Workplace romance in an office setting. Good or bad idea?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Throughout college, I worked in a restaurant. A la Waiting, co-workers would routinely hang out outside of work, party together, and even date.

Since I’ve started working at my new job, which is in a professional setting (suits, meetings, weekly numbers, cubicles, etc.), becoming romantically involved with a co-worker is a much riskier endeavor.

A few months ago, an attractive co-worker approached me and introduced herself. Since then, we’ve gone out to bars, went to a few parties (we found out we had mutual friends in the area), and generally became pretty close.

On more than a few occasions, she has visited me in my office just to make friendly conversation. This raised a few eyebrows of our co-workers, and more irritatingly, our supervisors. Basically, we both got scolded for talking to each other at work. Funny thing is, the subject of our conversation at work is never anything risque - just about mundane blah (i.e. How was your weekend? How’s your family? Can I borrow your stapler?)

Also, I almost feel like I’m being unfairly targeted here. Her and I are by far the youngest people working here. Men and women converse all the time about non-work related topics. But when the two young’ns get together, it’s bad news.

I’m getting a little off topic (especially since I don’t want to be in a relationship with her; I’m just used to socializing with my co-workers outside of work), but is it out of line for two people in the same company to become romantically involved? I should point out that this is a relatively small office (60 staff members all told), so word gets around, as people are eager to gossip.

Has anyone here met their SO on the job? What was the general reaction?

2

Everyone’s going to tell you what a terrible idea it is, so let me just say … go for it.

3

The person above says go for it, so I’m just going to say it’s a bad idea.

4

This is good stuff guys. Keep it comin’.

5

Sorry but that first reply was begging for a snarky answer.

It is almost always a mistake to get involved with someone you work with. The fallout from breakups can ruin careers. Do some people find true love at work? Sure. But the risks are too high to take that chance.

6

Honestly, there’s four possible outcomes here:

  1. You date her and keep your job
  2. You break up but keep your job
  3. You date her but get fired
  4. You break up and get fired

If none of those sound like earth-shattering consequences to you, then go for it.

7

Workplace romances are tricky things. Personally, I’ve never had any luck with them, so I’m biased against them.

The only one I’ve ever had that worked well enough was with a woman who worked in the same division of my company but didn’t work in the same office/physical location. So, we’d still get to see each other regularly at staff meetings and such, but we didn’t work down the hall from each other so it wasn’t an everyday thing.

But even then, our personal conversations ended up spending way too much time focused on work/co-worker gossip. And of course, when we eventually broke up, it made things weird-- not just for us, but for our co-workers/mutual friends.

That’s the issue with fishing off the company pier-- you may luck out and meet either your future spouse, or if not that, you may at least meet a cool person who can handle a break-up well. But what are the odds of that? Pretty slim. Far likelier possibility is that it won’t work out, it’ll make things weird/awkward/living hell, all your co-workers will gossip, and good luck ever dating another co-worker ever again at that place.

Thus, my advice is: because the risks are so great, be damn sure either she’s worth it, or that the job isn’t :-).

P.S. Speaking only for me, I’ll never do it again. In fact, I even went so far as to rule out ever dating another woman even in my line of work. With my current GF, our careers couldn’t be more different, so I find it to be extremely pleasant to come home from a long day of work and be able to talk about completely different subjects with her. That said, to each their own, YMMV.

8

You’re right, and I apologize.

To be serious, I’ve seen lots of problems caused by office romances, but they still happen, and for good reason. You’re working close with people and spending a lot of time at the office, so I don’t see why it has to be a problem. Most of the serious problems I’ve seen have been caused by managers dating underlings.

You just have to ask yourself a few questions. What’s more important, this job or sex? (And “job” won’t always be the answer, IMO.) Can I live with the gossip? Is there a prospect of a long-term romance?

9

This is what is so frustrating. There is something inherently bad about dating co-workers, yet as aaslatten said, it’s very easy to become close to them on a personal level. I see the people I work with more than I see my closest friends nowadays.

When I first met this girl, it was very refreshing for the both of us. We were both young, fresh out of college, and attempting to get accustomed to a new work environment. We really hit it off, but now the very thing that brought us together is keeping us apart.

10

FWIW, the one time I very possibly thought about an office romance, I decided against it. In case my experience might be relevant to yours…

I just got separated intending to divorce, and there was one co-worker I liked a lot–she was intelligent, good looking, had a number of common interests with me, and to add fuel to the fire she and I wound up running into each other on a Saturday (not long after I’d moved out of my soon-to-be-ex’s-and-my-house) in spring when St. Louis’s “Soulard Mardi Gras” celebration was going on. We got done with the work we had come in to do that day about lunchtime, and on the spur of the moment decided to go to Soulard for lunch together. Lunch turned into drinking after lunch, which turned into some handholding, walking in the neighborhood arm in arm, and (maybe, the memory was fogged by the alcohol) a couple drunk kisses and dinner together before we each went to our separate apartments.

