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At a previous company there was an office-romance happening between a manager and one of their employees. While everything seemed fine, once they broke up, all

At a previous company there was an office-romance happening between a manager and one of their employees. While everything seemed fine, once they broke up, all hell broke loose. The employee threatened to sue the company claiming that the manager had forced him in to a relationship to keep his job. It's ridiculous, but a sad fact of life that you have people who will react that way - so this is why a lot of companies will have policies where dating is prohibited or you must divulge your relationship to HR. This isn't enforceable but is more to prevent legal liability if something like the story above were to happen.

Drakim 14y ago
The US has a very sue-happy culture though, things might not escalate that quickly in other parts of the world, thus not requiring so much control of the social side of a workplace.
- elliottcarlson 14y ago
  I think it's far less sue-happy than people think it is - but when you do hear of a ridiculous lawsuit, it will certainly be off-the-wall and for an exorbitant amount of money. Sadly we have a flawed legal system (in oh so many ways) and you will find abusers of the system - and that holds true for any kind of system that can be abused - when they can make a personal gain without much risk. For example, the reason we have a stupid warning on coffee cups about the contents being hot, is because someone decided to sue for getting burned by coffee. This may not have escalated as quickly elsewhere in the world - not because someone wouldn't try it, but perhaps the legal system would have laughed at them instead of allowed for a case to happen. It's not the US culture at blame, and the lack of such people elsewhere in the world who would attempt to make such a lawsuit happen - it's the system that people can easily abuse - and miraculously are able to get away with it. edit: I stand corrected by rfurmani and v0cab below - I actually did read up more about the hot coffee case in the past - and the details completely slipped my mind while posting this. It is not a good example and doesn't really fit the point I was trying to make.
  - rfurmani 14y ago
    Just a nitpick, the hot coffee case wasn't as frivolous as it sounds. McDonalds had been serving its coffee unreasonably hot (190F instead of 140F, which causes third degree burns almost instantly) even though they had previously been warned of the dangers. At one point you have to put a cost to it, so it doesn't just come down to them saving money on refills.
    - m_for_monkey 14y ago
      From the Wikipedia: "A British court later rejected this argument as scientifically false, finding that 149 °F (65 °C) liquid could cause deep tissue damage in only two seconds." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonalds_Restaurants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonalds_Restauran... "If this submission be right, McDonald's should not have served drinks at any temperature which would have caused a bad scalding injury. The evidence is that tea or coffee served at a temperature of 65 °C will cause a deep thickness burn if it is in contact with the skin for just two seconds. Thus, if McDonald’s were going to avoid the risk of injury by a deep thickness burn they would have had to have served tea and coffee at between 55 °C and 60 °C. But tea ought to be brewed with boiling water if it is to give its best flavour and coffee ought to be brewed at between 85 °C and 95 °C. Further, people generally like to allow a hot drink to cool to the temperature they prefer. Accordingly, I have no doubt that tea and coffee served at between 55 °C and 60 °C would not have been acceptable to McDonald's customers. Indeed, on the evidence, I find that the public want to be able to buy tea and coffee served hot, that is to say at a temperature of at least 65 °C, even though they know (as I think they must be taken to do for the purposes of answering issues (1) and (2)) that there is a risk of a scalding injury if the drink is spilled." http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2002/490.html http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/...
    - treerock 14y ago
      Still sounds pretty frivolous. Tea is generally made from a boiling kettle (210F) poured on a teabag. Still millions of us manage that without burning ourselves.
  - v0cab 14y ago
yason 14y ago
So the office romance per se wasn't the problem but the system that allowed concretely bad things to emanate from it. If the courts take such lawsuits seriously, then that allows people to shift responsibility away from themselves and that's generally when bad things start happening. In another culture the two would've just broken up, caused a stir in the office, and in the worst case one of them might have left the company if they wouldn't have been able to recover and speak to each other again.
- herval 14y ago
  What if the claims were real? Employee coersion and sexual harassment DO exist, you know...

Drakim 14y ago

The US has a very sue-happy culture though, things might not escalate that quickly in other parts of the world, thus not requiring so much control of the social side of a workplace.

elliottcarlson 14y ago
I think it's far less sue-happy than people think it is - but when you do hear of a ridiculous lawsuit, it will certainly be off-the-wall and for an exorbitant amount of money. Sadly we have a flawed legal system (in oh so many ways) and you will find abusers of the system - and that holds true for any kind of system that can be abused - when they can make a personal gain without much risk. For example, the reason we have a stupid warning on coffee cups about the contents being hot, is because someone decided to sue for getting burned by coffee. This may not have escalated as quickly elsewhere in the world - not because someone wouldn't try it, but perhaps the legal system would have laughed at them instead of allowed for a case to happen. It's not the US culture at blame, and the lack of such people elsewhere in the world who would attempt to make such a lawsuit happen - it's the system that people can easily abuse - and miraculously are able to get away with it. edit: I stand corrected by rfurmani and v0cab below - I actually did read up more about the hot coffee case in the past - and the details completely slipped my mind while posting this. It is not a good example and doesn't really fit the point I was trying to make.
- rfurmani 14y ago
  Just a nitpick, the hot coffee case wasn't as frivolous as it sounds. McDonalds had been serving its coffee unreasonably hot (190F instead of 140F, which causes third degree burns almost instantly) even though they had previously been warned of the dangers. At one point you have to put a cost to it, so it doesn't just come down to them saving money on refills.
  - m_for_monkey 14y ago
    From the Wikipedia: "A British court later rejected this argument as scientifically false, finding that 149 °F (65 °C) liquid could cause deep tissue damage in only two seconds." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonalds_Restaurants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonalds_Restauran... "If this submission be right, McDonald's should not have served drinks at any temperature which would have caused a bad scalding injury. The evidence is that tea or coffee served at a temperature of 65 °C will cause a deep thickness burn if it is in contact with the skin for just two seconds. Thus, if McDonald’s were going to avoid the risk of injury by a deep thickness burn they would have had to have served tea and coffee at between 55 °C and 60 °C. But tea ought to be brewed with boiling water if it is to give its best flavour and coffee ought to be brewed at between 85 °C and 95 °C. Further, people generally like to allow a hot drink to cool to the temperature they prefer. Accordingly, I have no doubt that tea and coffee served at between 55 °C and 60 °C would not have been acceptable to McDonald's customers. Indeed, on the evidence, I find that the public want to be able to buy tea and coffee served hot, that is to say at a temperature of at least 65 °C, even though they know (as I think they must be taken to do for the purposes of answering issues (1) and (2)) that there is a risk of a scalding injury if the drink is spilled." http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2002/490.html http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/...
  - treerock 14y ago
    Still sounds pretty frivolous. Tea is generally made from a boiling kettle (210F) poured on a teabag. Still millions of us manage that without burning ourselves.
- v0cab 14y ago

yason 14y ago

So the office romance per se wasn't the problem but the system that allowed concretely bad things to emanate from it. If the courts take such lawsuits seriously, then that allows people to shift responsibility away from themselves and that's generally when bad things start happening. In another culture the two would've just broken up, caused a stir in the office, and in the worst case one of them might have left the company if they wouldn't have been able to recover and speak to each other again.

herval 14y ago
What if the claims were real? Employee coersion and sexual harassment DO exist, you know...