Host: Are there any true 'no-no’s' for office relationships?
Toni Coleman: I think the first real no-no would be when the office has a policy prohibiting, specifically prohibiting any kind of contact between people outside of the work environment, especially dating, that kind of thing. That does exist in certain environments for certain reasons.
In other offices, they might have policies that govern who can date who. If someone is working for you that you are not allowed to date them while they are working for you or if they are client of the company perhaps then that is the big no, no that you are not allowed to see them at least long as they are client. So those kinds of situations are generally considered pretty big no-no's. It doesn't mean people don't cross those lines, but it's a very kind of slippery slope.
Another obvious no-no for any environment, whether there is a policy or not, is when you are dating somebody who works directly under you or somebody who you work for and the reasons for this are really pretty obvious. I mean it definitely would be hard to supervise somebody, be in the role of their supervisor and doing evaluation on them and deal with problems that might be existing with their work if you are dating them.
And if they are your boss to be able to kind of stay enroll when you are in the office and deal with them as your supervisor, when you have a very different intimate relationship outside of work, very difficult. And very often when these things occur as they do too frequently, people in the immediate environment have an awareness of them and then that can lead to all sorts of other issues.
So I would say those are the two biggest no-no’s.