Sunday, 18 November 2012
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Dating Co-Workers: A Forbidden Fruit?
In high school, two of my good friends held part-time jobs at the same local restaurant. They already knew each other very well through school, and, since they were already friends, they often spent their work shifts telling jokes, pulling harmless pranks on one another, and talking about their lives. Their co-workers noticed their rapport right away, and, because one of them was male and the other was female, their co-workers began to suspect that my two friends were actually dating.The co-workers brought their concern to the attention of my friends’ manager, and the manager grew very upset. After all, my friends had both signed an agreement stating that they would not date anybody on their work staff. My friends were not, in fact, dating, so they were let off with a warning not to date each other while they were both still working at that restaurant. Eventually, they did start dating, but by that time, they no longer worked together.
It is no mystery to me why people would be asked to refrain from dating co-workers; the work place is a professional environment, and a majority of couples do break up eventually. Imagine seeing your ex and having to work with him or her on a daily basis after breaking up. The last thing that most former couples want to do immediately following their break up is spend a lot of time together, and the workplace not only requires that co-workers spend a lot of time in close proximity, but also that co-workers are able to work together on a professional level. How “professional” can a person be if even the very sight of his or her ex makes that person sad or furious?
On the other hand, a job is a great place to meet people. After all, people spend hours each week at work, and after a while, one gets to know his or her co-workers quite well, since they are always around. Isn’t it only logical that, after getting to know a person very well, one could realize that the person possesses many of the qualities desired in one’s ideal partner? What if this person is actually one’s future husband or wife? A person never knows what could happen unless he or she takes a chance.
When I was in high school, I once came back from summer vacation and heard that two of the teachers married each other over the summer. This marriage came as a surprise to my classmates and me because none of us had even suspected beforehand that these two teachers were a couple. The teachers were successfully able to put on a “poker face” and completely hide their relationship with one another from the students. I also wondered if they were perhaps trying to hide their relationship from the principal and their other superiors at the school as well.
This also got me thinking: they were probably not the only couple that ever formed among the teaching staff. How many other couples had formed in the past and did not make it down the aisle, and what was it like for those teachers to come back to work after the break up?
How do you feel about the idea of two co-workers dating? Have you ever observed a situation in which two people who were co-workers dated? What ended up happening?
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- From: iamnotyourgrandma
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Comments (18)
For many years, I never dated anyone from my workplace. I relaxed that when I moved to a larger company that had several locations.
I did date a woman there. She worked in a different division but for the same company. She took our relationship into my area to my closest co-workers... so, I expanded my rule to include date no one that works in the same company.
NOTE: There are many successful relationships that began in the workplace.
So, just think about it and be willing to accept what comes of it if you dip the company pen in the company ink.
Like I said, people like to maintain this false illusion of independence from one another. Working for the same company only facilitates communication between people... nothing more. If they can't get along there after a break up they shouldn't get along and they should be stuck with one another until they resolve their shit, because otherwise the negative effects of the detachment and thinking they deserve to be just fucking peachy all the time in their love lives are just going to manifest themselves elsewhere in their respective interpersonal relationships. I think policies against dating co-workers are absolutely detrimental to both genders learning how to cooperate and interact with one another and overcome obstacles together, and only serve to further the existing divide and is an environment that is only conducive to allowing inter-gender competition and resentment to build up outside of the workplace at the advantage of the company and at the expense of the very people it is comprised of.
don't dip your pen in company ink! (unless it's an intern, obv.)
@eshunt@revelife - shit, i didn't realize you beat me to it!
@TheNotoriousGOD@xanga - If you follow all of the policies your pen is the company's.
Get it? Pen is.
I've had a crush on one of my co-workers, but I agree that it's a bad idea to date a person in the work place.
You missed a blog on here that was about a girl who worked with this guy. They started dating his ex also works at the same place as them. The new girl was singled out by the spiteful ex and began to lose shifts when her bf's ex became manager. Very unprofessional all around.
