Filed under: tips
Finding Your Valentine at Work devotes considerable attention to how to hide your relationship with a co-worker from other co-workers. This amused me to no end, possibly because it reads like an episode of The Office.
A few tips from the article:
1. Don’t sit or stand too close.
2. Don’t spend time with each other during the workday (e.g., coffee breaks and lunches).
3. Don’t arrive or leave at the same time.
I suppose if you did those three things consistently people probably wouldn’t suspect a thing. Now why exactly might you want to hide your relationship from co-workers? I think new relationships need nurturing and often public critique does not seem particularly helpful. And, of course, depending on your workplace, relationships may not be allowed.
Don’t sigh and gaze at me
Comment by Lizard Eater 02.14.08 @ 10:17 amYour sighs are so like mine
Your eyes mustn’t glow like mine
People will say we’re in love …
Quite appropriate.
Comment by Ms. Theologian 02.14.08 @ 10:36 amIf either party is married or otherwise in long term relationships with *other* people, keeping things on the DL (down-low) might be important. In my experience, though, people know. Maybe not the spouses/sig-os, but the coworkers.
My mom has a funny story about a former manager in her office who was carrying on an affair with another manager. Both were married to other people. He would go into her office for a “meeting” at which point they would close the blinds and remain in there for 2 to 3 hours. Then, he’d come out and announce to everyone that he was going “to lunch.” Five minutes later she’d emerge with coat in hand, saying “I have an important appointment!”
Everyone just thought it was ridiculous. Especially given that these people were in their 50s.
Comment by h sofia 02.14.08 @ 1:24 pmThat’s pretty funny. It’s my experience too that most people can sense a romance from 20 feet away regardless of how much people think they are hiding their relationship.
Comment by Ms. Theologian 02.14.08 @ 1:32 pmMy husband and I worked together for 6.5 years and were a couple the whole time (officially married for about 2 yrs of the 6.5). We were very on the DL for the first 6 months, but even after a few people picked up on the fact that we were dating, we still didn’t eat lunch together, didn’t linger around each other and talk just to chat, and we didn’t make it public per se. However, if someone asked about it, we didn’t deny anything. When we got married, we eloped in Vegas and didn’t announce it in the office, but we didn’t deny it either when people asked. Our office didn’t have a policy about interoffice dating (my boss met his second wife there when she was a receptionist), but we mostly didn’t want to undermine our own professional credibility by making googly-eyes at each other. Because of our behavior, we remained two professional, more-than-competent architects who just happened to be married–we were defined by our performance, not our personal lives. Which is how it should be in an office.
Comment by Mile High Pixie 02.14.08 @ 7:18 pmLeave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>