MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2019 8:29 pmThat's indeed a good personal rule. Certainly what I would normally advise my son or daughter.Peter Brown wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2019 4:56 pm
I still have no idea what you are trying to say. If you date 'peer to peer' and over time one becomes more powerful in the company? Look, I agree with MDlax that when people spend time together, 'things' are bound to happen no matter what rules we have in force; that's why really intelligent people make the mistake knowing full well it is wrong. The better rule is to try your best to never date anyone inside the same company you work for.
But here's a scenario. Company recruits my son, he accepts offer, and they ask him if he knows anyone else who would be interested in coming to New Zealand (and now Shanghai). He says, how about my girlfriend? They interview and hire her, they move to NZ, working in different areas, but side by side much of the time. Company then asks the two of them to move to Shanghai, help open a new office, grow the business. He's a kid who didn't want to go with his lax buddies to NYC as it was 'too big', claustrophobic...she persuades him to go look, he loves it and they both move. He's now running the fastest growing part of a now $300mm valuation business, a year and a half later, age 26. She's managing a different functional part of the business, same region. Both working their tails off, but also getting to see a part of the world they'd never imagined being part of their life journey.
Oh yeah, the company was founded by a boyfriend (CEO), now 25, and girlfriend (COO) while still in HS in NZ...they remained boyfriend and girlfriend up until recently; that's gonna be interesting ...CEO was a college class grad year with my son at HU (though CEO finished in 3 years with BS and MA degrees, while running the co, Stanford B-school, raised $30mm on $200mm val, Tiger Global, etc). My son was busy playing lax...the slacker!
Point is, this stuff is much more complicated than a simple 'rule' covers. I have difficulty calling relationships that are actually meaningful, loving relationships as something "wrong". Fraught with potential problems, yes, but "wrong" I'd reserve for actual abuse of power situations, harassment, assault, etc.
Yours is an interesting situation to say the least. I would need to get advice from some very intelligent HR folks; even they might get stumped. I can be persuaded on both sides of that coin, therefore all I can say is I have no idea. I agree with your last paragraph obviously.