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A man and a man at a bar at a hotel during a work trip, that looks like mentoring, and it is mentoring. A man and a woman at a bar at a hotel on a work trip, that doesn’t look like mentoring to anyone.
—Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook1
“When I was younger and traveled more for business, I got hit on by just about every man I traveled with. This is not uncommon among women I know,” blogs columnist, author, and entrepreneur Penelope Trunk.2 Like many women, Penelope’s business trips were often derailed by amorous traveling companions. Intrigued to hear more, I spoke to Penelope about her experiences traveling with cross-sex companions. On one such trip, her boss made the moves on her, she told me:
I was traveling with my boss. We were in the hotel lobby, and first he told me about how he used to date someone who looked just like me, and then how he never felt with anyone the way he felt with me. So many men I have worked with have said that—that’s a line they use when they’re bored at home. Then my boss says we should just spend the night drinking together, ’cause we didn’t have a lot to do the next day.
Penelope directly asked her boss if he was trying to sleep with her. When he confirmed, she made it clear that the attraction was not reciprocated. As happens repeatedly on business trips, Penelope’s boss placed her in a no-win situation. She was not remotely interested in an affair with her boss but, then again, shooting down the boss doesn’t typically fast-track an employee’s career. Her best option, and the one she ultimately pursued, was a transfer. When I asked her about the repercussions for declining her boss’s advances, she reported:
He just didn’t try as hard. Men who are trying to have sex with you try extra hard at work to get along with you. They tell you how great you are, and how smart you are, and how they understand your work better than anyone else. And if you reject them, they can go one of two routes. They can either be pissy, or they can just try harder, as if they like the challenge. After [my boss] got pissy, I told a superior that I needed to be transferred because my boss was incompetent. So I got transferred. If I said that I need to be transferred because my boss hit on me, then they have to take it to HR, and that was just not going to get me anywhere. I think, in general, if women are going to get upset that they’re hit on by men, then they just shouldn’t go to work.
Luckily Penelope was granted the transfer. Resuming a normal work life with a boss who bears romantic or sexual interest is challenging for anyone, particularly if the boss is coping with rejection. Despite this, many women fear approaching their human resources departments and, instead of reporting such behavior, continue to live and work in uncomfortable situations. Penelope avoided the messy investigation that would have ensued by reporting her boss’s behavior and instead cited the manager’s incompetence as grounds for her transfer request.
Although repulsed by her boss, Penelope Trunk was more tempted by travel companions on other business trips, and she blogs about how the business trip setting is particularly prone to romance:
Now I can see why affairs happen so often on business trips. . . . If you’re married with children, a business trip is like an escape to Disneyland. There are no kids to feed and bathe. There’s no husband for annoying talks about checkbook balances and the next day’s school lunch. There is only freedom and fun. And what does anyone want to do with freedom and fun except have sex? I wish I could tell you that I’m too busy with my great career and big ideas to think about a little one-night stand. But, really, I was consumed with the idea.3
Why are business trips such fertile grounds for hooking up? Trunk told me that the initial attraction to traveling companions often developed naturally from close working relationships:
If you’re working really well with someone, you become attracted to them. You’re working with them eight hours a day, you’re getting cool stuff done, you’re both intellectually stimulated about the same things, and you have shared goals. That’s attractive.
Trunk is not alone. For cross-sex travelers, the temptation to hook up on a business trip is relatively common. A 2011 Newsweek/Dailybeast.com poll indicated that 21 percent of married men want to cheat while traveling on business, and a much larger percentage of single travelers most likely desire a hook-up on their getaways. It’s not hard to understand why the lure is so great. After conducting business, traveling coworkers may dine together, enjoy a cocktail to celebrate a business deal, or treat clients to a local entertainment venue. Afterwards, the colleagues typically return to the same hotel. Hundreds or thousands of miles from home, sometimes in exotic locales or resorts, temptations to engage in a tryst with cross-sex coworkers are often irresistible. However, if both parties are not equally enthralled, awkward and uncomfortable situations can ensue. And even if both traveling companions are interested in hooking up, they must face each other at the home office once the business trip ends. Same-sex travel companions need not fear such complications. They can travel together, drink until they’re drunk, and share a hotel room without any concern about sexual attraction or its repercussions.
