Dull corporate bores are trying to outlaw the office romance - how hopeless

THE corporate world is another country. They do things differently there.

Yet another big swinging dick has bitten the dust after the board discovered "historical" romantic liaisons he hadn't reported to them.

This week the head man of Cboe Global Markets, Edward Tilly, has been made to walk the plank for "failing to disclose personal relationships with colleagues". He started as a clerk on the trading floor in the Windy City in 1987, so Tilly is our Bernard Looney.

As you will recall, BP lifer Looney - he joined in 1991 aged 21 - was flung into outer darkness after a stellar career also for failing to disclose past relationships; last year the president of CNN, Jeff Zucker, stood down after his relationship with a senior colleague was "revealed;" and in 2019, McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook was fired for having an office affair and last month fined $400,000 for concealing the extent of his consensual affair with a McDonald's employee.

At first blush, this suggests that if you are in a senior position, keep your pants up or you'll be picking up your P45. The Mad Men of yore will be today's Sad Men if they ever regard female co-workers as Don Draper, far right, did, like a free daily buffet laid on for their personal consumption, even in their dreams.