If you don’t think an office romance, or a romance with one of your company’s vendors or a consultant can derail your career, think again!

The corporate landscape is littered with once high flying executives that lost their jobs, or had their reputations tarnished by having affairs with subordinates, or others outside of the company.

Who are some of these people?  Let’s start with Harry C. Stonecipher.  He was brought back in to improve the ethics of the CEO’s office at Boeing and deal with serious missteps by his predecessor. Whoops!  Harry had an affair with a high ranking employee and was fired by the board. And then there’s the King of all CEO’s, Jack Welch. He had an affair with Suzy Wetlaufer, the editor of the Harvard Business Review who was writing an article about him. She was forced to resign as editor, but was later rehired as an editor at large—at which point two other editors resigned in protest of her being rehired!   As for Mr. Welch, his once unblemished career suddenly took on a very tarnished appearance.

Sex and the City and Business! will bring home one very critical point: office romances are a bad idea.  Even if you survive, professional relationships may be irreparably damaged, your company may be put in legal jeopardy, and your own career development may stall.  Oh, and what about the person you had the affair with? That person, regardless of gender, may lose their position or see their career come to a screeching halt!