing the party venue as full of “dark corners for doing dark deeds.”
  • Wearing an unseasonable sexy devil costume to the company holiday party.
  • Advising female employees to simply avoid a male co-worker (let’s call him “Not Kevin”) “if they want their breasts unfondled.”
  • Commenting on the weight or appearance of female employees. (Note: this rule applies only to women who weigh under 118 pounds/8.4 stone.)
  • Demanding that a colleague purchase you a Christmas present before spreading your bare legs as widely as possible while whispering “when it comes to me, you can have everything” and eye-f*cking him as hard as you can.
  • Purchasing inappropriate gifts for colleagues/subordinates, which disrupt the dynamics of the work environment and result in prolonged montages of your spouse weeping to Joni Mitchell.
  • Being a lesbian in public.
  • Purchasing a woman on a work visa from her father/guardian using the company card.

What do all of these scenarios have in common? They involve company time, company property, and company personnel. In your private life, we encourage you to continue spreading the romance in any way you see fit, whether that means barreling through airport security, following that special someone to her residence, following that special someone to her residence in Portugal, purchasing a grown woman from her father/guardian using a private check, filming your best friend’s wife in uncomfortable close-up, telling your thirteen-year-old son about your plans to shag Claudia Schiffer in his bedroom, or declaring your feelings to your married, unrequited crush by holding up signboards outside her home like you’re making a hostage video.

So, since it’s Christmas — and, at Christmas, you tell the truth — let us say, with love in our hearts: please remember that businesses are for business. You can be sex maniacs on your own time when we’re no longer liable.

Happy Christmas!

— HR