In the management consulting firms where I have mostly worked, office hookups ranging from making out with a coworker after a happy hour to dating over a period of serveral years and ultimately marrying are not uncommon. These companies tend to hire lots of young 20 somethings out of school like you (or smary, sexy and ambitious single 30-somethings like me:D) and we tend to work long hours and travel together a lot and there is often alchohol involved. As a rule, you want to keep in discrete and not let it affect your work. Also, you want to try to avoid situations where you have direct reports dating or people dating on the same project team.
You want to avoid this awkward conversation:
“Um…Sally. How come you didn’t put together that deliverable?”
“You KNOW why!”
“Look…I told you. I don’t think I’m ready to pool our Starwood points and share a hotel room.”
At your level, it’s usually not that big of an issue as long as you keep in discrete. If you are a manager or a senior person, then it can become a little problematic if you have any say over that person’s raises or promotions or staffing.
Another point to keep in mind is that the job market sucks right now. I would strongly advise that you do nothing that could endanger a job you already have.
My company has a “hook up if you want to, but just don’t do it with your boss/employees” policy. It’s usually brought up on Day 1, along with their policies on sexual harassment, discrimination and dress code.
Within the same department, though, it’s usually best not to even think about it, because if it ends badly, it can turn really really ugly (the worst I’ve seen involved a hair-pulling-bitch-slapping-oh-no-you-didn’t catfight in the ladies’ room between the ex and the new GF… because the guy was not only dumb enough to date within his department, he was dumb enough to do it more than once)
Given that you’re in a small company, it’s probably best to handle it the same way… don’t even go there.
I’f you are going to have a relationship, I’d suggest you keep it as low key as possible in the workplace. In my last workplace, two people who were working in different areas started seeing each other. Nothing necessarily new in that, and it wouldn’t have been a big deal. Until they started holding hands in the hallways. Which caused some pause when it involved professional people, one of whom was in her mid 30s, so not exactly fresh out of university. From holding hands it escalated to, and I am not making this up, them necking in the office. More than once. And spending quite a lot of time IMing and texting with each other. They are both still there, but let’s just say that workplace reputations were damaged, and credibility lost. So, if nothing else, I’d say, don’t do that.
Mr. S and I met at work. But it was a little mom-and-pop printing company owned by doofuses, and neither of us planned to stay there long (he took the job so he could move back home and help his sick parents, and I was in college working part-time). So we didn’t have our careers on the line or anything. And I’m quite sure they didn’t have an anti-fraternization policy in place; half the staff was family anyway, and besides, quite a few of the employees were dogfaces anyway. ::shudder::
We stayed completely professional at work, but we did talk briefly every day in the parking lot after work (deciding where we would drop off my scooter and meet up in his car to go somewhere). Two people knew: one who worked in our area and we explicitly told, and one who figured it out. (Most of the other employees were pretty dim bulbs. There was a young kid who worked with us who saw us walking around the mall holding hands, and he was totally shocked.)
I’ve known two workplace couples that dated (and later married) quite successfully. Both of them did it by having nothing more than minimal contact at work. No five minute conversations at the coffee pot, no lunches together. Their personal relationships were completely outside the office. Both couples, however, had told their various superiors when they got involved. As a result, the only people who were surprised when they announced their engagements were… everyone else in the company.
I’ve seen my share of crash and burn affairs, as well. It isn’t pretty.
Stay away from the long conversations and the texting and the general appearance of impropriety and let the personal side take care of itself.
What’s the point of doing it on the copier if you don’t use at least a ream of paper?
I’ll never get my meat where I get my bread again. I once briefly dated a coworker, and she decided to go back with her ex, and tried to brush me off like I was some asshole she met in a bar. Wouldn’t return my calls, lame excuses why she couldn’t get together after hours, etc. This is someone I saw every day. So instead of two minutes of uncomfortable conversation, this bullshit went on for months before I finally called her on it. I have to go up a flight of stairs to get to my workplace, and it was like climbing the gallows every day after that. But then I lucked out and she got fired for other reasons two weeks later.
Granted, both of them could have lost their jobs over the incident had management been informed, but the small handful of people who were there decided not to bother snitching. They were both pretty embarassed about it, and didn’t seem to be inclined to duke it out again.
In fact, the whole thing was kept pretty quiet within the department - most people didn’t know he’d dated either of the girls, let alone that they’d fought over him. I only knew because the new GF decided to confide in me a few weeks later (because people always seem to be telling me about their stupid dramas and other shit I’d prefer not to know…)
Crude metaphor aside, perhaps its your way of perceiving women as consumables that leads to the fruition of your subsequently self-described relationship mishap.
Maybe she was sending you some blatant signals; some people can’t let go.
Maybe she had already sent you some blatant signals.
Maybe she had already sent you some blatant signals; you couldn’t read them or refused to accept them.
Such fortuitous outcome was likely mutual.
"When asked to list the most possible outcomes of workplace romance, the HR Managers interviewed by the Society for Human Resource Management mentioned the following:
* marriage (55%)
* complaints of favoritism (28%)
* claims of sexual harassment (24%)
* decreased productivity of those involved (24%) or of co-workers (11%)
* decreased morale of co-workers (16%)
And when the romance ends, HR Managers anticipate complaints of:
* retaliation (17%)
* stalking (12%)
* physical violence (5%)"
Perhaps I’m not understanding that survey correctly. Did HR managers think 55% of office romances end in marriage, or did 55% of them mention it as a possible outcome?
You’ve both already been warned by your supervisors for hanging out with each other innocently. Whatever you decide, it has to be completely kept out of your office life. If you guys date and have a bad break up, what are the chances that she’ll blab in the office. How well do you know her?
I get the impression that she’s the gossipy type. Also, I just have a bad feeling about all of this, so I plan on leaving it alone. I don’t mind being a hermit at the office, but I do miss being able to socialize with co-workers and not having to worry about any serious repercussions.
I met my husband at work, and we still work together (we’re “software engineers”). It’s never been any problem. He has even kissed me in my cube! XOXOXOXOX
Maybe the OP got a reprimand because they were talking for too long, too frequently, too loud…? Or maybe the OP sits next to someone who’s really easily annoyed. Since it’s been made into an issue, I would suggest spending time together at lunch, but not so much other times.
