By Victoria Rollison
It is no surprise that many of us meet our future husbands at work. We spend so much of our time with our work colleagues, get to know them like family, and share an interest in a related career path. If you are careful, you can have a relationship with a colleague and not adversely affect your career. Here are the rules to play by:
1) Tell your workmates before they find out accidentally
When you start going out with a colleague, it can be exciting to have a secret relationship behind your workmates’ backs. But if there is any chance you may be seen together shopping for homewares at IKEA, you should tell your colleagues about your relationship before one of them spots you and lets the cat out of the bag. Your workmates will be more accepting and supportive of your relationship if they are told about it from you directly.
It is also possible that your workmates will sense something between the two of you, no matter how careful you are to hide it, and start gossiping behind your backs. If you put the rumours to rest by outing your relationship, it will quickly become old news and won’t distract from your work. For information about the harmful effects of workplace gossiping, check out this article from ZDNet.
2) Keep your work life professional – no kissing in the photocopy room
Whether your workmates are aware of your relationship or not, it is crucial that you keep your relationship professional at work.
This means that while at work, there should be zero:
- Physicality between you (kissing, hugging or touching)
- Flirting or too much personal conversation
- Pet names
- Social planning
- Preferential Treatment (especially if either of you is in a position of authority over the other)
- Fighting
The last point is also important if you have problems in your relationship or you break up. As hard as it might be to keep sadness, anger and humiliation hidden, if you have had a messy break up, it should be completely hidden from your workmates. Don’t talk about it, or make inference to it in your working relationship.
3) If he is married, don’t go there Unfortunately many extramarital affairs start in the workplace.
It is almost impossible to avoid having a crush on a workmate, but if your crush is married, you have nothing to gain from entering into a relationship with him. Apart from betraying female kind by becoming ‘the other woman’, if your workmates find out about the affair, it can cause havoc in your career.
People will lose respect for you and this affects your working relationships. And as hard as you try not to, it is quite likely you will lose focus on your work, especially if the workplace is one of the only places you are able to spend time with your married boyfriend.
So yes, you can have a relationship with a colleague if you are both single and willing to be mature about the relationship. If you agree to make the effort to be professional and focused on your jobs, your relationship will be stronger and you may pull it off – a good job and a good relationship!
Follow this link to read about workplace dating as reported by Denise Cullen at www.careerone.com.au.
