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Everything about living on the Ice is more intense; it often feels like the station and crew is the entire world. Romantic relationships are a perpetual source

Everything about living on the Ice is more intense; it often feels like the station and crew is the entire world. Romantic relationships are a perpetual source of tension and conflict, and little squabbles can grow to have truly outsize effects. A silly example (from the US program several years ago) - we had summer-season emergency response drills be completely derailed because the leads of the two main groups were a couple and had squabbled the night before - one had their people simply not show up. Never mind that these two people's main roles were exactly to be in charge, one was completely unqualified for that role, discipline/replacement would be relatively easy for either, and everyone knew what was going on. So, I can see why the rules would stipulate that the leader can't become romantically involved with a crew member over winter. But of course rules like that have no teeth, so it's really up to the integrity and ability of the leader.

darkarmani 6y ago
> I can see why the rules would stipulate that the leader can't become romantically involved with a crew member over winter. And i guess some people think a pat on the back is romance. ;) It seems easy to clear up any misunderstandings, but maybe it was because she was tempted?
- bacon_waffle 6y ago
  This is not about whether the author thinks a pat on the back is romance, nor about her temptation. Imagine a scenario like that emergency response drill, but where higher-ups took notice and decided to make a rule to prevent it from happening again. Since those higher-ups had authority over hiring both individuals, they're not likely to lay blame on the immature (to put it nicely) behaviour of the couple, but instead on the romantic relationship. How do they encode "station managers can't start dating crew members" in bureaucrat? So, a stupid rule gets added to the books, which doesn't really solve the problem, and upstanding managers have to pay attention to it forever more.

darkarmani 6y ago

> I can see why the rules would stipulate that the leader can't become romantically involved with a crew member over winter. And i guess some people think a pat on the back is romance. ;) It seems easy to clear up any misunderstandings, but maybe it was because she was tempted?

bacon_waffle 6y ago
This is not about whether the author thinks a pat on the back is romance, nor about her temptation. Imagine a scenario like that emergency response drill, but where higher-ups took notice and decided to make a rule to prevent it from happening again. Since those higher-ups had authority over hiring both individuals, they're not likely to lay blame on the immature (to put it nicely) behaviour of the couple, but instead on the romantic relationship. How do they encode "station managers can't start dating crew members" in bureaucrat? So, a stupid rule gets added to the books, which doesn't really solve the problem, and upstanding managers have to pay attention to it forever more.