As beginnings go, it was not promising. The intern was late for his first meeting with his mentor at the Chicago law firm. And yet things worked out OK. More than three decades later, the mentee, Barack Obama, and his mentor and later wife, Michelle, are still together after eight years in the White House.

That the Obamas’ relationship started in the workplace is hardly unique. A survey this year from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that 27 per cent of US workers have had an office romance. Younger workers are sometimes characterised as puritanical, but research suggests they may be more open to the idea of workplace romance than older peers because the divide between private and work life is more porous. 

The Christmas party is the backdrop to many budding romances. I know two people who met their future spouses this way. In the SHRM survey, more than a quarter of those who had an office relationship got together at work socials. Over the next few weeks, office workers will have the opportunity to requite the unrequited, as with Dawn and Tim in the television cringe-comedy, The Office, who finally kissed after years of shared glances and in-jokes, as Yazoo’s “Only You” played in the background.