Love is to help meet targets!

While we have quite a few perspectives on whether or not love contracts are feasible or not, or how they can be brought into practise; or rather even that they need to be put into place given the rising number of cases of people falling into a romantic relationship at work, I'd like to quote a true case that happened at my workplace. Mr. X and Ms. Y were my colleagues while I was working in the function of sales. Since they were working in the NCR, despite having their own territories, they would catch up with each other in the sales office everyday. Gradually, over a period of 6-8 months, it became quite evident to all of us that they shared a relationship deeper than just work-colleagues.

Our boss also found this piece of information consistent with the performance of the two individuals. Performance of the sales team in my company was determined by two factors: the rupee sales, as well as the number of patients getting catheterized in ones' territory. While Mr. X had been over-shooting his targets for two consecutive quarters; Ms. Y had been performing dismally, with a lot of patients who fell in her territory per se, were getting catheterized in Mr. X's territory. It didn't take much to figure out that all this while she'd been helping him achieve his sales targets. His performance would've directly translated into a promotion in another 2 months' time.

However, the organization had to take a strong step towards curbing the way their personal relationship was affecting their work, with some lethargy setting in, in the case of Mr. X, and under-performance in the case of Ms. Y.

The management eventually took a strong action against them, with the girl ultimately having to resign from her job. Thus I feel that under most circumstances, whenever such an incident comes to light, either one of the individuals ends up paying a heavy price by virtue of his/her job.

Thus the concept of a 'love-contract' may come in handy in atleast providing an initial reality-check to the individuals, and reminding them of what their priorities should be.