4 ms·

The “political incorrectness” angle is really an unnecessary and very stupid aside that tarnishes an otherwise decent piece: > Nor could [Office Romance] be mu

The “political incorrectness” angle is really an unnecessary and very stupid aside that tarnishes an otherwise decent piece: > Nor could [Office Romance] be much less politically correct. One can only imagine what a modern HR-manager would make of Office Romance, of its “power-imbalances”, “problematic” attitudes and “inappropriate” behaviour. That said, the same HR-manager should at least pause to wonder what, in doing all we can to make such relationships shameful and unfeasible, we’re also doing to ourselves. The correct answer of course is that any professional, HR or otherwise, prioritizes facts over nice stories in movies. And the facts are that many supervisor-subordinate relationships are exploitative, often start from illegal harassment, and in any event are bad for business. Putting concepts like power imbalances and inappropriate behavior in scare quotes is just creepy and indicates sexist contempt for victims of workplace sexual harassment. Markowski is clearly working in his politics here (which are largely centered around hyperventilating about “cancel culture”), but even by the standards of the genre it is particularly gross to suggest that the only people concerned about bosses who sleep with their employees are the PC Prudes who run HR.

inglor_cz 6y ago
An already dead veteran of pair counseling here in Czechia once wrote that of 400 randomly chosen cases of marital infidelity that ended up in his office, 397 started in the workplace. People spend a lot of time together in the workplace, more than with their family. It is likely that sex will continue to happen there. No doubt some of it is really exploitative; but nowhere nearly all of it.
- watwut 6y ago
  That however says nothing about how many of those that went on between boss ans employe were exploitative, coerced or massive nepotism where boss is giving goods to those that will couple. It is orthogonal thing.
Veen 6y ago
> And the facts are that many supervisor-subordinate relationships are exploitative It's also a fact that many happy marriages began as a relationship between superior and subordinate.
- mycologos 6y ago
  > It's also a fact that many happy marriages began as a relationship between superior and subordinate. I'm curious about what fraction of superior-subordinate relationships you think culminate in happy marriages, and how low that fraction has to go before you decide that forbidding superior-subordinate relationships is a lot easier than negotiating the messy world of allowing it? My guess is that the fraction is pretty low, and the world of HR standards in the west has already been through this calculus.
  - Veen 6y ago
    > the world of HR standards in the west has already been through this calculus HR's calculus is dominated by considerations of risk to the business, something about which I care not one jot. The standards of American corporate HR departments certainly should not be society's standard for what constitutes acceptable behavior. As for what fraction of such relationships are "happy marriages," I don't know. I do know that my parents met that way, as did several couples of my acquaintance.
tjalfi 6y ago
Miller v. Dept of Corrections[0] is a good example of this type of toxic work environment. [0] https://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/miller-v-dept-corrections-33548 https://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/miller-v-dept-correction...
throw11711 6y ago
Yeah you are correct and as usual on HN when it comes to these things, you got downvoted. These kinda coercions by people in power are rampant. Just as an example, here is something from Silicon Valley's crown jewel Google. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-... https://qz.com/work/1326942/sergey-brin-started-google-with-some-strange-ideas-about-his-female-employees-according-to-a-new-book/ https://qz.com/work/1326942/sergey-brin-started-google-with-... It's the victims that suffer because they report.

inglor_cz 6y ago

An already dead veteran of pair counseling here in Czechia once wrote that of 400 randomly chosen cases of marital infidelity that ended up in his office, 397 started in the workplace. People spend a lot of time together in the workplace, more than with their family. It is likely that sex will continue to happen there. No doubt some of it is really exploitative; but nowhere nearly all of it.

watwut 6y ago
That however says nothing about how many of those that went on between boss ans employe were exploitative, coerced or massive nepotism where boss is giving goods to those that will couple. It is orthogonal thing.

Veen 6y ago

> And the facts are that many supervisor-subordinate relationships are exploitative It's also a fact that many happy marriages began as a relationship between superior and subordinate.

mycologos 6y ago
> It's also a fact that many happy marriages began as a relationship between superior and subordinate. I'm curious about what fraction of superior-subordinate relationships you think culminate in happy marriages, and how low that fraction has to go before you decide that forbidding superior-subordinate relationships is a lot easier than negotiating the messy world of allowing it? My guess is that the fraction is pretty low, and the world of HR standards in the west has already been through this calculus.
- Veen 6y ago
  > the world of HR standards in the west has already been through this calculus HR's calculus is dominated by considerations of risk to the business, something about which I care not one jot. The standards of American corporate HR departments certainly should not be society's standard for what constitutes acceptable behavior. As for what fraction of such relationships are "happy marriages," I don't know. I do know that my parents met that way, as did several couples of my acquaintance.

tjalfi 6y ago

Miller v. Dept of Corrections[0] is a good example of this type of toxic work environment. [0] https://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/miller-v-dept-corrections-33548 https://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/miller-v-dept-correction...

throw11711 6y ago

Yeah you are correct and as usual on HN when it comes to these things, you got downvoted. These kinda coercions by people in power are rampant. Just as an example, here is something from Silicon Valley's crown jewel Google. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-... https://qz.com/work/1326942/sergey-brin-started-google-with-some-strange-ideas-about-his-female-employees-according-to-a-new-book/ https://qz.com/work/1326942/sergey-brin-started-google-with-... It's the victims that suffer because they report.