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A huge amount of married couples met at work. Isn't it possible to ask someone at work out respectfully? I fear we focus on edge cases where guys who do that en

A huge amount of married couples met at work. Isn't it possible to ask someone at work out respectfully? I fear we focus on edge cases where guys who do that end up acting like creeps. After all, two people falling in love is more important than any business deal.

bjt 9y ago
The question is whether there's a power imbalance. Investor/founder: not OK. Manager/rank and file employee: not OK. Two peers at the same level of the organization: fine by me if it's mutual, but problems arise if it's not.
- btilly 9y ago
  The problem with peers at the same level is that if they have a messy breakup, it may be hard for them to interact on the job. That said, been there. Done that. Married her. :-)
  - scarface74 9y ago
    I also met my wife at work at a small company. I knew she was a good person and while I wasn't in complete control of whether we broke up, I could control whether the breakup was "bad". The only thing that I could imagine that would make the breakup bad, would be if I didn't show her respect, wasn't honest with her, etc. If I did all of that and we decided to go our separate ways, I feel that we would have been okay professionally. We both needed our jobs and couldn't afford to get fired - especially not in 2009.
mturmon 9y ago
The OP described a non-equal situation. Peers in a large org would be different.
Mz 9y ago
An investor-founder relationship is akin to a boss-underling relationship. In many companies, sleeping with each other is forbidden if one is a direct report of the other and this is the right way to handle it. If two founders of different companies happen to meet at a conference, there is nothing inherently wrong with them dating (assuming it doesn't cause some kind of conflict of interest due to their businesses). But an investor-founder relationship needs to be platonic. Think of it from this angle: You are a heterosexual man pitching a bunch of heterosexual men to get money for your startup. The industry standard is that investors can sleep with founders that are pitching them. If some woman comes in, sleeps with all the investors on the board and gets scads of money for her startup while you get turned down because there was not enough money for both, are you totes happy with that outcome? The reasons for disallowing an investor-founder romance go far beyond protecting women from predatory male behavior.
- solotronics 9y ago
  Your example is a bad one. I don't see why its anyones business how an investor chooses to spend their money. If they are fools and invest in only people they sleep with who cares?
  - Mz 9y ago
    It is actually just a logical outcome of a policy that investors absolutely can sleep with people they are investing in. You may not care, but most of society does care. They want money to be invested in products that will do good things for the world, not in products started by people who are simply willing to sleep their way into power. If rich people want to pay for sex, they can hire sex workers. This is not a good way to do business and create something of value. It means the wrong products are getting funded for the wrong reasons.
    - solotronics 9y ago
      so you are basically saying we should decide how people spend their own money? I don't buy it.
joshAg 9y ago
Yes, it is possible, but rule 0 is you don't date someone in your management chain or who has you in their management chain, and rule 1 is that you shouldn't date someone who you work with regularly. These aren't edge cases. These are the basic ground rules. The possibility of falling in love there is less important than maintaining a professional work environment. Workplaces don't exist for matchmaking. That's not why people are there. If it happens in a way that doesn't negatively impact the workplace, that's great. But that's ancillary.
- pertymcpert 9y ago
  I agree that makes sense in order to prioritise your career at that company. If we look at the bigger picture though, many people reach their later stages in life without having met a partner they can share their life with. It's not easy find, and IMO orders of magnitude harder than finding a new job. To me, if I were in that position I would ignore the basic ground rules and see where it goes. Take a chance on love and if it doesn't work out then go find another job.
  - tome 9y ago
    A reasonable voice finally joins this discussion.
rayiner 9y ago
In fact only 10% of married couples meet at work: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/upshot/members-of-the-opposite-sex-at-work-gender-study.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/upshot/members-of-the-opp.... And I'd bet that only a fraction of those people met in a context where there was a power imbalance. Two people falling in love is not more important than love-seeking behavior poisoning the well for everyone else trying to make their careers. There are tons of other more appropriate avenues for that.
- gpawl 9y ago
  Why do you say 10% is "only"? That's millions of people. Why do you assume there power imbalance was rare? Before recent years, marrying a boss or a professor was quite common. FWIW, among famous people in tech: Jeff Bezos married an underling; Bill Gates married one of his employees; Sergey Brin married an employee's sister, and dated an underling; Larry Page dated an underling.
  - oh_sigh 9y ago
    Well, people spend 35+% of their waking life at work(assuming sleeping 8 hours/day and working 40h/week), so 10% does seem low relative to that.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    > Why do you assume there power imbalance was rare? Before recent years, marrying a boss or a professor was quite common. That occurred in a context where women were categorically limited to lower level roles, so almost any heterosexual workplace relationship involved a power imbalance. You wouldn't expect the same dynamic on a going forward basis, nor is there any reason to structure the workplace to accommodate such relationships.
    - vacri 9y ago
      > You wouldn't expect the same dynamic on a going forward basis Who gets together with someone thinking "Hrm, in 10 years time I'll probably be lower management and she'll still be regular staff"?
mattcoles 9y ago
I think it's important to think about power dynamics, if you're in a position where you have authority/power/control in any way over that person it's not appropriate for you to be asking them out, pretty much period. No matter whether it's a man or a woman doing the asking.

