"Dating anyone?" Adam asked our guest as the team sat outside sipping drinks and nibbling on appetizers."Yes," Guest answered. "Someone in my group back home."
"Oh," Adam said, nodding. "So that's good and bad."
"It's a nightmare. We work all the time and count evenings at the office as time together. It's like no separation at all," he sighed, his accent making the words more dramatic.
I returned my attention to the glass in front of me, slipping the straw between my lips and swallowing the cool liquid. I can't say I was surprised - the team here is delightfully friendly. And, after defining myself as unreliable and alienating most of my peers in PostDocCity, I've been careful to show up when I say I will and always accept invitations for lunch or coffee or drinks after work. I like spending time with these people - they're funny and smart and interesting.
"So you know Theo?" One of the girls at lunch asked me. I nodded, recalling he'd been in senior management when I'd interviewed here years ago.
"I liked him," I noted. "I'm sad he left."
"It was a surprise to everyone - him included," noted Gillian. "But I invited him to join us." I blinked in surprise, grateful my reaction was hidden behind sunglasses. "I was one of the rumors about why he had to leave."
"Oh," I offered simply, trying to process the fact that someone very senior had been dating someone junior who had recently relocated.
"It's not true," she said and I nodded. I like Gillian - I'll happily work with her for years to come. "I only talked to Adam about jobs - not Theo. But he was part of why I came here."
"Oh," I repeated, offering a smile. Theo arrived and we chatted - it was all pleasant and mostly normal. I wondered when he got divorced, how he met Gillian, how long they'd been dating, who knew at work.
"Less than 10 seconds," a man at one end of the table corrected a woman who was presenting slides. She was married to him and they were running a business together. Huh, I thought - not something I would try.
I glanced around the table this evening, watching everyone laugh and talk and tease. Maybe this is completely normal, I wondered. Perhaps avoiding personal contact with my professional acquaintances left me with misconceptions about how one behaves with folks at work. I'm willing to flirt and flatter and tease - I find that makes for working relationships that are friendly as well as productive - but having sex with a superior seems a bit odd to me.
4 comments:
I have a few rules about dating.
Rule #1 is don't date an asshole. Rule #2 is don't date someone who is married / engaged / seeing someone. Rule #3 is don't date someone you work with.
Back in undergrad I've taken a lot of classes with my then boyfriend. It was awful. Especially when we foolishly decided to work on a project together. We kept on yelling at each other; personal problems were popping up when we arguing about work and the project was popping up during arguments about our relationships. Hellish.
So I very much cherish the idea of having on one hand, work, on the other hand, my love affairs, rather than a big mangled ball of everything in the way. I mean, both are complex enough without needing to multiply them together. Plus, what can you talk about once you've already spent 10 hours together in the lab?
I know a few couples of professors who publish together and I'm always amazed at the fact that they can work together, get the paper done, and still not divorce afterwards. They're probably better at managing tricky situations than me.
Well, Dr R and I did our undergrads together, started dating whilst doing our PhDs for the same PI, did our postdocs in adjacent buildings, have endured 6 months of working 60 miles apart but...in a few weeks time we will be working together in the same department again as lecturers (US equiv: assistant profs). He just got the job. I have no problem with the idea of working with someone that I have been with for 7 years (and I know we work well together) but the thought of dating work people makes me very nervous - just too many ways it can go wrong.
Believe me working with your partner saves a whole load of wasted energy on 'how was your day dear' in the evenings.
I have a couple of friends who have started working with their husbands as they get their own businesses going. It seems to be working out generally OK for them, but there is no. way. I could ever do it! I love my husband to bits, but we have totally different MOs and would drive each other crazy within a week.
Propter, great news on Dr R's job!
Oh groan - I have managed to seem completely unreliable and alienate everyone here too. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who does that!
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