FEBRUARY 2008: BIZ LIFE, THE OFFICE
Loosening the reins on work romance
When Halle Reese Smith, a senior writer and project manager at
Xerox, started dating one of her co-workers in another state,
she tried to keep their relationship on the down low, confiding
only in her closest colleagues. She did such a good job over
the course of two years, that when Smith eventually asked for
vacation time to get married — to the Xerox employee
— her boss learned about the inter-office relationship
for the first time.
In hindsight, Smith sees the covertness as unnecessary.
“I was being overly sensitive,” she says. “I
wanted everyone to view us as professional people.” But
these days, for a generation less accustomed to
compartmentalizing work and personal lives, office romances
have stopped serving as fodder for sexual harassment lawsuits
and become more of an accepted reality in many workplaces.
“You have a lot in common with your co-workers,”
Smith explains. “You’re in the same industry and
speak the same lingo. Work can be conducive to building
relationships, both friendships and romantic.”
Even so, employees should still approach inter-office romances
with a healthy dose of skepticism and caution, says Lisa
Kinsley, general manager of human resources at Portland-based
McMenamins. While the Northwest pub and hotel chain
doesn’t have an anti-fraternization policy on the books,
employees are told that job performance should never become
compromised by personal relationships, no matter what.
“We’re not going to regulate or create a policy on
the birds and the bees,” Kinsley says, “but
we’re going to insist that you’re professional. If
you can’t be professional and make good decisions in the
workplace, you will be held accountable.”
While many companies have relaxed their standards and rarely
prohibit certain types of relationships, most still
specifically ban supervisor-supervisee dating. Kinsley says
that to her knowledge, no McMenamins employees have entered
into such a relationship, but she thinks that any supervisor
dating a subordinate would be taking a serious risk. Xerox
distinctly prohibits supervisors from dating their
subordinates, Smith says, but colleagues working at the same
level are free to date each other.
These days, Smith faces a new challenge, the result of a
successful office romance. Her husband now counts as one of the
2,000 employees in the Wilsonville Xerox office.
“It’s almost like we work at two different
companies,” she says. “Sometimes we commute
separately, with other co-workers, and I won’t see him
all day. So it’s not hard to be married to a
co-worker.”
LUCY BURNINGHAM
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