Dating in the workplace! Yes, no or only when no one is looking?

I have seen this everywhere I have worked. Sometimes it does not end badly, but you still hear 'I used to date him/her, and....'

Sometimes they have ended in marriage.

http://www.amanet.org/press/amanews/workplace_dating.htm

And others can get fired due to rules.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/HookingUp/Story?id=562728&page=1

Best to try to get you dates the more traditional way. :)

If your willing to quit your job over this person, knock yourself out.

If/when things go wrong, it would suckass to have to have to still have a working relationship with that person.

Oh, and then there is that whole "policy" issue. I have known people to get one transfered to another office, in order to be compliant with policy, and have now been married for 9 years....

is a publicly funded educational institution. Given the plethora of regulations in place to safeguard students, faculty, staff IMO it is an extremely bad idea to date in my workplace.

Generally speaking, it's probably not the greatest idea in any workplace. Too many ifs...

Actually for 'transferred' read 'promoted'.

THEN she went to work one Monday morning and didn't come back for FOUR months !! X-(

Mind you, all my colleagues swiftly fell into MY armed camp after that. It made the suing for divorce THAT much easier. ;)

If you are going to risk it: d@te 'em, sh@g 'em, but don't m@rry 'em. :D

Its a slippery slope depending on the situation. I met the next future exMrs Jimmy-Jam at work (kidding about the future ex part hopefully :) ) but we are sort of in different departments. If things had gone badly would it have sucked... probably but with enough effort I could have avoided her all together.

If I worked in a small office with only a handful of people that may be a different story. Humans are fickle creatures and you can't help what you feel (oh god I am talking about feelings... I'll be back... have to go turn in my man card)

Does a "meeting" in the communications closet count as dating??? Just curious.

I'm honestly surprised that despite all the teacher shows, lawyer shows, cop shows and doctor shows, no one has put together a comedy/drama about a consulting firm.

Young people straight out of college--CHECK

Career minded, mostly single management types who don't have time to devote to 'normal' relationships--CHECK

Lots of travel out of town with members of opposite sex (many of whom are from different branches/offices than you)--CHECK

Late nights in office--CHECK

I mean, throw in the ladder climbing aspirations/backstabbing/toe stepping and subsequent disenfranchisement with the whole working world thing, and you have at least a solid 3 seasons worth of material.

Sufficed to say, there are more reasons than just burnout to explain why so many people leave consulting firms within a couple of years!

P.S. for the record, I would say that in a 'normal/typical' workplace, you'd do best to tread carefully. In a normal relationship, the worst that happens is you break up and feel lonely for a little bit. In a workplace romance, you could lose your job, get professionally blackballed, and just out and out embarrassed by the whole ordeal. I'm not 100% opposed...but it better be well thought out, and both parties need to be pretty mature to make it workable.

I met Significant One at work. We got to know each other
and wanted to date- except that we worked together. So I
quit. Got another contract and we started dating. That was
nearly three years ago and I don't regret it for a second.

I used to have a firm rule that I never got involved with staff, especially as their manager.

Within a year I think I slept with half the office (which was a large call centre with a high turnover rate).

Preying on teh innocent but horny was a great ride but I had to give it up out of guilt. (actually that's a lie, the company moved east and I didn't follow).

I avoid it, but it's fairly common in my office. We're a large (1000+) corporate office, with no policy against dating at work unless one of you is in the other's management chain, so most people don't think anything of it. We hire a lot of people out of college, particularly programmers, so we always have another couple of coworkers getting married.

That being said, I'm still surprised by the number of people who aren't smart enough to get them out of a different department. It's one thing to break up with that person in Accounting, but do you really want to deal with the IT person sitting two cubicles away working on the same project if the breakup gets ugly? So not me.

Besides, nothing kills a relationship like too much togetherness. Or maybe that's just me.

second husband was my former boss.

And I'm going to have to say "NO" from that experience. Don't date where you work. Or as my dad always said "you don't sh*t where you eat".

I like her.

In other words, the company and its policy are irrelevant. The rationale behind these rules is basically that personal relationships [b]tend[/b] to distract from work, which means [b]some[/b] people are not mature enough to have a personal relationship and keep it out of the office, so everybody gets punished to the level of the least mature. Screw that.

always kept personal relationships and work separate.
I intentionally avoided dating anyone I worked with, even when we worked completely different shifts and rarely saw each other at work.

I've seen the issues that happen frequently when a "rough patch" is hit in a relationship, and it's between co-workers. I choose to not inflict those issues on people I work with, and those I work FOR.

perhaps. Furtively? mmm... I think not.

I peek non-furtively at a lot of things.

edit...

to help you find your next job...

because you won't be holding that one for long...

I never, ever, ever, EVER would date a coworker....

again.