bjt 9y ago

The question is whether there's a power imbalance. Investor/founder: not OK. Manager/rank and file employee: not OK. Two peers at the same level of the organization: fine by me if it's mutual, but problems arise if it's not.

btilly 9y ago
The problem with peers at the same level is that if they have a messy breakup, it may be hard for them to interact on the job. That said, been there. Done that. Married her. :-)
- scarface74 9y ago
  I also met my wife at work at a small company. I knew she was a good person and while I wasn't in complete control of whether we broke up, I could control whether the breakup was "bad". The only thing that I could imagine that would make the breakup bad, would be if I didn't show her respect, wasn't honest with her, etc. If I did all of that and we decided to go our separate ways, I feel that we would have been okay professionally. We both needed our jobs and couldn't afford to get fired - especially not in 2009.

mturmon 9y ago

The OP described a non-equal situation. Peers in a large org would be different.

Mz 9y ago

An investor-founder relationship is akin to a boss-underling relationship. In many companies, sleeping with each other is forbidden if one is a direct report of the other and this is the right way to handle it. If two founders of different companies happen to meet at a conference, there is nothing inherently wrong with them dating (assuming it doesn't cause some kind of conflict of interest due to their businesses). But an investor-founder relationship needs to be platonic. Think of it from this angle: You are a heterosexual man pitching a bunch of heterosexual men to get money for your startup. The industry standard is that investors can sleep with founders that are pitching them. If some woman comes in, sleeps with all the investors on the board and gets scads of money for her startup while you get turned down because there was not enough money for both, are you totes happy with that outcome? The reasons for disallowing an investor-founder romance go far beyond protecting women from predatory male behavior.

solotronics 9y ago
Your example is a bad one. I don't see why its anyones business how an investor chooses to spend their money. If they are fools and invest in only people they sleep with who cares?
- Mz 9y ago
  It is actually just a logical outcome of a policy that investors absolutely can sleep with people they are investing in. You may not care, but most of society does care. They want money to be invested in products that will do good things for the world, not in products started by people who are simply willing to sleep their way into power. If rich people want to pay for sex, they can hire sex workers. This is not a good way to do business and create something of value. It means the wrong products are getting funded for the wrong reasons.
  - solotronics 9y ago
    so you are basically saying we should decide how people spend their own money? I don't buy it.

joshAg 9y ago

Yes, it is possible, but rule 0 is you don't date someone in your management chain or who has you in their management chain, and rule 1 is that you shouldn't date someone who you work with regularly. These aren't edge cases. These are the basic ground rules. The possibility of falling in love there is less important than maintaining a professional work environment. Workplaces don't exist for matchmaking. That's not why people are there. If it happens in a way that doesn't negatively impact the workplace, that's great. But that's ancillary.

pertymcpert 9y ago
I agree that makes sense in order to prioritise your career at that company. If we look at the bigger picture though, many people reach their later stages in life without having met a partner they can share their life with. It's not easy find, and IMO orders of magnitude harder than finding a new job. To me, if I were in that position I would ignore the basic ground rules and see where it goes. Take a chance on love and if it doesn't work out then go find another job.
- tome 9y ago
  A reasonable voice finally joins this discussion.

rayiner 9y ago

In fact only 10% of married couples meet at work: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/upshot/members-of-the-opposite-sex-at-work-gender-study.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/upshot/members-of-the-opp.... And I'd bet that only a fraction of those people met in a context where there was a power imbalance. Two people falling in love is not more important than love-seeking behavior poisoning the well for everyone else trying to make their careers. There are tons of other more appropriate avenues for that.

gpawl 9y ago
Why do you say 10% is "only"? That's millions of people. Why do you assume there power imbalance was rare? Before recent years, marrying a boss or a professor was quite common. FWIW, among famous people in tech: Jeff Bezos married an underling; Bill Gates married one of his employees; Sergey Brin married an employee's sister, and dated an underling; Larry Page dated an underling.
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  Well, people spend 35+% of their waking life at work(assuming sleeping 8 hours/day and working 40h/week), so 10% does seem low relative to that.
- rayiner 9y ago
  > Why do you assume there power imbalance was rare? Before recent years, marrying a boss or a professor was quite common. That occurred in a context where women were categorically limited to lower level roles, so almost any heterosexual workplace relationship involved a power imbalance. You wouldn't expect the same dynamic on a going forward basis, nor is there any reason to structure the workplace to accommodate such relationships.
  - vacri 9y ago
    > You wouldn't expect the same dynamic on a going forward basis Who gets together with someone thinking "Hrm, in 10 years time I'll probably be lower management and she'll still be regular staff"?

mattcoles 9y ago

I think it's important to think about power dynamics, if you're in a position where you have authority/power/control in any way over that person it's not appropriate for you to be asking them out, pretty much period. No matter whether it's a man or a woman doing the asking.