Conceal An Office Romance

How to conceal an office romance
While most companies frown on office romances, the bottom line is that it's a common practice. Polls asking couples where they met their mate reveal that one of the top answers is “at work.” According to a CNN survey, 40% of participants have had an office romance, and a surprising 66% didn’t feel the relationship needed to be kept secret.  

While most people don’t find a problem with letting their coworkers know about the love blossoming between the cubicle walls, the fine print of many a company contract says a little something about office romances. Usually, this fine print is a warning of some kind, so it’s often a good idea to conceal your passionate office romp.

While it’s not recommended to indulge in an office romance, sometimes emotions -- and hormones -- get the best of you.  So, in case you’ve had some trouble controlling the urge to hit on the receptionist, we offer you a set of guidelines on how to conceal an office romance. For the sake of your job, pay attention.

Don’t change your routine

The best way to conceal an office romance and cast a protective shell around your new relationship is to maintain your schedule throughout the work day. Nothing should change. People always notice significant changes in routine, especially if they’re the gossipy office types, so avoid doing anything out of the ordinary. This means no lunches with your new partner -- especially if you’ve never been known to socialize with this person on a friendly basis before. However, it also means no purposely avoiding this person; doing so will raise an equally visible red flag.  

To conceal an office romance, keep the same meeting schedule, take your lunches as you always did before (perhaps with everyone else in the lunchroom), arrive and leave work at the same time, and so on. You might succumb to temptation every once in a while and arrange a quickie in the bathroom, but that’s another issue altogether and isn’t something that is seen by others -- hopefully.

Keep it to yourself

You may have a few close friends at work with whom you really want to share the events of your recent hookup, but you can’t give in to this urge. This is a very crucial rule to follow when you want to conceal an office romance. Don’t brag to them in your office and send them away with a vow never to tell anyone. They’ll nod and swear to God, and a week later that guy in Accounting will be shooting you a sly smile from across the room.

It’s acceptable to tell friends or family who don’t work in the office, but you better make damn sure they have no possible connection to your workplace. If you play your cards right, nobody will ever guess that you two are counting the minutes until quitting time just so you can spend some time together.

Don’t document it

There are a number of ways to conceal an office romance while communicating with your love during the workday. If you’re not careful, however, you might leave a trail of bread crumbs that leads directly to your secret. For example, you might think you can get away with sending 100 e-mails back and forth every day (e-mail is supposed to be private, right?), but do not use your business address. Most companies have internal servers that can track any and all e-mails sent between employees, and if anybody over in IT happened to look, they’d find more than enough evidence to convict.

Conceal an office romance with these sneaky tips… Next >>