Meeting Women At Work.. Are You Al Bundy?

(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)

 Loading ...

January 7, 2009 by Justin "JDOG" Marks  
Filed under Blog, Dating Advice

Comments

Meet women at work.. NOT like Al Bundy!

I answered a question on the forum, and thought that it would make an interesting article (skip forwards to the quote if you want.) It’s a fact that many of us have the opportunity to meet women while at work. Perhaps you are in the service sector, and attractive women are sometimes your customer. Or maybe you’re in a corporate office where there is a women that you’d like to meet. If you are holding yourself back in these situations then I’m guessing it’s not just due to a lack of flirtation skills, but also because of fears and concerns about what you think is acceptable behaviour in the work place.

In my corporate engineering career I often found myself in client offices with some absolutely beautiful women. I’m sure it comes as no surprise that they were rarely in the engineering department.. haha. At the time I had no idea how to approach them, I lacked confidence with women, and I also had all sorts of concerns floating around my head. I didn’t know if flirting or dating girls in the office would be frowned upon. I was worried about being accused of sexual harassment. I didn’t know what my boss or client supervisor would think. Looking back most of my concerns back then just seem laughable. It is possible however to make a stupid mistake in the workplace and then these can in fact become very real issues, so some discretion is important.

Here’s the kicker.. I had been working for a client out in california for several months, when I find out that one of my co-workers.. a friend of mine.. had actually slept with half the girls in the office. One was even married! At the time I was just flawed as I really wanted to ask a co-worker out but had no idea how to go about it, and he had probably already slept with her and moved on.

What follows is the dialogue between a chap on the forum, and myself about his work related situation: 

Reader’s Question:

I work at a mall, selling women’s shoes, yeah like al bundy, except in my case, beautiful young women come in on a daily basis. Everyone always says gee you must be getting a lot of numbers, but I’m not. Some of my coworkers are known for getting phone numbers easily, and i can’t seem to understand how they do it….some times i can see it in their eyes they’re interested, but i don’t know what to say, any tips?

thanks ahead of time..

JDOG’s Reply:

A close friend of mine sells ladies shoes for a living, and I’ve joked with him about having a foot fetish in an attempt for him to let me handle his customer’s feet..

Actually, the situation you are in applies to anyone who is in the service sector. I think there is a reservation that many guy’s have about overstepping boundaries, in addition to any lack of confidence that they may have with women. They don’t want to be reported if they miss-read a girl’s interest.

Here are my thoughts:

• It’s important to be well calibrated to avoid any complaints or awkwardness. Perhaps in your case you need to move out of your comfort zone (or as faro put it.. expand your comfort zone) in order to further develop your ability to sense where other people are emotionally at.
• Being confident, and a little flirtatious is generally good salesmanship anyway! (I’m going to hold back on making another be like the Zohan comment)
• Depending upon the atmosphere (and code of conduct) of where you work you can flirt more blatantly, or might need to be more subtle. Either way is fine.
• I get numbers from girls working in stores, and in the mall all the time, so if they can give me their number without worrying about their boss noticing then you should be able to also.
• HAVE A REASON – If you are flirting with each other, but logistically there is only so far you can progress things. No deeper level of comfort for example as she most likely needs to continue with her day, and you need to get back to work. Therefore, have a couple of pre-planned reasons for staying in touch that you can just pull out of your back pocket without much consideration. Such as:
  • Events that you help organise on the side, or otherwise do socially; fashion shows, clubs events, house parties, website blog, event mailing list, dinner party, cookout, WINE TASTINGS, band promotion.. etc..
  • Be direct – “you seem cool, but I have to go back to work, and I’m sure you’re busy also.. Obviously I don’t know you from a hole in the wall, but how do you suppose we continue this conversation another time?” She will usually offer her number or email or social networking link at this point. Occasionally she will say she is seeing someone, or not interested.
  • When you hand her receipt also ask her to put her number down for you.. be confident and give her a sexy smile (think James Bond.)
  • “I shouldn’t do this as I’m at work, but it’s rare that you meet someone in this town with a great outlook on life.. and hey I’m a rule breaker,” then just hand her a piece of paper and a pen. Or you could tell her about a party/event coming up (any bridge for that matter), and hand her a piece of paper and a pen.
  • You could have a reason to chat on myspace or facebook.. best to have a decent profile first. I use this option when I don’t have time to build comfort as I’m very socially proofed online. This might mean getting her email or myspace link. You can always tell her to write her number down also (almost as an after thought) when she is in the middle of writing her email down.

Spoon from season 1 of the pickup artist contacted me the other day. Many of you already know that after the show finished I spent a whole month in LA hanging out with the contestants from the show, and coaching some of them for free. I felt that the ones who really wanted to learn got a raw deal from being on the show. Reality television is generally not the place to fix yourself.

Anyway, Spoon is now spending some of his time selling jewellery, where he meets a constant flow of young beautiful women.. that lucky dog..haha.. well I have to tell you he is putting everything I taught him into action, and has sent me pictures of some of the gorgeous girls that he has met while working.

You can totally do this too!

One other time that stands out in my mind was when I was shopping for a pair of Fry boots at some department store. It was a big department store, and the men’s and ladies shoe section were joined together. A chap was helping me out. He was dressed smart in a suit, with a tie, but was more dressed up than he needed to be… and far more stylish than the other sales assistants.

He also was a great communicator, coming off as a fun guy, and good salesman.. not pushy. I decided not to buy the boots as they were $200 and I wanted to shop around. A week or 2 later I went back to buy them. They were available a little cheaper online, but not by much, and I didn’t want to wait for an order to arrive.

Now I could have gone to several other stores, but the salesman was very helpful, and I liked him so I went back and purchased them from him. One of my philosophies in life is that when money is so hard to earn why effectively pay for someone’s salary if you don’t particularly like them.. or said another way if you like a sales person then let them get the commission, right?

Ok.. so on my return visit I discovered one of the reasons why that chap stood out in the way he communicated, and in his personal style. Firstly, he was making more sales! Secondly, he was a player! Not a payer in the negative sense of the word.. but this guy obviously was good with the ladies.. I watched him pretty much run 2 sets of women, while waiting to buy my boots.

You said that you “could see it in their eyes” sometimes that they are interested in you. It rarely gets clearer than that. When you feel that connection, it’s like she’s holding up a giant billboard saying, “ASK ME OUT!” or “I LKE YOU!” so back to my rules of Day Game, when you get a strong IOI act on it. Even if you are a little nervous, and say something like, “look I don’t normally do this but you just have this wonderful vibe about you.. I don’t suppose you would be interested in some stimulating conversation over a coffee, would you?”

Be the zohan!

Reader’s Reply:

Wow, I don’t know what to say other than I will definitely ACT on the opportunities i get, next time. It’s amazing how you hit every single aspect of where I was coming from, like how i don’t want to cross any boundaries or anything. I will get out of my bubble and just do it next time i get a chance, look forward to a work field report haha. thanks a lot jdog!

My closing thoughts are that when unsure always ebb on the side of caution in the workplace, and please use your own discretion. During my corporate career I did hear about a couple of incidents where people had been internally investigated following a sexual harassment accusation. One of them was a guy who filed a complaint with the HR department against a lady in the office. In those two cases nothing serious came of it, but it still leaves me with concern for anyone who is completely socially un-calibrated running rampant with routines based game in an office environment.