Office romances can bring heartaches

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Valentine's Day is almost upon us. So get ready for workplaces abuzz with flower deliveries, chatter about whether to buy chocolate or jewelry and last-minute calls to snag dinner reservations.Feb. 14 isn't a holiday that interferes much with business getting done, but if your own valentine happens to sit a few cubicles away, romance might be an issue that you, your colleagues and your boss deal with year-round.Whether it's proper to conduct a relationship with a co-worker is as complex as true love, say some who have studied the always-controversial topic of office romance.One thing's for sure: Lots of people engage in romantic liaisons at work. In a study conducted last month by Vault.com, a career resources firm, 46 percent of 945 respondents acknowledged having had an office romance.A total of 23 percent of respondents said they had engaged in a "tryst" on office premises such as in the board room, janitor's closet, stairwell, parking lot, restroom or boss' office.No matter where you acknowledge your feelings, the bigger issue when conducting an ongoing relationship with a co-worker is whether to let others know."It's contested terrain," said Janie Fritz, an associate professor of communication and rhetorical studies at Duquesne University and the author of a book, "Problematic Relationships in the Workplace." Fritz is currently researching a book about professional civility.Among the many factors that make office romances tricky are whether the organization has specified policies about it, whether it's a boss-subordinate relationship and whether each party in the couple has serious feelings for the other or the two are just engaging in a fling.And then there's the ultrasensitive problem of one or both people in the relationship being married to others.As recently as the early 1990s, Fritz said, about 90 percent of all workplaces had no policies on romance at work. (Policies on sexual harassment are a different issue, she noted.)More companies may be taking a stand, though. According to Vault.com, 19 percent of organizations that employed survey respondents had policies to deal with office romance. The "rules" included notifying human resources, requesting that one party in the couple switch departments or asking both parties to sign a "love contract" in which they agree the relationship is consensual.The contracts "are typically for higher-level executives so that people can't later turn around and claim harassment," said Fritz. "The trend is, hey, if they're going to do it, tell us about it."The kind of business being done in an office also factors into whether there's a better chance of romance being out in the open."Traditional, conservative offices such as banks are more likely to have policies against romance and more likely to discourage it," said Fritz.But creative and fast-paced work environments such as advertising agencies "don't frown on (romantic relationships) as much."(Put newspapers into the "creative and fast-paced" category and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is a solid example of people hooking up at work. The news division includes 11 married couples, most of whom met at work or at other newspapers before they were employed here.)Whether or not they have policies in place, it doesn't hurt for employers to provide a bit of training for managers on how to deal with romance among their workers because it's bound to occur sometime, said Fritz."The conservative view is, 'If it's going to happen, manage it.' Maybe put these people in different parts of the workplace."Naturally, what managers and employees fear most are repercussions throughout the office when a relationship goes sour or when a boss-subordinate fling is widely perceived as causing favoritism by the boss toward that employee."If it's causing negative gossip because it's perceived as a career-advancement motive, that's going to contribute to polluting the atmosphere," said Fritz.Whether your company sanctions romance or not, use discretion, she advises, especially on Valentine's Day."No one wants to come across people sucking lips in the hall. That makes the place uncomfortable, especially for people who don't have anyone and aren't in love."(E-mail Joyce Gannon at jgannon(at)post-gazette.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)