In order to further uncover the issues that confront cross-sex travel companions, I collected anecdotes from over fifty employees who had traveled with an opposite-sex coworker. (See Appendix B for more details on the participants.) Not surprisingly, most described some awkwardness in dealing with their cross-sex travel companions. The work aspects of the trips were fine. It was the additional activities outside of work that often left employees feeling uncomfortable. At the home office, when the typical workday ends, coworkers are not necessarily expected to hang out together. However, in an unfamiliar city where the business travelers may not have friends or family, are they expected to socialize after the day’s work is completed? The workers in my study ate, drank, went sightseeing, and attended movies with their travel companions. One pair even soaked in the hotel hot tub together.
These extracurricular activities were awkward for a variety of reasons. From unrequited sexual interest to having difficulty being taken seriously, outings with cross-sex coworkers can be difficult. For Liana, an auto parts industry employee, an outing with her colleagues left her feeling like an outsider. Liana was the only woman among her male colleagues attending a conference far from home. She didn’t typically hang out with her colleagues after work, but since they were out of town she decided to give it a try. On this particular night, her male colleagues chose Hooters as the evening’s destination. The Hooters chain of restaurants is, of course, known for sexy young female waitresses who wear revealing outfits. Ironically, it wasn’t the waitresses or their revealing outfits that disturbed Liana. Instead, as she described, “The biggest problem was the men didn’t take me seriously.”
Although some women might be offended by dining in the Hooters environment, Liana described it as “mildly uncomfortable.” The bigger issue for her was the difficulty women face being taken seriously at Hooters. While male employees can establish bonds at Hooters that extend back to the home office, it’s harder to imagine Liana’s colleagues concluding, “I want to give that assignment to Liana—she really impressed me at Hooters.” Instead, she described being “hit on” by male conference attendees or mistaken for a colleague’s wife.
Why even attend the Hooters outing then? It seems like it would be easier, and certainly more pleasant, to relax in a hotel room. Unfortunately, women trying to break down the sex partition and establish bonds with their male coworkers typically find themselves in a double bind. If they decline invitations to socialize, they risk missing out on valuable time with coworkers and possibly more senior employees. However, when they choose to attend male-oriented outings, women may feel that they are not taken seriously.
I found myself in a situation similar to Liana’s on a business trip to Tokyo. My male coworkers were heading out to a hostess bar in the evening. At a Japanese hostess bar, female hostesses light cigarettes, pour drinks, and flirt with the almost exclusively male guests. In this particular bar, only Western-looking, English-speaking women were employed as hostesses, and topless women performed pole dances for more entertainment. I could have remained in the hotel, but fearing I’d miss out on networking opportunities, and having nothing else to do, I chose to join them. I was happy to be included. Despite my efforts to fit in with the boys, it was an awkward evening. The bar staff mistook me for a hostess, and my colleagues had to explain I didn’t work there. The bar staff apologized profusely and assigned me my very own woman for the evening. Much like Liana, I felt it was hard to be taken seriously.
Does Alcohol Lead to Sex?
Liana’s other complaint was that she had been propositioned by other men at the conference. By far the most common complaints of cross-sex business travelers involved issues of sexual interest. Unrequited sexual or romantic interest in a travel companion creates uncomfortable situations, and mutual interest in hooking up has its own set of problems. Bill, an accountant, described how his female boss got a little too friendly after she had too much to drink:
I had to go on a business trip with my boss from work for a conference in Boston. The company paid for separate rooms and our dinner at night. We had dinner and drinks, but it was very awkward, because my boss got drunk and got very touchy with me. I quickly asked for the bill, and we left. I immediately told her I would see her in the morning, and that I had to use the bathroom bad. The next morning, I just acted like nothing happened, but it was awkward after that.
