In his “New rule” comedy-and-news/opinion segment of Real Time, Bill Maher argues that there’s been too much disapproveal of romances in the workplace. (He mentions the draconian rule proposed by AOC, which demonizes romances between people in Congress and any staffer, no matter who they work for, even though Congresspeople are already prohibited from dating someone who works in their office.)
I agree with his view that we should “not throw out the babymaker with the bathwater”, so long as the romance does not result from a power imbalance that could affect careers, was consensual, and does not involve two people in which one is the other’s boss. I’ll add, though, that Maher’s notion that “consensual” relationships are okay becomes problematic when “consent” is given to avoid angering someone who has power over you. That’s solved by prohibiting romances in Congress (or in universities) when such a power imbalance exists.
Feel free to weigh in here. Maher notes data from Forbes that 43% of workplace romances end in marriage, and his defense of Representative Chuck Edwards, forced to end his campaign for no clearly improper behavior at all, is both sensible and funny (“the only thing this guy couldn’t keep in his pants was his credit card”). The point, which others have made before, is that wokeness often goes hand-in-hand with puritanism.
The guests shown are author Ryan Holiday and Republican pollster and writer Kristin Soltis Anderson.
A relationship between boss and subordinate can (in principle) lead to favoritism by the boss or, if the relationship goes bad, blackmail by the subordinate. It may be appropriate to restrict those. Even if there is no power relationship, breakup of an office romance can negatively impact the workplace or the work.
All that said, I think we should stop looking for behaviors that need preempting. Adults should be able to deal with this stuff the great majority of the time.
“There was less incestuous fucking in Fleetwood Mac”. Hahaha.
My late parents, who had a 50+ year happy marriage, met when he was a young professor and she was a departmental secretary. I’d joke to them, “That would be illegal today.”
In the case of Congress, I agree that relationships should be out of bounds between Congresspeople and staffers. That sort of behaviour opens one up to blackmail, which should be a consideration for anyone holding a position of trust, especially if there are confidential or security matters involved. And, it seems to need saying, if you are married don’t cheat.
This is also why diplomats must be MARRIED.
Supply closet doors notwithstanding, office bro/foe/romance is a microcosm of the relationssphere at large- including all the regional aberrations. Whether blasphemous in some cultures, a “Match Made in Heaven” in others plus a mixed bag of consequences… as Dr. Seuss might say, “Oh the permutations you’ll see!”.
The power imbalance rules seem reasonable to me. when I was young office romances seemed fine, but as I got older I tended to avoid them as that peer could be your subordinate next year – awkward.
Hmm, relationships and power imbalances. … If there should be no power imbalance, then presumably a wealthy person should not marry a poor person; a beautiful person should not marry a less attractive person; a star athlete should not marry a couch potato; a highly intelligent person should not marry a normalo. (Of course, people tend to marry people on a similar level, but this is only a tendency.) And also there is generally a physical power imbalance between a man and a woman. (I realise that these various power imbalances are not all 100% comparable, so just some food for thought.)
Seems to me, perhaps, that avoiding power imbalances in relationships is somewhat utopian. More realistically, we should learn to treat people well despite imbalances of all sorts, as difficult and as this may be and even if it is hardly to be achieved perfectly.
Alas, utopia is precisely what wokery aims for, even if it leads to a policing of sexuality every bit as extensive as that of the puritans.
Women often choose a man who is taller and has higher status and income than them. So could one conclude that power imbalances are attractive to women? Seems pretty rare for a woman to pick a shorter, poorer, and lower status man as a long-term partner.
The guests are actually Jeremy Peters of the New York Times and Dana Bash of CNN.
Since we spend most of the day with our co-workers, there’s going to be romance in the workplace. In all my years in HR, I observed that the problem almost always was the power imbalance, especially if/when things did not end well. It does make sense to have policy/rules that supervisors cannot have romantic relationships with their direct reports. And I get AOC’s reasoning behind Congress People should not date staffers, (power imbalance), but it is hard to police all that!
I agree with that. Although realistically, it will not be stopped, there should be policies to forbid it so that it is at least discouraged and kept out of sight. Also, when the more serious kinds of problems arise, the policy serves as a lever to terminate or suspend someone who abuses their position.
