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.