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On the other hand, think about how much time you spend at work. How close your interactions are with others. We - human beings - are jammed into little 4-walled

On the other hand, think about how much time you spend at work. How close your interactions are with others. We - human beings - are jammed into little 4-walled boxes for the majority of our days with a bunch of people we already have something huge in common with...and told not to get too close with them. It's pretty wild, the whole scenario.

deleted 9y ago
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rayiner 9y ago
As a married guy I find this line of thinking hard to understand. “How are we supposed to work so closely with these people without getting ‘too close?’” Uh, I’m not allowed to solicit a date in any context: work, the grocery store, cafes, etc. Somehow I manage, and so do most married people.
- xkcd-sucks 9y ago
  As a married guy, if your marriage is truly fulfilling, this problem is irrelevant to you. Given that proximity is the single largest determining factor in romantic partnership, if you work the majority of your time then coworkers will be your most promising dating pool. If you don't work much, you're probably stressed from unemployment. The number of people that have free time to enjoy close proximity with non-coworkers is certainly a minority.
- drchickensalad 9y ago
  It's not that point I read from the parent. It's that they're prime candidates so it's unfortunate to waste that connection. Not that it in any way is hard to resist urges.
BlanketApple 9y ago
> told not to get too close with them Well, I don't think that's true really. Nobody cares if you're close friends with your co-workers. Many co-workers are close friends. But, I get that you meant romantic relationships. The problem of course being that there's so much negative baggage that often accompanies unsuccessful or unrequited romantic interest, all of it detrimental to the company. For example: If a subordinate rejects a superior's advances, and there's even a whiff of unfair treatment (being passed over for promotion, for example), the subordinate has a legitimate grievance that they didn't before. The woman in the article, for example, that rejected her boss's advances and then was later let go for "poor performance": Maybe she really was performing extremely poorly! And maybe the boss really was totally over it immediately. But she now has a pretty solid case that it was retaliation, forever. It just puts the company in a position where they have to be hyper-vigilant about monitoring things like this, and it's a huge waste of resources. Regardless of how valuable you are to the company, you're almost certainly not worth the huge headache that you just caused.
- rayiner 9y ago
  > For example: If a subordinate rejects a superior's advances, and there's even a whiff of unfair treatment (being passed over for promotion, for example), the subordinate has a legitimate grievance that they didn't before The damage happens the minute the superior makes the advance. Maybe the superior is enlightened and won’t hold a rejection against the subordinate. But how is the subordinate supposed to know that? It puts the subordinate person in an incredibly stressful situation. And even if the superior thinks they can be objective, is that true? Will the superior continue to treat the subordinate exactly the same, try to mentor and help the subordinate move up in the company? Or will the superior try to decrease contact with the subordinate in order to avoid awkwardness? That robs the subordinate of career opportunities, just because they attracted the eye of a superior. That’s incredibly fucked up.
  - BlanketApple 9y ago
    All very true. I was more thinking from the company's perspective (who often are the ones overtly discouraging inter-office relationships).

deleted 9y ago

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rayiner 9y ago

As a married guy I find this line of thinking hard to understand. “How are we supposed to work so closely with these people without getting ‘too close?’” Uh, I’m not allowed to solicit a date in any context: work, the grocery store, cafes, etc. Somehow I manage, and so do most married people.

xkcd-sucks 9y ago
As a married guy, if your marriage is truly fulfilling, this problem is irrelevant to you. Given that proximity is the single largest determining factor in romantic partnership, if you work the majority of your time then coworkers will be your most promising dating pool. If you don't work much, you're probably stressed from unemployment. The number of people that have free time to enjoy close proximity with non-coworkers is certainly a minority.
drchickensalad 9y ago
It's not that point I read from the parent. It's that they're prime candidates so it's unfortunate to waste that connection. Not that it in any way is hard to resist urges.

BlanketApple 9y ago

> told not to get too close with them Well, I don't think that's true really. Nobody cares if you're close friends with your co-workers. Many co-workers are close friends. But, I get that you meant romantic relationships. The problem of course being that there's so much negative baggage that often accompanies unsuccessful or unrequited romantic interest, all of it detrimental to the company. For example: If a subordinate rejects a superior's advances, and there's even a whiff of unfair treatment (being passed over for promotion, for example), the subordinate has a legitimate grievance that they didn't before. The woman in the article, for example, that rejected her boss's advances and then was later let go for "poor performance": Maybe she really was performing extremely poorly! And maybe the boss really was totally over it immediately. But she now has a pretty solid case that it was retaliation, forever. It just puts the company in a position where they have to be hyper-vigilant about monitoring things like this, and it's a huge waste of resources. Regardless of how valuable you are to the company, you're almost certainly not worth the huge headache that you just caused.

rayiner 9y ago
> For example: If a subordinate rejects a superior's advances, and there's even a whiff of unfair treatment (being passed over for promotion, for example), the subordinate has a legitimate grievance that they didn't before The damage happens the minute the superior makes the advance. Maybe the superior is enlightened and won’t hold a rejection against the subordinate. But how is the subordinate supposed to know that? It puts the subordinate person in an incredibly stressful situation. And even if the superior thinks they can be objective, is that true? Will the superior continue to treat the subordinate exactly the same, try to mentor and help the subordinate move up in the company? Or will the superior try to decrease contact with the subordinate in order to avoid awkwardness? That robs the subordinate of career opportunities, just because they attracted the eye of a superior. That’s incredibly fucked up.
- BlanketApple 9y ago
  All very true. I was more thinking from the company's perspective (who often are the ones overtly discouraging inter-office relationships).