The Office Romance

(continued)

If you start dating someone in your company, the office rumor mill could chew the relationship up and spit it out before it even gets off the ground. Or it can inhibit or accelerate career advancement for either party. It all depends on how others view your private life, now no longer private. It’s difficult to hide a relationship in the workplace anyway. (Should there be a new kind of legal document between consenting partners called the RNDA- the romantic non-disclosure agreement?)  

Romance is about building trust, affection, and harmony between two caring people. If romance creates stress, conflict, and distractions in the workplace, then you need to weigh the benefits of love against its cost in impaired productivity. If you are the boss or a senior executive, this trade-off shouldn’t be minimized. You don’t want to engender hostility and resentment among employees.

I have seen it happen in another company. A co-founder of an advertising agency was dating someone in accounting. He was in his forties, married, and had two young girls. She was in her early thirties and unmarried. They tried to carry on their affair secretly. But after several months it leaked, and when it did, their romance wreaked havoc in the office, leading everyone to take sides. The women were especially bitter. The men were more indifferent. Eventually, she left the firm because the situation became intolerable for everyone, while he stayed on. And now that their romance was fully out