91–100 of 313 posts
So obviously relationships are bad when there's a power dynamic, and between different management levels is a common subset of this. However it feels like many people are spending more and more time at work, and it also seems cruel to say: "you cannot get to know anyone romantically during 50-75% of your waking day."
Just not people you have a supervisory role over, because obviously that could be coercive.
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Just not people you have a supervisory role over, because obviously that could be coercive.
Any relationship could be coercive. But just because it's possible for a relationship to be coercive doesn't mean that it is going to be. I don't see what's wrong with a supervisor dating a suboridinate if both parties are consenting and the supervisor is not abusing their power. This taboo has never made much sense to me. The supervisor can already be abusive towards their subordinates. You don't need to introduce a…
Keep in mind the potential problem isn’t just between the supervisor and the subordinate, but with the supervisor and their entire department. Because it’s natural to suspect the supervisor’s lover of getting preferential treatment in terms of pay/benefits/promotions. This suspicion tends to cause an unhealthy work environment.
All of these are good reasons the board might want him gone.
My only other point is that even on Hacker News, everyone assumes it's a female subordinate (count the "she's" in this thread). Not that I have any inside knowledge, but it tells you something in how this policy is interpreted.
So obviously relationships are bad when there's a power dynamic, and between different management levels is a common subset of this. However it feels like many people are spending more and more time at work, and it also seems cruel to say: "you cannot get to know anyone romantically during 50-75% of your waking day."
The policy only applies to people who directly or indirectly report to you. If you're CEO, yeah that means you can't date anyone at work. But for anyone else it only eliminates some % of the dating pool.
And who said that love (and/or lust for that matter) can or should be confined by such BS rules? Or that someone would have to chose between that and their job?
"dating pool" makes it clinical, as if every person is an interchangeable potential fuck/partner. In reality people are attracted to particular persons.
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The problem wasn't that she was a coworker. It was that she was a subordinate. Nobody cares if two engineers hook up, but it's a Very Bad Thing if your boss starts putting the moves on you. Relationships where one person holds real-world power over another are prone to exploitation and violation of consent.
All relationships at work are a bad idea. They're dangerous to the firm and bad for the people's involved careers. Best rule for everyone is no relationships between co-workers and if one happens both people are fired.
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I think the CEO's $19.1 million salary is adequate compensation for the fact his seniority stops him pursuing romantic relationships at work. If it's not, maybe he should have chosen a different job.
Who said it's about the money? The same rule would also hold for a janitor, and they wont have the "compensation".
So obviously relationships are bad when there's a power dynamic, and between different management levels is a common subset of this. However it feels like many people are spending more and more time at work, and it also seems cruel to say: "you cannot get to know anyone romantically during 50-75% of your waking day."
The problem wasn't that she was a coworker. It was that she was a subordinate. Nobody cares if two engineers hook up, but it's a Very Bad Thing if your boss starts putting the moves on you. Relationships where one person holds real-world power over another are prone to exploitation and violation of consent.
oh wait.
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From what I have understood of this topic: If the relationship continues, the power could be used to favour the subordinate over other subordinates (give them good reviews, etc). If the relationship ends poorly, the power could be used to spite the subordinate over other subordinates (give them poor reviews, etc).
Right, so the it's an issue only if the power dynamic is abused. The power imbalance itself is not intrinsically going to cause problems.
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The problem wasn't that she was a coworker. It was that she was a subordinate. Nobody cares if two engineers hook up, but it's a Very Bad Thing if your boss starts putting the moves on you. Relationships where one person holds real-world power over another are prone to exploitation and violation of consent.
It's a good thing if you are attracted to the boss. How do we know that the happiness such consensual relationships bring to employees does not outweigh the unhappiness of potential sexual harassment, averaged over all workers?
If person A doesn't want to have sex with person B and person B would be inordinately happy to have sex with person A, just about all ethical systems would say they shouldn't have sex.
If person A has money in savings and is clinically depressed and person B wants to take that money and go on a vacation that would make them very happy, just about all ethical systems would say, no, that's stealing.
One of the things functional societies do is to limit the amount that certain people can make themselves happy as a mechanism of limiting the amount to which other people get hurt. Banning workplace relationships because of their serious potential for hurt seems like a straightforward case of this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem wasn't that she was a coworker. It was that she was a subordinate. Nobody cares if two engineers hook up, but it's a Very Bad Thing if your boss starts putting the moves on you. Relationships where one person holds real-world power over another are prone to exploitation and violation of consent.
> it's a Very Bad Thing It's happened probably 10s of thousands of times in the past few decades... and some of those couples are now happily married. I personally know of a boss who married his secretary and a professor who married a student. I think the words "Very Bad Thing" are a little excessive. It's risky behavior.