Are You Ready for Dating in the Workplace?
There are so many challenges at the workplace. There are deadlines, projects, events and many other things constantly running through your mind. It’s hard to keep a healthy work life balance, let alone a date life balance. Some figure why not kill two birds with one stone and date someone from the office.
While playing the field at work seems like a dandy idea, its not so simple. When you choose to date a coworker, it doesn’t come without risk. My boyfriend and I met at work, but we thankfully know how to stay professional at the office. Yet we have seen countless couples blossom at work and eventually end terribly. From sleeping around and dramatically breaking up to being fired as a unit for bringing drama into the workplace, many of our coworkers don’t know how to keep their hands to themselves.
The key to the perfect work relationship is to follow these guidelines, and keep your love life at home:
Game plan
Before anything gets serious between you and a coworker, make sure to talk about a plan. Decide whether you want to keep it private until things get serious or not. Also, decide whether you want to be monogamous or not, as to avoid unnecessary drama at work. And lastly, plan an emergency break up plan. Decide what to do if things go sour so that the two of you can be on the same page as to what to do in a worst case situation.
No fighting
Seriously leave any and all drama at home. Fighting at work not only affects your relationship with your significant other, but it affects everyone else around you. By fighting at work, you make your coworkers uncomfortable, and it may result in them picking sides. Ultimately, bringing all this negative energy into the office can lead to your termination, and leave you not only jobless, but dateless too.
Office whore
If you’re going to date at work, keep it simple and stay monogamous. If you decide to sleep around the office, you will end up making a very bad name for yourself. You want to be known for your hard work on the job, not your blow job. So if you know you can’t control your urges at work, choose work or pleasure, but not both.
Bottom line
Whether you choose to date at your workplace or not, understand what you’re getting yourself into. If done correctly, you can have a super successful relationship. If done wrong, it can be a disaster. Don’t be blind to the potential of a breakup and have a plan. If you aren’t awkward ex’s you may be alright, but if the idea of your ex moving on to the new temp, you may want to consider transferring departments. So don’t be afraid to fall in love in the office, just know it’s not like in the movies. If you don’t want to risk complicating yourself work life, just keep your legs crossed and closed for business.
Born and raised in Northern Virginia, Christina aspires to be a public relations professional in a big city after graduation from James Madison University. In her free time when she’s not blogging away about dating and relationships, Christina loves to go shopping, watch Netflix and play with every puppy that crosses her path.