You see these people forty plus hours a week, you work together on projects, rely on each other to complete tasks, and there’s a good chance you have lunch together on a semi-regular basis. You may as well already be dating. Yet before you start making-out in the elevator, there are a few things you should know about office romances. (Number one: don’t make-out in the elevator. You’re not in an Aerosmith video.)

Relationships can be stressful at the best of times, but having to work with your other half can add a whole new dimension of stress. “It can be a little trying,” says Erica of her relationship with co-worker Jack, (names changed on request – and to protect love) both young professionals at a large Toronto-based company. “We do live together, we do commute together, and we do work together.”

“We do our best to keep it separate,” Jack adds. “Where it does get a little bit hairy is, for example, we’ve recently had a bunch of layoffs – so I’m stressed about work and we get a little short with each other in our personal lives.”

For the most part, however, Erica and Jack’s relationship works, but this is due in part to a strict separation of life and work. “I think in order to make a relationship work with the person you do work with, depending on how close you work with the person, the important thing is to leave work at work,” says Erica, who now opts to either call her mom or sister after a bad day. “He [Jack] wants to be able to relax and not have anything to do with work. As much as he understands my pain, he doesn’t want to hear about it.”

You know who else doesn’t want to hear about it? Human resources. “Personal relationships are no business of colleagues or the employer,” says Jack Konecny, public affairs, Scotiabank. “Unless there is a risk of conflicts of interest, or the relationship is somehow affecting the workplace [like] quarrels inappropriate to a work environment. If there is this impact, or there is a threat of such an impact, then it is reasonable for the employer to speak with the employees.”

Jack researched their employer’s policy on romantic relationships when he began to realize that the relationship was “more than an office fling.” The only thing he could find, he says, was a policy on being in a relationship when one person was the other’s boss. Konecny says that Scotiabank discourages relationships, especially between a supervisor and someone in a lower position. It’s a conflict of interest and can lead to a host of problems for every party involved. At this point, one person may be moved to another department or location. “An employer might change reporting relationships, reassign certain work functions that present the risk of conflicts of interest, for example, or provide a unique oversight mechanism,” Konecny says. “Each situation should be addressed based on its own unique circumstances, and most often, the employees themselves have the solution, so they need to be engaged.”

Erica and Jack have been directly engaged with their relationship as it pertains to work. “Right now I am actively looking for work in another department,” Erica says, “which is a combination of the relationship and the fact that I want something else. It’s viewed as a bonus for the relationship because spending so much time with your partner is nerve wracking. The other bonus would be that we don’t have to hide it anymore.”

Indeed. Erica has to “make up scenarios” when a colleague tries to set her up with someone and they both lament the fact that they can’t bring each other to social work functions.

“I didn’t fall in love with the guy at work; I fell in love with the guy outside of work,” she says. “The fact that I work with him – it’s part of the package. He’s a different person at work than he is outside of work and he doesn’t treat his colleagues the same way he treats his friend and partner.” jp