Should You Date A Co-Worker?

Over my working career I’ve worked with 25 different companies in 19 different industries. And yes, there were co-workers at almost all of them that attracted my attention.

However, early in my career I established a personal rule that both co-workers and customers were off limits for any kind of personal relationships.

Having watched as others violated my hard and fast rule — time and time again my rule was confirmed.

While the occasional in-house relationship does work out successfully many more are relegated to the trash heap of failed loves and lost employment.

There’s Work And There’s Play

There’s a time to work and a time to play. You have a responsibility to your employer to perform the work you were hired to do without distraction.

Trust me, there is nothing more distracting than the passion of a budding new love affair. A quick kiss here and there. A little groping in the broom closet.

Sooner or later your co-workers are going to notice and gossip and the whole workforce is preoccupied with your salacious behavior and the work of the business suffers.

This is why many companies forbid in-house relationships as a condition of employment to the point where such a relationship is a condition for dismissal from your job.

Some Final Thoughts

Our entire lives are guided by emotion. Love and hate are two of the most powerful. It’s always an unpleasant work environment when the former turns to the latter.

I’m not your dad here to give you relationship advice. Grown people do things and there are often unforeseen consequences to those actions.

As I mentioned earlier, sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. It’s much easier to get out of the shallow end of the pool. So look and think before you leap into something that may turn out poorly.

What say you? Comments below.