Of course it was awkward. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where declining or avoiding a manager’s advances wouldn’t become awkward.
Bill suggested his boss’s inebriated state influenced her decision to put the moves on him, and alcohol seemed to play a prominent role in the after-hours activities of many of the business travelers. Imbibing, they reported, generally increased flirting and touching with their travel companions.
It’s well-documented that alcohol does indeed increase flirtation and attraction. Often labeled the “beer goggles effect,” the more alcohol consumed, the more attractive people start to look.4 (Evidence of this effect comes from an interesting study where researchers showed photos of faces to student drinkers in a campus pub. The higher the student’s blood alcohol level, the higher attractiveness ratings they gave to the photos. Both men and women in the study succumbed to the effects of beer goggles.) The lesson from this research: Drinking on the business trip can lead to situations you might later regret.
Not only can alcohol make a traveling companion seem more attractive, but it also can reduce sexual inhibitions.5 It’s not hard to understand why a few drinks can lead to wandering hands and flirty innuendo. Many employees ran into situations where, after a few drinks, interactions began to cross the line from professional to romantic. For example, Alan, who had a few drinks with a colleague, described how “the inclusion of alcohol definitely increased physical contact, but nothing crossed the line.” Robert described a similar experience imbibing with a female colleague: “We drank quite a bit of alcohol after the day’s events, and we got a little friendly, flirting and touching each other.”
What happens when employees cross that line? Several of the employees ended up sleeping with their traveling companions, but even when both parties consent, complications can arise. Remember, the two employees typically must see one another on a regular basis back at the home office. If one colleague is interested in pursuing a relationship and the other is not, run-ins at the water cooler can get uncomfortable. Sexual harassment allegations can even result, particularly if one party feels that they were pressured into sex. Even if both parties are on the same page, rumors and allegations of favoritism from other employees can ensue.
What Will Our Coworkers Think?
Sometimes, even when there is no attraction between cross-sex travelers, suspicious coworkers can start negative rumors. When I traveled for business with my boss, it never occurred to me that my coworkers might think we were up to anything more than business. In reality, on business trips I was usually suffering from jet lag and made a habit of returning to my hotel room early. But, sure enough, rumors started. On one trip my boss forgot to bring his disposable contact lenses. When I saw him sporting an old pair of glasses, and asked him why, he told me he had left his lenses at home. I asked his prescription, and it turns out we had the same contact lens prescription. I lent him some of my disposable lenses and all was well. I’m not sure how the boys back at the home office found out about the incident, but they were convinced that the only way to discover a shared contact lens prescription is if you’re dressing together in the same hotel room. My coworkers thought that the fact that my boss and I knew each other’s contact lens prescription was concrete evidence we had slept together. I’m not sure I ever convinced them otherwise.
This behavior is not uncommon, as colleagues often question motivations when an opposite-sex colleague is chosen to travel with the boss. If a man chooses to travel with another man, his motivations are rarely questioned, but when a man chooses to travel with a woman, it can open up a can of worms.
Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, and her mentor, former treasury secretary Larry Summers, once found themselves in an awkward situation on a business trip. Alone together in a hotel room, working late into the night, they realized others may think there was more going on than just work. Sandberg recounted the story for 60 Minutes Overtime:
We were in his [Larry Summers’s] suite in the living room part of a hotel room, working on a speech, and we finished, and it was 3:00 a.m. We looked at each other, I don’t even think we said anything, but we both knew—this is not good. We talked about it for a minute, and well, there’s nothing to do but leave. That happens to women and men, and it doesn’t happen to men and men. If I had been a man, no one would have noticed or cared.6
Sandberg is correct. These concerns don’t impact men traveling with other men, or women traveling with other women. It’s when a woman and man are in a hotel room together, the rumor mill gains momentum.
