On Office Romance

Notice anything interesting on my office desk knick-knacks?

How's this photobooth snip?

Taken at a recent company event. Strictly speaking, my relationship with Person A is an office romance. I get a lot of query whether we get sawa (I am now on conyo speak) seeing each other at least 10 hours each day. In fact, we work in the same department and 1.562% of my role has an interface with his role. Hahaha! 

To be truthful, office romance was part of my drivers why I quit my promising first job and move to a different company. It wasn't that I get to make bantay 24/7 (not necessary and never my cup of tea) but with our careers in the same field, working in the same company makes a lot of sense looking at the long term. In fact, this is much better than what we had the first 5.5 years.

So why does office romance work for us?

Work is work, play is play.

Work is work. We call ourselves colleagues during office hours and whenever we are in office premises. Looking at our relationship from this perspective allows us to focus on what we have to deliver for the day and set aside our personal differences/fondness :P. Be a serious yuppie and no hanky panky. We have the same circles at work but we also keep unique circles. We even have different "after-work" activities. It's a plus that you have a great friend a work and you know how the person thinks and most of the time where he's coming from. When the time comes that we get to seriously collaborate at work, that will really be advantageous. 

Once we step out of work, we switch on the play is play part. We don't have to wait for an hour (in traffic) to be with each other! -(",)-*wink* I love taking off the colleague hat and be the significant other. Do I get sawa at this point? No, not at all. This is us beyond the yuppies at work. This is the point where we make chismis about the interesting things and people at work, our personal woes on the other aspects of our lives, work on our life projects, argue on petty things, make up, express that myriad of emotions you can share with a significant other and be silly kids in love. 

It's fun compartmentalizing your life. 

I'd like to wrap up this post with 3 advantages of office romance: 

1. You get to see the person you're very fond of more often. Imagine seeing your ultimate crush anytime you like and getting a chance to work with him. Bongga, di ba?

2. It's very efficient. An example of efficiency is when we have to decide for wedding items, we can easily have "working lunch". We take lunch together to discuss what we have to act on. Lunch date pa! How efficient is that?

3. Based on our assessment, managing our careers 10, 20 years down the road is much easier when we are in the same company given that our career preference is very close to each other. It has more flexibility. 

Office romance may not be for everyone but it works for us. 

What's your take on it?