Office romance is getting romantically involved with a co-worker. Office romance is common in organizations. It can be said that it is a relationship where there is mutual desire and longing for one another. Office romance can diminishes one’s confidence and this may greatly affect one’s ability to be productive at work. Heartbreaks can be cruel especially with the fact that the heart breaker is also your colleague.
Getting romantically involved with your co-worker may arise as a result of spending longer hours at work. Once you begin to see each other daily, you share work duties, you both work on projects, spend time with each other during lunch break, feelings may begin to grow and before you know it; you move from colleagues to friends and finally to lovers. what then are the pros and cons of this relationship?
Pros of having office romance
- It boosts workplace energy and create a positive work culture as employees are able to explore and develop stronger relationships with each other. Falling in love releases the happy hormones in the body; and when the love of your life is within your sight, the happiness increases multifold. Happy couples often have a warm buzz around them which can spread to other workers, creating a happy and productive ambience.
- There is a strong motivation among the lovebirds especially when other co-workers think they won’t last. At such, the employees involved in the love affair are then motivated to prove them wrong and work better. They certainly do not want to be projected as the ones who are distracted and unproductive for the company. They then indulge in work efficiently to show the positive side of the love affair. Also, being in a relationship helps in forming a positive attitude in all aspects of life.
- Mutual understanding especially with attention. One of the problems involved in relationship is lack of spending time with each other. But for couples who work in the environment, they understand their work culture and also understand that their partner is genuinely busy with work, hence they tend to understand if they are not getting the attention they needed at work.
Cons of office romance
- It put your career at risk. Promotions are the most anticipated things in the work life. Your promotion can be highly affected by your partner’s working behavior. If one of you gets promoted and the other one does not, you may have to exercise certain professional responsibilities at your partner which may become a cause of concern for you. In fact, during promotion season, if one of you gets promoted and the other one doesn’t, it may create a bitter wall between the two of you.
- Your escape route is limited. Imagine you have a small fight with your partner and your workplace is one of the best places you escape to hide from the fight and forget about the fight. However, when your partner is in the same office as you, your sole escape is also snatched away from you. Personal fights will then be carried on to the office which may affect your work.
- Break up. Break ups are really bad; and when you have to see your ex each day, without any escape, the break up hurts even worse. If the break-up came from your side, you may be at the receiving end of harsh comments from your co-workers. The feeling of not wanting to go to the office to face your ex may make you lose yourself and lead to bad performance at the workplace; ultimately affecting your career.
- Your personal life becomes a public affairs. The moment the whole organization knows about the affairs, you both lost the right to having anything personal. This is because everyone is always watching you two closely, waiting for you two to make a mistake, lose it or have a fight. They are busy waiting for it to end so that they can say the word “I told you so.”
In conclusion, a relationship is simply a way to connect and share the emotions that one feels in day to day life. It fills the void and needs for emotional support. A further relationship can boost the morale of a person. when you feel like you’re losing your self esteem and confidence, there is a need to have someone that would support you and bring you out of it. this is where relationships in the workplace occurs. This may even bring in more disapproval from co-workers, but if all go well, some workplace couples may end up married and if it didn’t, the right thing to do is to end it on a good note.
Have you had an office romance before? how is it going or how did it end? do you have a colleague you really like at work but you don’t know if expressing your feelings will be the right thing to do? and if you did, how did it go? please feel free to share this post. Also don’t forget to leave a comment after reading. I look forward to reading our experiences.
Thank you guys,
Xoxoxo,
M.O