A similar concern regarding coworker misinterpretation emerged in an interview Holly English conducted for her book Gender on Trial. A male law partner reported his worry about what his coworkers thought when he chose to travel with an attractive blonde:
You may go out of your way to make clear why [a female] is going traveling with you. I had to go to Chicago to take depositions. One of our female associates was working on the case with me. We went, and I do recall feeling that I had to make sure that people understood that she was there as a part of the prosecution of the case. Whether I said anything differently because she was frankly an attractive blonde as opposed to a young male associate, I’m not sure. It was in my head. I felt a little uneasy because we had to meet the night before the depositions to review, and the only place we had available to meet was in the hotel room. It would have been easier if it was a guy.7
Clearly concerned with what other people thought about his relationship with his travel companion, he wanted to make it perfectly clear why he had selected this particular woman. She was included on the trip because she was needed on the case, and not because he desired her companionship for other reasons.
Are They Cute?
The same lawyer also mentioned that he felt the attractiveness of his traveling companion may have made their business trip seem more suspect to fellow employees. When traveling with a colleague deemed unattractive, many employees report less awkwardness. Not surprisingly, less attractive traveling companions eased the temptation for travelers. Employees were not sexually interested in less attractive travel companions, and there was little concern that their less attractive companions would hit on them. Penelope Trunk bluntly told me that no one should fear unattractive men: “It’s not likely that you’ll get hit on by a gross man. Gross men don’t have a sense of entitlement where they hit on women at work.”
I’m sure that unattractive people, particularly after a few drinks, also hit on coworkers. Nonetheless, attractive traveling partners are perceived as more of a threat. James, a male healthcare worker, described how the fact that his traveling companion wasn’t his type made his trip fun:
I recently went on a trip with a female colleague who was twice my age. She was very nice and we were both new to the company. There was no attraction because she was very overweight—overweight as in very obese. We hung out one night and got all sorts of drunk. We weren’t uncomfortable and we even got an opportunity to talk trash about our boss and other coworkers.
Sadly, these employees imply that to really be able to relax with a cross-sex coworker on a business trip, he or she must be deemed unattractive.
Wearing a Ring
Relationship status was also important to the travelers, and a ring on one’s finger seemed to reduce the likelihood that coworkers would make a move. Having their own special someone waiting at home also kept some employees on their best behavior. Melissa, a healthcare professional, was attracted to her travel colleague, but consideration of her husband at home held her back:
I was on a weeklong business trip with some colleagues. There was attraction with one of the men on the trip. We did hang out after we completed our business there. After the rest of the group went to bed, the man I was attracted to asked to walk me to my room. I know he wanted me to invite him in, but I just said goodnight. We never spoke of it again. Part of me wanted to invite him in for sex, but I just couldn’t cheat on my husband.
While consideration of a spouse can limit the likelihood of hooking up on a business trip, spouses left at home can also cause friction between traveling coworkers. Understandably, these spouses can experience jealousy when their husband or wife is traveling with an opposite sex coworker. Omar, a male healthcare worker, had to modify his business trip because of a female colleague’s jealous spouse. To appease the husband at home, Omar and his female colleague made sure they were always accompanied by others on their business trip. Now that Omar is married himself, he has an even greater appreciation for the feelings of the spouse at home. He reports, “Now that I am married to the love of my life, I would be very cautious about doing anything outside of work with an opposite-sex coworker—even on a business trip.”
Omar’s concern regarding his wife’s jealousy keeps him from socializing with opposite-sex colleagues outside of work. While his loyalty and respect for his wife are admirable, Omar’s female colleagues and subordinates suffer from fewer opportunities to network with him. Both Omar and his female colleagues are hindered by having fewer networking possibilities.
We Just Have Nothing in Common
While most of the issues on these business trips surrounded sexual or romantic interest, a few travelers just found they had nothing in common with their companions. Some mentioned having to spend considerable time with their travel partner, and having little to say to them. One male telemarketer complained, “The most awkward part of the trip was the lack of stuff we had in common,” and a female lawyer carped, “Sometimes I didn’t know what to say, so we talked just about work.” Even mundane activities can be perceived as unpleasant with a cross-sex companion. Jane, an assistant to the director of her organization, described how being cramped with her boss on the airplane was uncomfortable. She recalls, “The plane ride seemed like it would take forever, and I felt like we were just sitting too close together.”
