6 ms·

>> Dorothy : I’ve never seen policy on employee dating that was effective. I’ve seen policies that made sense in theory – i.e. like don’t date within your repor

by gkya 10y ago

>> Dorothy : I’ve never seen policy on employee dating that was effective. I’ve seen policies that made sense in theory – i.e. like don’t date within your reporting chain – that lead to bad outcomes in practice – people hiding their relationship.

Mz 10y ago
I sure as hell do not want my boss asking me out. Ever. I do not want that kind of situation at work and I am totally fine with people being fired for "inappropriate relationships" as happened in my department per the company policy.
- gkya 10y ago
  When you start with "I" you can say anything, but with an objective look I'd say everything is fine as long as it does not affect the business itself, i.e., if they continue to do properly as before their own jobs. A per-case approach is way better thus.
  - tbrownaw 10y ago
    is fine as long as it does not affect the business itself, i.e., if they continue to do properly as before their own jobs. There are other ways things could affect the business. There could be a risk of getting sued, there could be morale issues related to accusations of someone "sleeping their way to the top", there could be reputational problems making the company less attractive to potential new employees, etc.
    - gkya 10y ago
      Well as a twenty-odd yrs old male asking a girl out could result in her accusing me of harassment and me going to jail, what do I do then? Lock myself to a room and masturbate till I die?
  - Mz 10y ago
    In theory, this may work in small businesses. In practice, there are very serious problems with a) potentially being subtly pressured into a relationship because your job depends upon it and b) potentially getting promoted because of whom you are sleeping with instead of that being based on job performance. The military treats certain situations similar to statutory rape because if you are being threatened or pressured in some way, the perp will expect you to swear it is consensual. They jail officers (or did at one time) found to be sleeping with the wives of lower ranking men in their unit, and her testimony is irrelevant. This is considered a morale issue in the military. You don't want an officer to have to order a man to do a job that might kill him under circumstances where the motive might be "I want you dead so I can have your wife." The stakes may be lower than that in most jobs, but I think the effect of wondering why Sally got promoted or wondering if Anna got fired because the boss asked her out and she said "no" is still incredibly corrosive to the environment. I don't see any good coming from it.
    - gkya 10y ago
      Hey I'm sorry but it's disgusting to compare a romantic relationship to rape, and then I don't like the sexism in your comment. Also, army is an extreme case in comparison with anything that's not army. I'm not a US citizen so what I know about your army is limited to what I see on the news, but what I know of armies in general is that they are organisations of legitimised killers with loads of weapons at their disposal and tamed with the power of dogma and discipline and submission. So go figure. Whatever, staying on topic: if some people abuse a given freedom, it does not mean that the freedom itself need be banned. The abusers need be punished. In my mother tongue we have this expression: don't burn the quilt for the flea. The initiative for a relationship need not come from the superior, and in case it does, it need not be corrupt and exploitative. And then it's not that the lower-ranking one is always a Sally or an Anna, can also be a Joe or Tom. (edit:) At the end of the day, each case is different and should be taken in its own. You say you don't see any good in it, but partners of such relationships that lead to happy families will beg to differ. Usually people get to meet each other in school, work or friend gatherings. It's not like you can stop people in the street and ask them out. edit: grammar are hards
      - 10y ago
- mason240 10y ago
  I agree. The downsides for abuse of authority far outweigh the befit for a few.
- logicallee 10y ago
