Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does the federal government deal with the no sex rule between supervisors and subordinates?

Ask Bill Clinton! It didn't work out to well for him.

That depends on what the definition of "it" is.

Anonymous wrote:What are the rules if the married boss (very valuable to the company) gets into a relation with a subordinate? Both get fired?

Yes. Boss gets fired. When I was at Lockheed Martin corporate office they were always removing leaders across the operating companies for affairs with subordinates.

Hell - even their named new CEO got fired for an affair right before he was to take over. Made national news.

Anonymous wrote:The problem with office romances is not the romances themselves. It's when the relationship results in other violations of workplace policies.

The problem is that people are idiots, basically. Some people can't figure out how to date someone at work without doing gross or idiotic things like having sex in the office, creating awkwardness with colleagues, saying or doing inappropriate things at work or on work travel, getting involved with married colleagues such that it becomes a distracting drama for all involved, and being unable to behave like mature adults if the relationship ends. Also yes, as a PP said, if one person becomes the other person's boss (especially if not disclosing the relationship in advance to prevent this from happening) there are a whole host of issues this can cause.

That's why it's discouraged. Not because there's anything inherently wrong with dating a peer at work -- it makes sense that relationships will pop up when you spend a lot of time with people. The problem is that most people have too little self control and no guiding sense of ethics and do stupid things that become a distraction or worse, thus ruining the workplace for others.

Right? For every Jim and Pam, there is a Dwight, Angela, and Andy.

Anonymous wrote:Several of us ended up eventually marrying our fellow residents (medical training). It wasn’t surprising since everyone spent so much time together. There was a scandal involving a male resident and a married female attending that resulted in both of them having to find new positions elsewhere but that’s about the extent of drama I encountered.

DH and I got in trouble once for kissing in the hallway outside the call rooms .

And I thought this thread was about a rule forbidding sex in the actual office.

Anonymous wrote:How does the federal government deal with the no sex rule between supervisors and subordinates?

Ten years later the OIG will go after them if it's a toxic environment and the subordinate was obviously promoted because of it. But I mean now you have Cabinet level employees harassing multiple subordinates or buying agency jets to have sex with coworkers.

Anonymous wrote:How does the federal government deal with the no sex rule between supervisors and subordinates?

Ask Bill Clinton! It didn't work out to well for him.

How does the federal government deal with the no sex rule between supervisors and subordinates?

I'm not totally opposed to workplace romances but I will admit that the most awful, toxic workplace I've ever been in involved a ton of relationships between the staff and it was a huge problem. It makes people very unprofessional. Breakups also caused huge difficulties. And yes, people being in relationships and then getting promoted was an issue. In one case a woman was promoted and agreed to break up with the on-again, off-again person she would now be managing, but I don't think it mattered? Their prior relationship obviously impacted their working relationship and she continued to play favorites. There was another situation that was even worse, where two manager-level people had been dating before they came to work there, and then continued to date, but then broke up and both started dating other people in the company. Neither were direct supervisors to the people they were dating, but it was hella messy and uncomfortable and also fed an already overactive office gossip culture.

Just a nightmare. That was when I realized why some companies have anti-fraternization policies. But most place I've worked the relationships have been more minimal and people were able to be mature about it.

I worked for a company in the 90s and I was clueless about the level of sexual activity. A few years after I left I had lunch with two former colleagues and they told me all about it. Most of the people were single but there were married people and boss/subordinate affairs. I guess I was pretty naive or just working too hard.

It's not reasonable to completely forbid sex between coworkers when everyone spends so much time in the office. You definitely wouldn't be able to recruit the best sales team with such a rule.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t cum where you eat.

If you want some ass, there are so many place to find it aside from the office. You either get married or it’s flame-out drama. There’s no middle ground.

interesting variation…I was going to write office hookups are like defecating where you eat. Hasn’t anyone learned anything from the Cold Play kiss cam incident? I guess we are in desperate times.

That incident was a boss-subordinate relationship. If they had been peers it wouldn't have been as big a deal.

but as other PPs have mentioned, the professional roles evolve and a peer can advance to leadership. Also any type of relationship can reach a level of messiness that can impact work performance. It’s just not a smart thing to do and there are so many other people in the world to date.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t cum where you eat.

If you want some ass, there are so many place to find it aside from the office. You either get married or it’s flame-out drama. There’s no middle ground.

interesting variation…I was going to write office hookups are like defecating where you eat. Hasn’t anyone learned anything from the Cold Play kiss cam incident? I guess we are in desperate times.

That incident was a boss-subordinate relationship. If they had been peers it wouldn't have been as big a deal.

That one was messy in every respect -- power differential, they were married (tho she at least was divorced), it was being kept a secret. Also was the concert itself a work event? I think it was, and IMO engaging in physically affectionate behavior at work events is also dicey because it tends to make others feel uncomfortable -- it's one thing for your colleagues to have a romantic or sexual relationship outside of work, it's something else to be required to watch your colleagues make out or wrap themselves around each other at a work function you are required to attend.

What’s going on in this company that this message needed to be spoken out loud?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t cum where you eat.

If you want some ass, there are so many place to find it aside from the office. You either get married or it’s flame-out drama. There’s no middle ground.

interesting variation…I was going to write office hookups are like defecating where you eat. Hasn’t anyone learned anything from the Cold Play kiss cam incident? I guess we are in desperate times.

That incident was a boss-subordinate relationship. If they had been peers it wouldn't have been as big a deal.