This is a man's world. “It's like the sexual revolution happened to someone else”, as Archie Panjabi's aggressively progressive senior partner tells timid temp Sid (wide-eyed Ruth Negga) when she arrives at the bank in which Personal Affairs is based.Sid has managed to get herself installed as a temp amongst the PAs at City business Hartmann Payne, as part of a cunning revenge plan formulated by her boyfriend (Al Weaver – disguised, for some reason, as an Orthodox Jew). Apparently, his mother blames senior VP Rock Van Gelder (Robert Gant) for her massive losses in the risky world of high-risk finance. The disappearance in Episode One of Rock's PA, Grace (Olivia Grant), throws the other girls into a tizzy as they try to balance their Private Investigator-style activity with demanding roles as PAs in a busy, successful business. Then there's the private life of each to consider! Lucy (Laura Aikman) has become pregnant and is looking for promotion when a junior associate post becomes open. Midge (Annabel Scholey) has given up her daughter for adoption eight years back and has now started to question that decision when the father – supposedly a suicide case eight years ago – crops up as the apparent reason for Grace's disappearance. Nicole (Maimie McCoy) is perhaps the most stable of the lot, rejecting all men as control-seeking bastards whom she won't allow to rule her. Instead, she has casual sex with them, and forgets about them, while being very arch and superior about everything.
And that may be the crucial thing about Personal Affairs. Sex. Or possibly gender and sex. All the PAs seem to be defined by their sexual relations (be it pregnancies or Midge 'accidentally shagging' men she doesn't like). The office has a clear gender divide: the men are in charge, the women treated as lackeys. The proverbial glass ceiling is mentioned frequently. Female partner Archie Panjabi is more macho than your average bloke, and the PAs are beneath her notice. She's disappointed/angered by their inability to follow her lead and act like men in the male workplace, and disgusted by the outfits they wear to appeal to the masculine eyes that rove about so much in that workplace.
As she says, the idea of a sexual revolution seems not to have arrived at Hartmann Payne. Now, I've always struggled to see any reason why women wouldn't be treated on an equal footing wit
h men – indeed, taken it for granted that this is as it ought to be. So the offices of Hartmann Payne seem horribly archaic, backward. It feels like the fifties when Gant's languid Texan compares his PA to the wicket fence around his ranch – he likes his fence to be pretty, so tells her she should dress appealingly. In fact, it's all rather like fifties-based Mad Men (which felt like What Women Want without Mel Gibson and the mind-reading), but British and interesting.
h men – indeed, taken it for granted that this is as it ought to be. So the offices of Hartmann Payne seem horribly archaic, backward. It feels like the fifties when Gant's languid Texan compares his PA to the wicket fence around his ranch – he likes his fence to be pretty, so tells her she should dress appealingly. In fact, it's all rather like fifties-based Mad Men (which felt like What Women Want without Mel Gibson and the mind-reading), but British and interesting. What none of these men seem to realise is how much they rely on their PAs – Sid is right to alter 
Rock's analogy by describing herself as the ranch's foundations, not the fence; he rattles her, his ranch will collapse. In a way, I can almost understand the sneering prejudice...almost. To follow (what I shall call) the Wimbledon Argument, women are paid less than men because – essentially – they do less. Their Wimbledon prize cheques are smaller because they play three sets, not five. However, to counter the Wimbledon Argument, they've still won Wimbledon, just like the men. The PAs do just as much work as their bosses (even their boss's job, in Lucy's case), but their work is much less public. They seem to exist as a pretty face and body when needed, a typist when required, silent and out of the way when not. But there's no way any of the bosses could cope without them.
Rock's analogy by describing herself as the ranch's foundations, not the fence; he rattles her, his ranch will collapse. In a way, I can almost understand the sneering prejudice...almost. To follow (what I shall call) the Wimbledon Argument, women are paid less than men because – essentially – they do less. Their Wimbledon prize cheques are smaller because they play three sets, not five. However, to counter the Wimbledon Argument, they've still won Wimbledon, just like the men. The PAs do just as much work as their bosses (even their boss's job, in Lucy's case), but their work is much less public. They seem to exist as a pretty face and body when needed, a typist when required, silent and out of the way when not. But there's no way any of the bosses could cope without them. Some of the man-bashing is perhaps a bit unnecessary, but the point holds that, here at least, women are under-appreciated. A bit like Boy Meets Girl, the gender of the writer is obvious in the gender portrayal onscreen. The decent men that we just know are out there somewhere are conspicuous by their absence in Personal Affairs. Even friendly, co-conspirator Simon (Darren Boyd) is quietly determined to 'help' Sid out of what he describes as an obsession with maintaining her virginity, and therefore her childishness.
This is a man's world, but it wouldn't be nothing without a woman on the Earth.
nice reference to James Brown
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