When I got up the next day, I thought long and hard about dating her steadily, and ended up deciding, “Nah, I like working here too much, and I don’t want to have to look for another job”. I don’t think I would have gotten in trouble for dating her (the office was pretty casual, and several people were involved with each other), but my thinking was more, “If she and I break up in a few months, can you really stand having to constantly see her all the time?” (historically, I don’t do “let’s just stay friends” well, if at all).

Interestingly enough, a year or so later another (male) colleague and I were attending a conference out of town, and after dinner we were having Yet Another Drunken Conversation (all of us had a lot of those, it was one of those kinds of workplaces). I don’t know how the conversation came around to my love life, but my co-worker expressed surprise that the woman in question and I didn’t wind up as a couple after my divorce–apparently about half the people in the office expected us to.

[Do I ever wonder “what if…”? Damn straight! Just about every night. But ultimately I have no regrets; that was one of the better jobs I’ve had.]

Cheers,

bcg

11

I guess it depends on whether you consider your current job to be a career or not. If you might want to stay for 20 years, I’d go poop in a more distant yard. Otherwise, no reason you shouldn’t poop in your own.

12

We have a lot of married couples where I work (my husband and I worked together for a brief time), and some of them met at work. I know an engaged couple right now who met at work, and one couple who has gotten divorced and still work for the same company.

It’s a factory, so perhaps most people aren’t as worried about “professionalism”, but most of the couples aren’t production workers…they are supervisors, engineers, technicians, etc. They generally do not work extremely closely together, and, of course, boss/employee relations are forbidden.

There is also a lot of out-of-work fraternization that goes on in my company. A lot of people meet up at the bar, especially on Friday nights. There is also a group of women I know who like to go for “girls’ night out” to various places (usually bars). I’m not real involved with that, mostly because I don’t drink very often.

I will say that my boss did get a bit annoyed when my husband would come over to talk to me, so we usually avoided each other except when it was work-related or at lunch time. She would also do things like deny me my request for a long lunch on our anniversary. However, she is now part of that engaged couple I mentioned and no longer my boss, and she gabs with her fiance ALL THE TIME and takes many, many long lunches.

13

Just curious, is there an official anti-“fraternization” policy at your workplace?

14

Yeah, it also depends on how romantic you are, I guess. True love could be worth a lot, in my mind. And an office romance doesn’t always ruin careers, although it could get somebody fired from that particular job. But a lot of times it’s just a sex thing or a way to stave off boredome, because of the electricity and all the flirting in the office environment.

15

It’s probably an un-spoken law, in the office anyways. There are the usual sexual harassment policies, and of course there are the rules that state a staff member can not be involved with a client, but as far as merely *socializing *outside of work, nothing is really laid out.

My supervisor and the girl’s supervisor are best friends, actually. They went to high school together, and now their families are very close. While at work, they regularly get off topic, but no one has a problem with it.

I hear other co-workers talking about planning day trips with one another, going to baseball games, having a few drinks, etc. This is usually reserved for the lunch room, but either way, I don’t think it would garner much attention.

I just feel the heat, because I notice how the older staff members look at me when I talk to this girl. They glare disapprovingly.

16

When workplace romances work, they are great things and definately worth the risk. My sister met her husband at work. My cousin met hers.

But they can ruin careers. If you’ve ever watched your ex turn into the “bitch from hell” (or bastard I suppose) after they are dumped, and trash you to all your friends, and try and ruin your life, you can understand what damage that can cause to your career - and an office environment in general.

(In your case, its just a friendship and I’d point out to the boss that ‘its just a friendship and Bob and Jim have a few beers on Friday night and get together to watch the game on Sunday… are we being singled out because our friendship crosses gender lines?’)

17

So this is your first “real” job out of college? How long have you been there?

18

Ah, such a great, great line. I tried to explain it that way when my supervisor first brought it up, but had I added the bolded portion, it would have been perfect.

Since then, I’ve pretty much been a hermit at work. I don’t want to get into trouble, and I don’t want this girl to get into trouble, either. I’m actually hesitant to speak to any younger females about non work-related subjects at the office. It’s really sad that it’s come to this.

19

Yup, first real job out of college. I started at the end of August '08, but didn’t start talking to this girl after about two months of being here.

20

If your coworkers are already sending negative vibes, it’s almost certainly a bad idea if you care about the job. Apparently you work in a company where such a relationship is not OK, maybe based on their past experience. If you’re on any kind of track that could lead to a supervisory job, being seen as having a tendency to treat young female coworkers as flirt material could take you off that track.

My advice - make an extra effort to develop an outside-of-work social life that puts you in touch with lots of people your age.