“But it didn’t start out all roses and flowers. We dated at first, and I left him, and then it was really really really awkward because even though we were in different departments (and on different shifts!) we still had to both go to the same place every day and see each other sometimes.

It sucked. Bad.

1) No relationship stuff at work. None of it. Especially making out.

2) Don’t bother telling anyone (even your bosses). They’ll figure it out, but it’s not their business as long as you keep it outside of work.

3) As a woman at a new job, dating someone at your office will not give you any credibility. Don’t be surprised if you get passed over for promotions and stuff like that.

4) Let me emphasise again that you do not engage in PDAs at work, no matter how tempting it is or how private the corner seems.

Just be as professional as possible and wait to ravage him until you’re out the doors at the end of the day.”

“Find out your company policy about office relationships – some have strict no dipping your pen in the company ink policies, some require you to sign off on the relationship with management to avoid any issues if the relationship ends, some places just don’t care.

To avoid becoming office gossip keep your work life and personal life 100 per cent separate. People gossip at work and the last thing you want is for people to point to you are your partner and claim they don’t do work because they are to busy flirting and chatting all day. Keep professional stuff professional and you will be fine.”

“We work in different departments, although we do interact (I’m in IT, so I do provide tech support for her and her department).

First, you will be office gossip. No way to avoid that. Just make sure the gossip isn’t stuff you would be embarrassed about!

Second, relax. Act professional. If you are not in a direct supervisor/employee relationship, in my opinion it’s nobody’s business what you do. Yes, I know that many businesses “frown upon” or even outright ban inter-office relationships, but those bans are not the law, just the business’s policy. If you provide value to your business and don’t cause distractions, they will not fire you.

Work is work; it’s not your life. Anything you can do to make work more enjoyable makes you a better worker, so just go with it.”

“We chose to keep our relationship a secret because it makes things less complicated at work. He’s the COO of the company and I think, if people found out that we were dating, they would think that I was into him to gain a promotion because I’m relatively new to the company.

Truth is, he’s not my direct boss and he’s not in charge of me at all. We were both attracted to each other from the start so it’s not like I was zoning in on a target when I joined.

My best advice for keeping a relationship with your colleague is to keep all conversations private and take things off work servers. Our company uses an internal messaging server and while we spoke to each other a lot on it while getting to know each other, we took to texting each other privately when things started getting serious.

Another tip I’d give is to talk about what happens if the relationship fizzles out. You don’t necessarily have to leave the company but it’s good to speak about how you would treat each other when it ends.

Occasionally, we sneak in moments to see each other at lunch or grab coffee together but, otherwise we’re pretty professional at work.

It’s been great so far though. Dating someone at work means he knows what I’m going through and is there to give me advice when I need it because he truly understands. What’s more, it’s made us both very excited to come to work on Mondays!”

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Text: www.bauersyndication.com.au, Additional Reporting: Atika Lim

This article was originally published on Dec 28, 2018 and updated on June 12, 2023.