  Since we're not living in totalitarian regimes, out of curiosity how was this found out: >people being fired for "inappropriate relationships" as happened in my department per the company policy. If this were to happen, I imagine HR would say, "You two are dating" and the two people involved would say, "No we're not, we don't meet outside of work." How would it even come to the attention of HR absent any kind of complaint whatsoever? Clearly in such a consenting relationship it's not in their interest to bring it up - surely "but rumor has it" is not actionable. I can't imagine that they would kiss or physically touch in the workplace. They're not slaves. How can HR know about their private lives? As for your "I sure as hell do not want my boss asking me out. Ever." together with your second longer sentence, as a matter of policy your statement actually translates directly to "if I [meaning you, Mz] had a boss that I wanted to ask me out, I would like for us to have this choice only at the option of seriously risking both of our jobs for me to let them know this or for them to do so if they felt the same way." Because that is the rule you are suggesting. And what anyway is dating? Should employees not be allowed to meet after work, period? Are they allowed to meet, but the minute they touch even outside of work, even when keeping it a secret, and even if both of them really, really, want to, then they should both be fired? What if they secretly meet and talk about work things for months, but it's never a date, because they know they're living in a totalitarian regime that will fire them both if it judges that these meetings are anything but fully professional? What if they bring work materials with them, or perhaps the man in question tells everyone he is gay or if the woman tells everyone that she is a lesbian, just to throw HR off of the scent? Should there be a secret court -- how about a court-appointed psychiatrist and/or detective, so that anyone can file an anonymous complaint with HR against any man and woman who are in each other's chain of command, accusing them of being in a relationship, with no repercussions for the accuser but both of them being summarily fired if the detective says, "they seem to like each other, yes. Wouldn't surprise me." Will this atmosphere help enable women to join male teams -- where in many cases a staggering 100% of certain teams are male? Also let's go farther than "did two employees in each other's chain of command ever touch each other." Your policy suggestion also implies that rather than start a foundation that they invested with $28 billion, after being married and living happily ever since, that Melinda Gates and Bill Gates should have been fired from Microsoft rather than being married. (Since in their position as a head on Encarta and Expedia, Bill Gates was their 'boss.') Or does this not apply to the actual bosses, the CEO's (not a gendered term), who lead company cultures by example? Are you saying this was a bad outcome, that instead they should both have been ousted, fired? Because the minute they got married, the cat was out of the bag. It would be pretty hard to mount a defense that you're not actually in a relationship with someone, when your two Facebook statuses change to married to that person, don't you think? How it works in normal, balanced workplaces is that employees don't harass each other, and nobody would ever ask you out unless you really, really wantd them to -- not only not your boss, not even the person sitting next to you. Don't you think that is a fairer policy? -- EDIT: downvoters (3 of them), could you kindly explain yourselves? I am open to the possibility that I am wrong, in this case please answer the rhetorical questions above literally or tell me why you disagree.
- yarou 10y ago
  Eh, things happen. Policies are neat because they let you impose limits to human behavior in a very binary and arbitrary fashion. But humans are complex beings. People fall in and out of love all of the time. It needn't be exploitative. To mandate whom I can or cannot fall in love with is something I will never accept. Nor should anyone.
- cthalupa 10y ago
  So what happens if the relationship starts when people are equals, and one later gets promoted? What if the people are married? Depending on the policy, you might have people having to leave the company or decline promotions.
tbrownaw 10y ago
How is that a bad outcome? I'd suspect the purpose is less about personal sharing and openness, and more about the company not getting sued when people do things they shouldn't.

