Ozonḓu Chronicles: Dear HR, It’s Not the Printer Making All That Noise

There is an unspoken rule in every workplace.

Mind your business.

Unfortunately, business becomes difficult to mind when the office itself has turned into the latest season of Omjolo: The Workplace Edition.

It always starts innocently.

A colleague suddenly develops a passion for “working late". Another, who couldn’t reply to an email for three days, now responds to one particular coworker’s messages before they’ve even hit "send". Coffee breaks become longer. Lunches become exclusive. Suddenly, someone who hated coming to the office is volunteering for weekend shifts.

The streets call it chemistry.

HR calls it a policy violation.

The rest of us call it entertainment.

Office affairs are a peculiar species of romance. They survive on stolen glances across boardrooms, suspiciously frequent “strategy meetings", and the timeless classic: “We’re just friends.”

Of course you are.

Just friends who somehow leave the building together every evening but arrive separately every morning.

The funniest part isn’t even the affair.

It’s the detective work.

Reception knows.

Security knows.

The cleaners know.

The tea lady knew before everybody else.

Even the printer somehow knows it only jams when the two of you are standing next to each other.

And then there’s the office gossip, which somehow has a complete timeline, screenshots, eyewitness accounts and enough evidence to launch a parliamentary inquiry. If gossip were an Olympic sport, some workplaces would never return home without gold.

Now, before anyone clutches their pearls, not every workplace friendship is romantic, and not every lunch date deserves an investigation. Adults are free to date.

But when one or both parties are already committed elsewhere, that’s when the office transforms from a place of productivity into a theatre of whispered conversations, awkward meetings and colleagues suddenly becoming relationship analysts.

The moral of the story?

If you’re going to risk your career, your relationship and your peace of mind for a little office excitement, just remember one thing:

The walls may not have ears.

But your coworkers certainly do.