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Office romances are a fact of life but the repercussions can be a nasty business

Date: 2007-04-26

We see the headlines almost every day. "Town fires worker for dating boss." "Boeing CEO resigns over affair with subordinate." "Wolfowitz feels the heat over girlfriend's increased salary."

It's enough to make even the most shameless office flirt swear off casual-sex Friday.

Or is it? Out of 575 people surveyed by Vault.com in early 2007, nearly half admitted to an office romance and another 11 percent said that while they hadn't had the chance to mix business with pleasure quite yet, they definitely had it on their to-do list.

Which makes sense to this working stiff.

We spend more time with the people at work than anyone else on the planet (or off the planet, in the case of astronaut Lisa Nowak, who fell for a co-worker and then, well, fell apart). We deal with the same challenges -- brutal bosses, clueless clients, bad cafeteria food; we even speak the same obscure language ("You cannot start Windows XP after you install Windows Vista in a dual-boot configuration together with Windows XP.")

A 2006 Pew Internet survey of more than 3,200 people found that 38 percent met their spouse or significant other through work or school. And 20 percent of the people in the Vault survey said they'd actually married or become seriously committed to a colleague.

In other words, we not only love our co-workers, we looooooove our co-workers. Occasionally in the supply closet on the second floor (Vault says 17 percent of us have been caught in an office "tryst").

But as most of us know (present company included), dating a co-worker isn't all a bed of rose-colored Post-It notes. Sure, it can be fun and convenient and downright titillating at times (especially when some forgotten item of lingerie arrives via interoffice mail), but just like a badly loaded toner cartridge, it also can leave you with quite a mess on your hands.

Getting involved with a superior (or as I like to call it, sleeping with the enemy) is usually the trickiest, especially when the rest of the office finds out you've been getting first dibs on the Staples order -- or the five-star salary (just ask Shaha Ali Riza, the newly notorious girlfriend of World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz).

These PR and/or legal nightmares are precisely why many corporations forbid any kind of monkey business between bean counter and boss. (I also suspect the powers that be don't like to be reminded their executives actually have hearts.) Other companies ban all workplace dating, which usually only serves to bump up the allure of the office romance -- at least until you're fired or transferred to that brand-new branch in East Timor.

But even if your company doesn't frown on the occasional cubicle courtship (anything to keep those worker bees happy and productive, right?), there's a much more powerful deterrent than anything HR could dream up. I've been there (sitting through staff meetings with a smile glue-sticked to my face) and so have countless others: It's that special circle of hell reserved for those who have to keep working elbow to elbow with a lover who's tossed them into the trash like last year's day planner.

"I have to force myself to be friendly with my ex because I see him everyday," said my buddy Marie, whose three-year office relationship went south a few months back. "Some days are harder than others and I've definitely had a few breakdowns in the bathroom, but when you work with that person, there's nothing you can do."

Maybe yes, maybe no.

Seattle writer Rebecca Agiewich started a blog when her pod mate and live-in boyfriend ended their two-year relationship in spectacularly loutish fashion. Her online rants about the agonies of working side by side with an ex (who subsequently began dating her boss) eventually turned into a book ("Breakup Babe"), which is on the short list for a 2007 Lulu Blooker Award.

Who says there isn't a relationship god?

Of course, for some people, the thought of workplace dating immediately conjures up the L word -- lawsuit.

A Singles File reader named Kevin said that back in college, he worked with a man who was sued for sexual harassment, something he thinks about every time he contemplates pursuing a co-worker, including the woman he's been crushing on for weeks.

"I think a lot of guys worry about that," he said. "They don't want it to happen to them so they don't even ask the woman out, figuring it's better to be lonely than to be slapped with a lawsuit."

But David Grinberg, spokesman for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said simply asking someone out on a date doesn't constitute sexual harassment unless "it's so egregious that it would immediately create a hostile work environment, i.e., groping the person or requesting a sexual favor or something of that nature."

(Note to Kevin: Keep your eyes up and your hands and your hook-up fantasies to yourself and you should be fine.)

Guys like Kevin aren't the only ones nervous about lawsuits, though, which is why "love contracts" have become the biggest thing to hit the workplace since multicolored paperclips. The contracts, which formally announce the presence of a romantic relationship in which affection is "voluntary" and "consensual," are primarily set up to protect companies from legal fallout (no information could be found regarding protection from flying Ikea lamps).

What to do, what to do?

In one corner we have lawsuits, lost jobs and the thrill of working with a resentful ex-lover (which is always fun and games until somebody loses an eye). In the other, we have convenience, commonality and the possibility of a serious love connection. And in between, we've got work weeks stretching from 40 to 50 to 60 hours and management scrambling to come up with some carefully worded covenant designed to cover their bottom line.

I suppose there's no easy answer -- we'll either let our libido or our inner lawyer be our guide (a dicey proposition, either way).

In the meantime, don't be too surprised if you need to sign a waiver the next time you flirt with the hot bicycle messenger. Or file a "notice of intent to make out" whenever you decide to join the gang for Fuzzy Navel Friday.

And if it all starts to get a little too much, keep in mind things could be worse. You could work at home -- where the only chance for office romance is when the UPS guy comes by with a package.

Speaking of which, was that a knock at the door?

By Diane Mapes





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