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ticcan · Newbie Joined: 28 Dec 2006 Posts: 1 Career Advice: +0/-0

Should all your work relationships be professional/cold/formal? is there a room for love and caring? do you think if you cared about a collegue it will negatively affect your/their work? I think it's affecting me but I hate to follow the cold route.

Ciprian13 · Expert Joined: 25 Oct 2006 Posts: 240 Career Advice: +0/-0

Depends very much how do you care about that collegue.If you love him there could be a problem after you break-up,if you are friends there is no problem in that.I believe that the best colectivity at work is there where all the collegues are friends.

lilo · Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 11:16 am Post subject:

There is a big difference between to care for somebody, love somebody, protect somebody and so on. There must be a stipulation in your work contract which forbids relationships at work, and you must check there the degree or the relationship and their (the employer's) idea of a relationship. Your getting close to a colleague can easily be understood as an intimate relationship because if the employer hates something this is you being distracted from work by any external "pleasurable" things.
If you maintain a certain level of your caring for that person, a level which will permit you be out of the "relationships at work" area, then it's fine. Caring for a colleague is nice.

ChadTheFrog · Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 10:02 am Post subject:

I believe that overall caring for your coworkers and employees will lead to a more productive work experience. Especially if the feeling is mutually shared. If you're working for a boss that doesn't seem to care about you, you can feel this and it will make you dislike your boss.

There are different levels of "caring", and I believe the meaning you are leaning more to is of love, attraction, or a very close friendship. These types of things have the ability to cause problems in the office; but I believe that professional people can keep their relationship professional. If you're at work, you handle work. The other person cannot be the focus of your day.

I have seen things like this happen in my company:

1) Co-workers that have attraction for one another. This can lead to favoritism being shown if one worker has to make a decision. If they break up or become angry with one another, this can lead to an awkward situation (or downright hostile) in that workplace. Not just for the 2 people, but for everyone in that office that has to work with them.

2) A supervisor and employee. This can definitely lead to favoritism and it is very hard to professionally manage this type of relationship. When a supervisor has to evaluate an employee's work, counsel that employee, or even fire that employee, this will definitely make a difficult situation. Imagine you have John and Jane in the office. John doesn't want Jane doing the "dirty" or tedious jobs, so he designates someone else in the office to do them. John may also not give Jane a warning when she is lounging and not doing work, as opposed to other employees being disciplined.

Even if you are able to overcome these things and operate professionally at work, there is a chance that other workers/employees will see the relationship and perceive that they are being treated unfairly.

It is a touchy situation, but I believe it can be handled well if both of you can keep your personal life outside of work. If you have a relationship with someone at work and you discuss this with them, if they truly want a relationship with you, they should understand.

Ciprian13 · Expert Joined: 25 Oct 2006 Posts: 240 Career Advice: +0/-0

In how many situation have you encountered two co-workers who were in a deep relantionship,broke-up and after that have a proffesional life at work?
I didn't encountered such situations.Do you believe they are impossible?

ChadTheFrog · Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 8:04 am Post subject:

Rarely. That's a big problem with it if they break up.

The only time I've seen them keep it somewhat professional after the breakup is when they don't talk to each other and pretty much just ignore one another. This is much better than them arguing with each other and making "a scene" in the office, but it is still bad for the work relationship overall.

It seems like work relationships can only lead to problems, but I have seen the situations where two people have kept it so professional that others did not even know they were dating each other.

After they both left the company they ended up getting married.

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