ALT-1 How to Handle your Office Romance
Today, more and more people are spending a greater part of their time in their jobs and work. This means that lesser time is being allotted to other part of people's lives. This means less time for leisure and less time for romance. As a coping mechanism, people often look and find their romance or love life in the office or in their work.
It could be the cute lady next to your cubicle or the pretty receptionist in the lobby or even your own boss. This could seem nice at first but as history and experience will tell us, there should be different way of handling office romance. Office romances are not simple romantic relationship. Oftentimes, office romances are much more complicated than the classic and usual type of romantic relationship. Below are some of the complexity of an office romance and how we can do something about it.
Office romances often times bring conflict of interest. Suppose you are a supervisor and your girlfriend is under your leadership, in many cases other people in your team will see a conflict of interest when they acknowledge that you are dating their peers. People are often jealous and a small gesture to your girlfriend can be misinterpreted as an act of favoritism by the other people on your team. In this case, the integrity of your team is being damaged which can lead to inefficiency and worse, quarrel in the future. With this in mind, if you are having a relationship with someone under your lead, try to be discrete about things. Even your intentions are clean; many of your acts can be misinterpreted. In the office, try to interact with your special someone just like how you will interact with the other people on your team. You will never know what other people are talking about in your back.
When a quarrel in a relationship happens with someone you see every day in the office, it is very hard to isolate your feelings and remain calm when in the office. Quarrel and fight are already bad and to quarrel and fight with someone in the office that you see every day is worse. In this sense, try to fix the situation with your partner as soon as you can. Try to remedy the situation. It is easy to say, “be a professional” but for someone who had already been there, fixing and making up things right away will be the best course of action.
Public display of affection in the office should be a no-no. Not only it is unprofessional, it can also bring about uncomfortable feelings for other people who are watching. In the office, stop those lips from kissing and stop those hands from touching. Even words should be stop from sounding just like you just got up in bed. Do these for yourself and for other people.
When you are in doubt on what to do, try to reflect it to yourself. Ask yourself if you are the third-party and you see couple doing these and doing that, will you be comfortable? It may be a simple question but it can guide you to what you should and you should not do if you have a partner in the office.
