By Sophie Barth
MTC teachers, Los Hermanos servers and Especially for Youth counselors are all evidence of a local philosophy: If you want romance, get a job.
The Provo part-time employment scene is highly populated by the young and single. Romance in the workplace is a natural outcome of the demographics, and if handled responsibly, doesn''t have to interfere with business.
Tristan Leavitt first saw his wife, Brittany Atkinson, at an MTC English department meeting.
'It was her first week there, so when she walked in I thought, ''Wow, I''d like to get to know her,''' said Leavitt, a senior from Idaho Falls, Idaho, majoring in political science. 'The next meeting, I introduced myself and asked her out.'
Leavitt and Atkinson dated for four to five months before their co-workers found out about it.
'It was a secret we kept, and I thought it was the funniest joke,' Leavitt said. 'None of the other teachers knew. Obviously you don''t want your missionaries to know.'
The MTC jokes a little about its employees dating, Leavitt said.
Likewise, Los Hermanos, a restaurant on Center Street, has commemorated when its employees get married.
'There''s always someone whose taking somebody out or dating at work,' said Ty Trejo, head server at Los Hermanos and a junior from Temecula, Calif., majoring in music. 'Anytime two people meet and get married while they''re working there, they custom paint their names on a booth.'
Not all relationships in the workplace end in marriage, however.
'I dated one girl I worked with,' Trejo said. 'I didn''t take her out for long, but whenever anything dramatic happened in the relationship, it was enhanced because we had to see each other at work.'
The Los Hermanos serving group is tight-knit so there are always rumors, but it doesn''t affect business, Trejo said.
'We keep the social life pretty separate from the serving,' Trejo said.
Many employees at the MTC and Los Hermanos are already married. But to become an EFY counselor, applicants must be young and single.
'EFY is rather renowned for hooking their counselors up,' said Dan Gubler, a senior from West Valley City, majoring in sociology who worked this summer as a field coordinator at EFY. 'There''s a legend that says 10 percent of counselors end up getting married. I''m not sure how accurate that statistic is, but from my experience, it''s pretty true.'
Gubler trained and supervised the counselors at his sessions.
While many EFY counselors handled their romances appropriately , others lost focus on their participants while they concentrated on dating, Gubler said.
'In this setting where there are a lot of high quality, single, young people, we encourage them to date,' Gubler said. 'Saturday mornings we would encourage them to work it on the weekends.'
The encouragement during the week was to focus in on the job at hand, though.
'The focus needed to be on the participants, and not on building the relationship,' Gubler said.