Love and the Workplace

I have long believed it is best to form relationships—romantic and otherwise—with those whose daily lives are different from your own. To share in our work is a sweet notion, but a deluded one. I have often romanticized about this, and I have seen it in various configurations: the lovers writing at adjacent tables; the married law partners; the barista couple on the same shift at the local coffees shop, brushing by one another as customers order mocha lattes heavy on the chocolate.

When things are going well, working with someone you’re otherwise involved with can be great. You have the daily pleasantries: unfettered access to the high of making eyes at someone you adore, the joy of running into them at the hallway, stealth kissy time in the office supply room (just don’t get caught).

But even in the best of times, working with your partner can be tricky. Depending on your respective roles within your organization, you may find yourself competing for raises/promotions/accolades/projects/recognition. If you’re not laterally situated within the organization, the hierarchical nature of your work lives could bear ugly fruit in the bedroom. Any work problem, however minor, is quickly amplified in the context of the relationship (and vice versa). If you work together directly, the amount of time you spend in close proximity could strange your relationship (unless you’re codependent, in which case, power on)! Also, you will have nothing to talk about, in terms of your daily lives, as you’ve ambled through virtually every project, memo, and minute together.

If you’re in a school or an office or a service-oriented environment—in other words, if you work with other people—questions of interpersonal dynamics are amplified. Your innocent flirtation with the tattooed bar-back takes on altogether different valence when your girlfriend is there as an eyewitness. Your bitch sessions with the office admin about your relationship woes risk polarizing this colleague against your man. And assuming that your relationship is out in the open, you will have no shortage of eyes on you.

These things, though, you can deal with, while it lasts. It’s romantic, in a way: in secret moments, you fancy yourself this generation’s Marina Abramovic and Ulay, Natalie Jacobson and Chet Curtis, Sonny and Cher. You neglect the important truth that all of these couples eventually broke up. For when things are good, they’re really good, and as with most minor traumas, nothing is a problem until becomes one. And then it’s too late.

In other words, it’s all fun and games until somebody breaks your heart. And then you remember that “don’t shit where you eat” is a truism because it is true.

Now, I have my own misgivings about this argument. Sometimes you meet someone at work, or sometimes you really need a job, and your boyfriend’s workplace is hiring. Love is rare and rationed in this world, as are employment opportunities; we should not foreclose the opportunity for connection (or for work) wherever we may find it.

In a radical economy of love, none of it would matter. Breakups would happen, and we would not be broken. We could love, and let go, and get on with the act of living. And continuing to work together, to share intellectual or creative or professional space, to have to look at or walk by or interact with our former beloved, in mundane moments, ad nauseam, would not be an act of violence on your heart, but an acceptable fact of everyday life.

In my most actualized moments, I imagine a world in which even in the aftermath of loving, its residues remain, and to be in the company of old love is not painful or awkward or in any way hard, but simply a thing that is. It is not the world that I inhabit, but it’s an idyllic concept, and a beautiful one. Where I live, I see my most recent ex-love and I want to cry, and scream, and throw up, impulses not traditionally associated with professionalism. Maybe one day I will get to that other place, but for now, I do my part by doing what my grandmother told me, which is to always be a good girl, always do the right thing, and never shit where I eat.