The Office Ten

You'd never take a second glance at the guy in a Patagonia vest. So why does he suddenly look so hot when he asks to borrow a stapler?

- Danielle Cohen

ONCE, IN HIGH SCHOOL, a friend who had just returned from summer camp told me about something she called the "3-9-1" phenomenon. It worked like this: A boy who was of middling attractiveness in the real world would, in the closed-circuit environment of a co-ed summer camp, begin to look very cute. After camp ended, the boy's appeal would vanish; his hair looked less swishy, his acne seemed worse, and it became obvious that his braces would be an impediment to good kissing. My friend would so regret that she had ever found him appealing in the first place that his attractiveness rating-which had earlier climbed from a 3 to a 9-would plummet to 1.

Any self-contained, temporary social ecosystem-a college class, a study circle, a weekend group trip-has a way of shifting your perceptions of attractiveness. And in adulthood, no environment has a greater distorting effect than the workplace. Enter the "Office Ten." An Office Ten is a person who falls somewhere between average to mildly good-looking in the world at large but skyrockets to wildly attractive within the confines of an open-concept desk plan. Office Tens rarely manage you or report to you; more often than not, they're at the same rung of the corporate ladder or, at most, one or two higher. They don't work closely with you, either, because knowing too much about their ability to execute deadlines or their shitty work-life balance would disrupt the fantasy you've built of them in your head. To be clear, no one is full-blown crushing on the Office Ten, nor is an Office Ten here to be hit on. They are here to add a little spice to your otherwise ho-hum workday, making every dreary slog to the coffee machine a low-stakes chance to interact with someone who gives you one-and no more than one-butterfly in your stomach.