I've crushed from afar, but nope, I don't need that shit in the work place. It's good enough to just concentrate on work. My main job now has people way older than me who are all married anyway and at my other job with young people, the people there are in college and sort of too young for me. Besides, I'm hanging out with someone who I don't work with anyway. :)
When my boyfriend and I were 17, we met at the grocery store we both worked at together. We each went to completely different schools. We had a lot of chemistry so, after only two times of hanging out outside of work, we started dating. We tried to keep it a secret, but once management found out (several months later), they stopped scheduling us on the same days. That was the only punishment. But it doesn't really matter because our relationship outlasted us working there, and we've now been dating for four years (we're 22).
Personally, I think it's completely fine to date a co-worker (after all, a large percentage of married couples meet through work) as long as the people are still professional and don't stop doing their jobs.
During high school, one of the sports I played was softball, and two of my coaches actually ended up dating and later getting married. It was a huge surprise to all of us because we didn't even know they were dating until they got engaged, but they're very cute and happy together. In my opinion, that (along with professionalism) is all that matters. :)
Ideally, you're not supposed to shit where you eat...but it happens all the time. Can't be helped I guess.
the men I have crushes on at work are mostly married, so I can't date them even if I wanted to at work or not at work. that makes it that much more forbidden either way
my boss crush works at another dept within our company. *sigh* he's so sexy
I dated a coworker and it was great. We looked out for each other. I knew I could depend on him above others because I knew exactly how well versed he was. The two of us and the other two guys we regularly worked with were a solid team. Whenever my then bf and I were upset with each other, we left that at home and were completely professional together at work. Nobody ever knew when there was trouble in paradise. Honestly, sometimes it was good to work a 12 hour shift together. When you know you have to play nice, sometimes the anger or frustration from earlier just seems insignificant and you get over the conflict because it doesn't matter that much. At the very least you are calm and collected whenever you do get back to privacy. We had a great relationship in and out of work, which is where I met him. So I approve of co-worker relationships if you know that you can maintain a level of maturity and grace befitting a working environment regardless of how the relationship turns out.
I would never do it. Gossip in my workplace spreads like wildfire and there's no WAY you'd be able to keep something like that secret. It's not that it's banned, several couples are openly in relationships and two people from my store recently got married, but I wouldn't like the gossip, and I wouldn't want to deal with the problems if we broke up.
Two of my colleagues dated and broke up after about eight months - the entire store knew about it, all the details of why, and now they can't work together because of what happened. I generally just think it's a bad idea because a lot of places DO ban it, and if you break up, you have to work with your ex everyday, which does not help with the moving on process in any way at all.
Seems to me a number of long-term marriages start in the workplace, and very few start with drinks at a bar. I'm a fan of, like you mentioned in the post, the whole concept of getting to know someone thoroughly, in an arena where they are likely not trying solely to impress you. I'm also a believer in the idea that a person's professional conduct is indicative of a large number of things about their personality and future behavioral patterns, so why would you not want that information?
Now, if you're just looking for a hook-up... or, like in the anecdote above, a part-time teenager, I can understand it being avoided.
I did work with 2 nurses, male and female, who hooked up to the point of having trysts in his car on break. They wound up getting married, and due to work policy, one of them had to transfer to another department, but their jobs were still safe. I also knew of others in the place who were married and worked in different departments. I think that's the best answer, so they aren't focusing on each other when they should be working.
I would not hook up with a coworker at a serious setting where you have to see them all the time. If it's just for meetings like once in a while where one of my work is, I think it's fine. Not if I have to see them every day. However. dating, I'd only date a co worker if I knew for sure I was going to end up with them. Like people have been mentioning coworkers getting married. As I did say before though I would try to avoid this altogether.
@T3hZ10n@xanga - Well said.
I've been dating my coworker for over a year & it's never been a problem. In fact, my supervisor found out about 4 months in, after a couple other people knew, & all he said was "No one tells me anything!" haha. But it helps that we work in a grocery store & we work in different departments, so we don't work directly with each other. Also, neither of us has a job title that is superior to the other, so we can't be accused of favoritism.
well, I work on a ship... they actually help relationships with other crew members out by slightly trying to keep you on the same ship and give you a cabin together. But then, we also get in trouble if we're caught even kissing a guest, and there are really no other options at all (unless your significant other just happens to live close to a port you dock at), so they kinda need to let it happen to get people to actually work for them...
But still, a guest I was chatting with recently commented after asking about it that it seemed really backwards...