I never considered work romantic – until I heard about the ‘office 10’

Apparently, the closed ecoystem of the workplace makes ordinary folk seem unbelievably beautiful. That's not how I remember it

New York magazine has introduced me to the concept of the office 10: the person who would be middlingly attractive in a normal scenario, but in the closed-circuit environment of the workplace is unbelievably beautiful. It's a feature of the self-contained, temporary social ecosystem" that makes you adjust your settings. Only those people exist; since you sort them accordingly, one of them must be the most beautiful person in your world.

If you factor in the boredom of work and the huge proportion of it that is meaningless, the office 10 becomes its raison d'etre, the person who can propel you out of bed on the off-chance that they might go to Pret at the same time as you, or might think similarly about Liz Truss. Be real: you are probably their office 10 as well. It's a closed ecosystem, remember?