by gkya 10y ago

Mz 10y ago

I sure as hell do not want my boss asking me out. Ever. I do not want that kind of situation at work and I am totally fine with people being fired for "inappropriate relationships" as happened in my department per the company policy.

gkya 10y ago
When you start with "I" you can say anything, but with an objective look I'd say everything is fine as long as it does not affect the business itself, i.e., if they continue to do properly as before their own jobs. A per-case approach is way better thus.
- tbrownaw 10y ago
  is fine as long as it does not affect the business itself, i.e., if they continue to do properly as before their own jobs. There are other ways things could affect the business. There could be a risk of getting sued, there could be morale issues related to accusations of someone "sleeping their way to the top", there could be reputational problems making the company less attractive to potential new employees, etc.
  - gkya 10y ago
    Well as a twenty-odd yrs old male asking a girl out could result in her accusing me of harassment and me going to jail, what do I do then? Lock myself to a room and masturbate till I die?
- Mz 10y ago
  In theory, this may work in small businesses. In practice, there are very serious problems with a) potentially being subtly pressured into a relationship because your job depends upon it and b) potentially getting promoted because of whom you are sleeping with instead of that being based on job performance. The military treats certain situations similar to statutory rape because if you are being threatened or pressured in some way, the perp will expect you to swear it is consensual. They jail officers (or did at one time) found to be sleeping with the wives of lower ranking men in their unit, and her testimony is irrelevant. This is considered a morale issue in the military. You don't want an officer to have to order a man to do a job that might kill him under circumstances where the motive might be "I want you dead so I can have your wife." The stakes may be lower than that in most jobs, but I think the effect of wondering why Sally got promoted or wondering if Anna got fired because the boss asked her out and she said "no" is still incredibly corrosive to the environment. I don't see any good coming from it.
  - gkya 10y ago
    Hey I'm sorry but it's disgusting to compare a romantic relationship to rape, and then I don't like the sexism in your comment. Also, army is an extreme case in comparison with anything that's not army. I'm not a US citizen so what I know about your army is limited to what I see on the news, but what I know of armies in general is that they are organisations of legitimised killers with loads of weapons at their disposal and tamed with the power of dogma and discipline and submission. So go figure. Whatever, staying on topic: if some people abuse a given freedom, it does not mean that the freedom itself need be banned. The abusers need be punished. In my mother tongue we have this expression: don't burn the quilt for the flea. The initiative for a relationship need not come from the superior, and in case it does, it need not be corrupt and exploitative. And then it's not that the lower-ranking one is always a Sally or an Anna, can also be a Joe or Tom. (edit:) At the end of the day, each case is different and should be taken in its own. You say you don't see any good in it, but partners of such relationships that lead to happy families will beg to differ. Usually people get to meet each other in school, work or friend gatherings. It's not like you can stop people in the street and ask them out. edit: grammar are hards
    - 10y ago
mason240 10y ago
I agree. The downsides for abuse of authority far outweigh the befit for a few.
logicallee 10y ago
Since we're not living in totalitarian regimes, out of curiosity how was this found out: >people being fired for "inappropriate relationships" as happened in my department per the company policy. If this were to happen, I imagine HR would say, "You two are dating" and the two people involved would say, "No we're not, we don't meet outside of work." How would it even come to the attention of HR absent any kind of complaint whatsoever? Clearly in such a consenting relationship it's not in their interest to bring it up - surely "but rumor has it" is not actionable. I can't imagine that they would kiss or physically touch in the workplace. They're not slaves. How can HR know about their private lives? As for your "I sure as hell do not want my boss asking me out. Ever." together with your second longer sentence, as a matter of policy your statement actually translates directly to "if I [meaning you, Mz] had a boss that I wanted to ask me out, I would like for us to have this choice only at the option of seriously risking both of our jobs for me to let them know this or for them to do so if they felt the same way." Because that is the rule you are suggesting. And what anyway is dating? Should employees not be allowed to meet after work, period? Are they allowed to meet, but the minute they touch even outside of work, even when keeping it a secret, and even if both of them really, really, want to, then they should both be fired? What if they secretly meet and talk about work things for months, but it's never a date, because they know they're living in a totalitarian regime that will fire them both if it judges that these meetings are anything but fully professional? What if they bring work materials with them, or perhaps the man in question tells everyone he is gay or if the woman tells everyone that she is a lesbian, just to throw HR off of the scent? Should there be a secret court -- how about a court-appointed psychiatrist and/or detective, so that anyone can file an anonymous complaint with HR against any man and woman who are in each other's chain of command, accusing them of being in a relationship, with no repercussions for the accuser but both of them being summarily fired if the detective says, "they seem to like each other, yes. Wouldn't surprise me." Will this atmosphere help enable women to join male teams -- where in many cases a staggering 100% of certain teams are male? Also let's go farther than "did two employees in each other's chain of command ever touch each other." Your policy suggestion also implies that rather than start a foundation that they invested with $28 billion, after being married and living happily ever since, that Melinda Gates and Bill Gates should have been fired from Microsoft rather than being married. (Since in their position as a head on Encarta and Expedia, Bill Gates was their 'boss.') Or does this not apply to the actual bosses, the CEO's (not a gendered term), who lead company cultures by example? Are you saying this was a bad outcome, that instead they should both have been ousted, fired? Because the minute they got married, the cat was out of the bag. It would be pretty hard to mount a defense that you're not actually in a relationship with someone, when your two Facebook statuses change to married to that person, don't you think? How it works in normal, balanced workplaces is that employees don't harass each other, and nobody would ever ask you out unless you really, really wantd them to -- not only not your boss, not even the person sitting next to you. Don't you think that is a fairer policy? -- EDIT: downvoters (3 of them), could you kindly explain yourselves? I am open to the possibility that I am wrong, in this case please answer the rhetorical questions above literally or tell me why you disagree.
yarou 10y ago
Eh, things happen. Policies are neat because they let you impose limits to human behavior in a very binary and arbitrary fashion. But humans are complex beings. People fall in and out of love all of the time. It needn't be exploitative. To mandate whom I can or cannot fall in love with is something I will never accept. Nor should anyone.
cthalupa 10y ago
So what happens if the relationship starts when people are equals, and one later gets promoted? What if the people are married? Depending on the policy, you might have people having to leave the company or decline promotions.

tbrownaw 10y ago

How is that a bad outcome? I'd suspect the purpose is less about personal sharing and openness, and more about the company not getting sued when people do things they shouldn't.