Certainly concerns related to different interests or lack of conversational topics can also impact same-sex pairs. However, a lack of common interests has been documented as an issue facing cross-sex friends, and in a situation where two people are forced to spend significant time together, these differences can be magnified.
Staying out of Trouble
So what are cross-sex travelers to do? Several travelers offered suggestions for escaping their cross-sex companion. Recall Bill’s strategy—he excused himself for the evening from his drunk and overamorous boss by telling her of his urgent need to use the bathroom. Another woman pretended to be asleep on the long car ride home to avoid interacting with her colleague. Simpler strategies such as retiring to a hotel room as soon as the workday ended were also implemented. Jonathan, a male telecommunications professional who had been hit on by female coworkers on business trips, advises avoiding end-of-day happy hours and “to stay in groups or just go back to your room.” Cathy, a saleswoman, applied a similar strategy when her traveling companion “asked me every night after work if I wanted to go to the bar, and a strip club, believe it or not. That was a little weird. I stayed in.”
Unfortunately, turning down a colleague’s invitation for dinner or drinks is not always easy, particularly when it’s clear you have nothing better to do. Janice, a grocery store manager, describes how declining her male colleague was so awkward that she would prefer to travel exclusively with women in the future:
I was on a business trip with a male colleague for an overnight stay and a two-day food show. I found it to be extremely uncomfortable. The male colleague was quite a bit older than I, so I felt no attraction at all, but he wanted to be together the whole time. He wanted to have drinks together after the day of business activities, and I didn’t want to. It was awkward for me to try to say no and avoid him without causing bad feelings. It was really hard to relax and enjoy myself. I hated the experience, and I would try not to go on a business trip with a male colleague again.
While avoiding contact after work may solve some problems, after-work gatherings may also offer the greatest networking potential. Getting to know the boss or a coworker over dinner can be invaluable. When the next high-profile project comes along, that same coworker or senior employee may feel more comfortable handing off to someone that can be trusted. This level of trust can often be developed hanging out after hours on a business trip. Those who feel uncomfortable hanging out after hours may forgo valuable networking opportunities.
In lieu of avoiding interactions altogether, several employees suggested going out in groups instead of one-on-one. Laurie, a government worker, describes how she and her female colleagues remained in groups to avoid a lecherous coworker:
There was one man who became a problem. There were a total of twenty of us, and it was not until later when we exchanged stories we realized there was a trend. He would show up at a female’s room and offer a neck massage. He would call on the phone to see if you wanted to take a side trip on the weekend with him. As the week progressed it became more uncomfortable. He was the only man we had this type of problem with. So we always went out to eat as a group. We hung out as a group and even spent the weekend in groups.
Consorting in groups may be practical when there are several employees traveling simultaneously. However, when coworkers travel in pairs, they are often forced to interact one-on-one. While one-on-one interactions have the most potential to blossom into mentorships, they can also be the most awkward for cross-sex travelers.
So, once again, the double bind. Avoiding contact with the cross-sex traveler can minimize awkward situations, but it also minimizes networking potential. So what are cross-sex traveling companions to do? Open and honest communication can go a long way to break through awkward circumstances. Here are a few suggestions for navigating cross-sex business travel:
It is important to note that not all employees have issues traveling with cross-sex coworkers. A few reported to me that they traveled comfortably with cross-sex companions and felt their business trip was a positive experience. However, the majority reported some discomfort with their cross-sex travel companion.
The male lawyer who was quoted earlier summed up much of the discomfort and awkwardness experienced by many cross-sex travelers when he said, “It would have been easier if it was a guy.” Indeed that encapsulates many of the obstacles that make up the sex partition. It’s not that the obstacles are insurmountable, and no one is suggesting that men and women can’t have successful business trips together. Instead, trips with the opposite sex are sometimes more complicated. Given a choice, many would prefer same-sex companions. And, once again, when preference is given to same-sex colleagues, women tend to bear greater disadvantage.