A work environment is like your second home, especially if you end up spending years in that same department, its a norm that you will end up making friends, enemies and even finding a “work husband/wife” even when you have a one at home. As I said 2nd home.
Relationships can either make your work environment therapeutic (where you enjoy, feel at home and you love being there and enjoy most shifts) or they can make your stay a living hell (where you just don’t want to be there, feel unwanted and just can’t wait for the shift to end). Some of these things may be out of your own control, but others can be tuned to the direction of your choice. Here are some relationships you must avoid with your colleagues.
1. The supervisors spy- this is the kind of person who tells on his own team members or colleagues just to be on the “good” side with their superiors. 9/10 this kind of relationship will lead you to making enemies at your workspace. Now a lot of people do this kind of thing because they believe they will be promoted for it, they believe that their superiors will see them as worthy of being in their space when they tell on others for their wrongdoings. The truth is, no one wants that kind of person near them, the first image yoy create to me when you do such things on your own colleagues is that one day you may do it to me just to please the next person, so if I were to be your supervisor or manager, I may appreciate catching wrongdoers but I will not trust you enough to allow you to work near me. So not only will you create work enemies, but when no one wants to work with you, you’ll end up creating an environment that you don’t even want to be in.
2. Business and pleasure: everyone knows the saying ” don’t mix business and pleasure” but does anyone really know what it means?. Here’s the thing, in real life, its always about tit for tat, what you do for me should always be rewarded back, as humans we do this unknowingly so because sometimes when you do something for someone either they or you feel the obligation to do it back for them, the only difference may be the size. Now in the work space, there are two directions such relationships can go, others tend to steal materials from the company for other departments in return for a favour, this leads to a loss in company assets and to a revenue loss over time, though we may not realize this for now, but in the long run it does lead to the company having to retrench a few people in order to stay afloat, in most cases, these kind of transactions are not traceable, thats why the company ends up having to load off a few people to cover those expenses. No action goes unpunished.
The second one is the pretty obvious one, having sex in the office for “special” favors, this one is the most common, most people out there are vultures who abuse their positions by asking for sexual favors from their colleagues in order to get a favour done for them or promote the person. The dangers with this one is that it comes with risks, one you could be caught and both fired on the spot, chances are, the one with the lower rank will be fired instead of their superior who may get away with a simple warning. 2 someone new and “fresh” will come in the long run to replace you,then what?? It means you will lose all those benefits you received to the new one and this will end up creating a sour working environment, leading to unwanted working conditions.
3. Romantic relationships- there is nothing wrong with a little romance here and there, but in the work space the effects can be detrimental. Its easy to fall for someone at work, you spend all those hours together, most of the time is spent at work with the person than at home, you may find yourself even speaking to the person on social media platforms, so the bond you create unaware can be pretty strong. The honeymoon phase has no problems, they problems only start after that phase, lets say you haven’t broken up yet, but you seeing your partner speaking to other people in a certain way can trigger a bit of jealousy here & there, this may lead to you not wanting your partner to speak to certain people in the workspace and ultimately this will lead to fights that are visible to the outside world. These fights will obviously interfere with your work progress which may lead to either one or both of you being released or fired. What happens when you two break up? You won’t be talking to each other, especially if the breakup was a nasty one, you won’t speak to each other meaning you’ll be breaking the team bond in your department, leading to a disturbed work flow, that may lead you being fired as well. Lastly it will surely create enemies in the workspace, is is usually due to the fact that your ex partner will ultimately find someone new at a later stage, you will feel some type of way about that (mostly unhappy) and you will end up creating unnecessary enemies in the process.
In a nutshell, some relationships in the workspace are good, keep them as professional as they need to be in order to create a wonderful working environment. Others are just a no no and need to be avoided at all costs, our careers come first and we should at all times look to uplift each other by creating strong professional bonds.