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Comment by Mz | Hacker News Reader

An extremely popular man was fired two days earlier (for either sexual harassment or an affair or both). Tensions in the department were crazy high that week. It was not a normal situation. That was a factor in my decision to not speak with him at that time.

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I hope it was sexual harassment, or can you really be fired for having an affair?

In many companies the policy is that people in positions of power can't have relationships with their underlings. i.e. a VP having sex with their executive assistant would probably cross the line into unethical behavior on a number of fronts. Even if both parties entered it willingly and with no coercion or implied retaliation for saying "no", there may be questions of favoritism among other employees. The assistant would never be able to rise within the company without that doubt creeping in about their competence.

So, if it's not the official policy in an office, it is probably still grounds for action, since most offices expect a certain level of ethical behavior toward coworkers.

That makes sense, thanks.

As someone who has been first working alongside and later as overseeing engineer for my fiancee (both as programmers over the last few years), this saddens me a little bit. Not to suggest that I don't see why things like this might cause problems, but that for me (and for my boss, who is a researcher along side his wife) it's been an overwhelmingly positive and productive experience.

Some companies simply require relationships to be reported to HR. There are tons of different ways to deal with the problem. But, it definitely is an ethical dilemma. I tend to recommend to friends that they avoid office romances unless the romance is more important than the job to them, especially in situations where there is a power imbalance.

I've seen various statistics, but I think up to 20% of marriages are between people who met at work. That's why I also tend to remain skeptic about that approach to the issue (to simply forbid relationships between employees).

Working alongside your gf or wife is one thing. But if she reports to you, do you get to decide her annual review rating? Do you decide her raises? If she's not doing her fair share of work, do you warn her and then fire her?

There are reasons why managers can't generally have relationships with a direct report. HR at my company forbids it.

There may be some truth in to that. I do contribute to her annual review and am responsible for making sure she's completing work effectively, but I don't decide raises or determine firing, which are probably the most powerful capabilities one can have.

That being said, perhaps this is a way to work around the normal pitfalls, where if there is a potential conflict, the person in question can be a "practical" manager, but perhaps not a "supervisory" manager. Those are horrible words for it, but I mean in that one manager would be actively overseeing the work, and the other would be a lower level of involvement check/balance against the former. It may be more manpower to do this, but it's generally how the engineering teams here work out anyway; that there are the engineers who have been here longer overseeing the new hires in the work, with a more uninvolved formal supervisory structure as well.

(This has other problems, I'll openly add, but has allowed for a situation like mine to exist, so it does make me look twice.)

Sorry for the essay, this ended up being a lot longer than I had originally intended.

At Wal-Mart, dating a coworker is grounds for termination.

Some companies have explicit "no fraternization" policies which forbid sexual relations between employees. Also some allow it, but it has be publicly disclosed and the two can't be, for example, in the same department or one can't be a supervisor of the other. If he was high up in the chain (depending on the organization), it can be assumed/argued having an affair would be unwanted because he becomes a target for blackmail and becomes a reason for termination. You also generally are disallowed to have sexual relations with a customer.

Also certain organizations forbid higher ranking and lower ranking people to even hang out outside of work, develop close personal relationships, or even have about personal/non-work conversations. Many militaries operate this way. My sister also worked for an organization that had this policy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraternization

So that's reason to treat employees like lepers and impose your paranoia on them? You weren't taking his feelings into a count, you simply declared them as something to be managed, and you as the authority. Did it ever occur to you that you might've been wrong?

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