When I got my first job (at the ripe old age of about 15 or so), my mum gave me the sage advice “don’t get your meat where you get your bread”, meaning don’t date people you work with.
For the ensuing 10 years, I have kept this advice (not least because of a severe lack of temptation to do otherwise). However, now I discover there is a guy at work in whom I have an extracurricular interest (not that he knows it at the moment). So I’m wondering, what are your experiences, either first hand or from working with people who are couples in the workplace - was my mum right, or should I give it a go?
My girlfriend and I worked together and it went just fine for us. Another couple I know met at the same job and they’ve done fine, though usually when one is off, the other will call out sick.
In my opinion, it depends. Will you be able to seperate “work” and “home”? Like if you have a fight, will you still be able to work with that person?
Some companies have rules against employees dating one another, so check and make sure you’re not going to get fired for dipping your quill in the company ink. Then ask yourself a few questions: If things go swimmingly well, can you work with this person without being all huggy, kissyface, snuggy-wuggy-pookums with him and making your coworkers vomit copiously in the hallways? If things just don’t work out, can you work with him without it being all awkward and without dragging the rest of the staff into it? If things go amazingly badly–you two break up because he’s gotten someone else pregnant and given you an STD, say–can you work together without turning the place into a war zone for you and everyone else who has to work with the two of you?
Be completely honest with yourself. If the answer to any of those questions is no, or even maybe, it’s a really bad idea.
I met my SO in the place where I work. I work fullk time, and she works part time, So we only share about 9 hours a week actually working together. She has a full time job right near my job, so we meet daily for lunch, then go out as often as we can after work, she lives quite a bit away from me, so we see each other not nearly as much as we’d like.
However (and this is a big however), her ex-boyfriend also works with me, full time. I was kinda seeing her for a year before she broke up with him, about six months ago. Needless to say, me and him do not get on. We dont talk, not even about work stuff. That is hard.
So, my advice to you is, go with your heart, dont cut out a significant number of potential SO’s just because they happen to work with you, I think work is one of the best places to meet people, before I got with mym current SO, I was dating a different girl from my job, she has since left the company, but we’re still friends, but my current SO hates her…can’t think why!
We’re happy together, we make each other laugh, we make each other cry, and most of all we make each other happy.
Its her birthday tomorrow, so Happy Birthday Glass Onion SO!!
Hmmm, the consensus seems to be no, with a few “go for its”.
Maybe a little more information might help:
It’s a large company - about 1500 - 2000 in my city. We don’t work for the same division - I’m in consulting and he’s in support - I break things and then ring him and he fixes them :-), but we do work for the same customer (that’s how we met). Technically, we’re based in the same building (but on different floors), but I’m very rarely there, spending most of my time at customer sites. I’d probably speak to someone from his team about 2 or 3 times a week, and him maybe once every couple of weeks, although it’s been a little more lately. Our management structures converge about 2 or 3 levels up, at the second top level in the country.
Of course then there’s the whole complication of how I go about this - I’ve got absolutely no experience with this sort of thing, and I don’t even know if he’s interested (but that’s a whole other story).