I wonder if instead of forbidding or discouraging it and keeping it out of sight (leading inevitably to secrecy and a string of lies), one might seek to implement a framework to deal with it in sensible ways. One could, e.g. require the one in a position of power who is in a relationship with a subordinate to recuse him/herself from any decisions relating to the subordinate.
Helpful comment from someone with lots of experience and inside knowledge. Thank you!
A bit of advice I was giver early in my career. “Don’t get your meat where you make your bread.”
Maher is right, but I must admit to being prejudiced in my opinion. My wife and I have been married for almost 25 years and we met at what was then our mutual workplace. I had a technically senior position, but I was not her boss and we were in completely separate departments/roles. I never once thought there was anything inappropriate about the relationship and there were no express institutional rules against it. Indeed, it was not the only such relationship occurring there at the time. Though we stayed together as a couple, my future wife and I each got different jobs within about two years, changes that had nothing to do with our relationship. I have no idea what the situation is there today, but I would wager that there are rules that would have stopped us from ever getting started. Our lives would be completely different.
This is not to ignore the problem of power imbalances and the possibility of abuse, but I agree with Maher that we’ve gone too far the other direction.
On a peripheral issue, I am very disappointed that Bill Maher seems lately to be grossly unprepared. He initiated the discussion about Jason Arday, only to lead with the false claim that he was the only black professor at Cambridge. He brought up the topic of the University of Michigan deciding to no longer give grades, only to be challenged by Dana Bash that it was only in the first year (it’s actually only the first semester) and Maher seemed unaware and declared that he didn’t care. A few weeks ago, he ranted against AI, then said that he has no idea of what LLM means. I’m saddened to see his interest in his own show seeming to fade.
I tend to agree, and he’s just not very funny anymore. His humor (or is it his “fire”) has been waning for a few years, imo. There are always a couple funny bits in the opening monologue, but he tends to indulge in contrarian grievances. He ranted about the “Overton window” a few weeks back and proudly asserted he didn’t know what it was or cared. It’s not a difficult concept; shouldn’t you try and understand something before dismissing it? Perhaps he’s just getting old and this gig is about the money more than the passion, nothing new there.
I think he still has the passion, it’s the age (and maybe the pot?) slowing him down a bit. But he is only a bit down, not out.
Bill M. is so correct here.
There will always be power imbalances, before (and after) marriage, in affairs, in romances.
The new puritanism really p’ss me off even though I’m off the dating market. I see it as “Female Toxicity” actually.
D.A.
NYC
FWIW, the original Puritans also blamed mostly women for the problems….
🙂
People get to know each other when they work together. If it’s 2 consenting adults, I think it’s up to them to decide if it’s a relationship they want. The problem of imbalance of power is up to the less powerful person to decide if they want to risk their job. That’s up to that adult to decide how much they want to risk.
I think it’s a pretty tough rule to police.
Already culturally introverted, the “no office romance” policy is a disaster in Japan. With few opportunities to socialize, the workplace is a prime place for people to meet and start relationships. It’s no wonder babies here are considered an endangered species.
I agree that mature people adults be able to make their own decisions, and I agree that there is a problem with a romantic relationship if one partner is in direct chain of command with the other —though I have known such relationships to succeed—marriage, children, etc.
It would be a lot easier if society wasn’t so bat-guano crazy. America, especially, is such a litigious society, anyone with half a grievance sues, and bad breakups can happen. And there are a lot of wierdos out there. Who in hades sends pictures of their genitalia to other people—especially of such pictures are unsolicited—just as one example.
I remember a night at a certain conference where, over lots of whisky, a group of us (n ~ 12; all males) from different universities compared sex in the workplace stories that they knew. The prize for the weirdest was a tie between UC Berkeley and ANU in Canberra.
One of my bosses was known for his affairs with subordinates. He had a “type” that he preferred, and you could literally walk into our office and pick out every woman that he had hired. It became a joke around the office that none of us “old timers”, especially men, would have been hired if he had been in charge when we applied for our jobs. The craziest part was that his wife worked for the same agency, one floor above our office. She most likely knew about his affairs because our boss had worked for at least two other companies and was let go for the same reason. Both times, he was given a chance to walk away with a good resume or be fired for cause. He was finally let go from our agency after a woman he had his sights on complained to HR and his last girlfriend also filed a complaint after being dumped. Again, given the opportunity to walk away or be fired for cause.