Does the general advice to not date coworkers also apply to employees of companies your company does business with?

Question

I understand that usually, it's not considered a good idea to date coworkers, because it can lead to personal problems spilling over into the office and negatively affecting the company.

My question is: does this advice also apply to employees of companies that your company does business with? To give a concrete example for my situation: one of the receptionists at the front desk of the office building my company rents office space in. They're not direct coworkers, but on the other hand personal problems might still end up affecting the company.

Answer 1

I understand that usually, it's not considered a good idea to date coworkers, because it can lead to personal problems spilling over into the office and negatively affecting the company.

Why would you value the company more than your personal life?

The "issue" with dating co-workers is that if the relationship goes south then you'll still have to see them and behave professionally every day. That's all.

Date who you want, be a professional at work if it doesn't work out (or also if it does), and there's not really a problem. It's honestly that simple.

Answer 2

My question is: does this advice also apply to employees of companies that your company does business with? To give a concrete example for my situation: one of the receptionists at the front desk of the office building my company rents office space in. They're not direct coworkers, but on the other hand personal problems might still end up affecting the company.

I wouldn't even say it's always a bad idea to date coworkers. It is a bad idea to date people that

• you have any sort of authority over
• have any sort of authority over you
• you work with closely in your day to day

Everyone else is, in my experience and opinion, fine. Many successful relationships start in the workplace, and many couples meet there first. The reasons that the advice not to date people you work with is usually given is restricted to two main points:

• Dating superiors or subordinates is always a conflict of interest. You cannot act as an objective judge of your spouse when it comes to reviews, promotions and salary raises, and vice versa. Even if you somehow managed to mitigate that conflict of interest, the appearance of impropriety will still be there, so it is a bad idea.

• Dating people you work with often and closely will be a severe problem if the relationship sours. That means one of you would have to quit or you'd both be miserable. Bad idea.

So it doesn't matter so much who is the employer of the person you are dating, but rather, what is the relationship you have with them. An office worker dating a receptionist in the building? Probably fine

A sales associate dating someone in the purchasing department of a customer? Very much not fine.

Answer 3

Unless this situation creates a conflict of interest, this rule doesn't apply. Generally speaking, low level employees that don't have much say over decisions being made should be safe, as per your example. For higher ups, you'll need to find workarounds to avoid the image of impropriety. If we tried to apply the rule to companies your company does business with, Microsoft or Google employees would have to be virtually celibate!

Answer 4

There are a couple of things that can make workplace dating problematic:

1. The real or perceived risk of favoritism. "He got the promotion because he's sleeping with the boss."

2. The fallout if the relationship goes sour.

3. Fallout if you have to choose between relationship and job.

However, a significant number of relationships develop between people who know each other through work. After all, it's where you spend a lot of time interacting with people on your own level.

Favoritism can be a problem both if it really happens, or if it's perceived to happen. Suppose you and a colleague both want a promotion, and you get it because you're just better. But you're dating one of the managers responsible for choosing who to promote. Your colleague may say that it's because you slept with the boss. This can cost you the respect of other colleagues.

Favoritism risk is something companies can try to manage with a "don't date people in your own reporting chain" policy. Obviously that's easier in bigger companies that have truly separate departments.

If the relationship ends, will you still be comfortable going to the same workplace? The answer can be yes; not all relationships end in bad ways. But you can't promise how (if!) things will end. So this is a risk you can't avoid if you date in the workplace.

What if you have to choose? Is this your dream job? Is this your soulmate? Would you be willing to switch to a different supervisor so that you no longer have a conflict of interest?

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So, the right answer "depends". Dating in the workplace isn't always bad, but you should be aware of the risks, and never give people cause to question your integrity.

Answer 5

There is two kinds of rules here that you seem to mix up.

1. Don't have a relationship that could make you appear to be influenced in important decisions by it or that could make it appear as if you used your professional authority to coerce someone into that relationship.
2. Be extra careful in general when trying to establish a private relationship with a coworker, the more private the more careful/slow to establish it you should take it and the more it could be a case of 1) the more you need to think about resolving the underlying issue that makes it a case of 1), i.e. you may need to switch departments if you otherwise are your spouses manager as his/her colleagues could see favouritism in your decisions, especially if you run a competitive team.

Probably both rules could be formulated a bit better to be perfect fits but I hope you can grasp the general intention. Rule 1 has been discussed in a few answers and should be pretty straight forward: Your company will not like it when you make them look "corrupt" to outside clients (e.g. if your spouse represents a client you do major deals with choosing their company over competitors) or when you poison the company culture because your team members think you favour your dating partner. Neither will they like the prospect of you opening them up to being sued for sexual discrimination etc. Obviously this is also potentially a career killer.

Rule 2 exists because you cannot walk away at the work place from a dating disaster. If you approach someone and that is unwarranted, clumsy or might even come across as creepy - even if accidental, in a bar you can walk away, never to be seen again and both of you will forget about it. In the work place that can easily mean your relationship with that colleague is poisoned. Have a few such cases or an overly irritated coworker and you might quickly be known as the guy or gal that wants to get into everyone's pants. Not a good career move either. And the other way around, even if it does not come back to you - many people consider work just work and they don't want to be annoyed by dating approaches in that environment, but they want to feel valued for their work, not be wooed for their looks and charisma. So it's also a question of respecting personal boundaries and in particular the boundary between private life and work life.

If you take it slowly, nothing speaks against dating someone from work. In fact, work is a perfect place to find someone suitable, as you can observe people under every day situations, how they react to stress and how the are at their worst rather than their polished best. It's also actually a good place to get to know the person and not the idolized sex object - if you properly take your time.

The work place (along with school/college) typically is one of the more common ways to meet a partner. While the number vary between different surveys,see for example this one: https://www.eharmony.com/blog/how-you-meet-your-spouse-matters/

And from personal experience, couples that meet at work typically also are more stable than couples that meet, say, on Tinder. Likely because the barrier to actually start dating (and make that visible) is also higher and people therefore take more time to decide whether they should make a move.

All that being said: Rule 1 would not apply. Rule 2 would to a slightly lessened degree. Feel free to make a move at some point, but be careful about it, i.e. just start to get to know that person rather than outright ask her for a date.