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Comment by YorkshireSeason | Hacker News Reader

   So obviously relationships are bad when 
   there's a power dynamic,

In what sense is this obvious? And according to which substantial notion of power?

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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.

It's a problem for the company even without misconduct. If a coworker claims a promotion went to a romantic partner instead of them because of romance, the company has to spend a bunch of time looking into that, even if there was no misconduct.

It's the same thing with conflicts of interest. The clear possibility for misconduct is a problem that at least must be declared, and at best is avoided.

I suspect you're imagining a single relationship in your head, and imagining that it could go well. Yes, indeed it could. But you have to think at scale. If you have ten of these sorts of relationships in your company, the odds of one of them going kerflooey in an expensive or damaging way is effectively 100%. Heck, the odds of five of them going kerflooey in an expensive or dangerous way has to be at least 90%.

You can't write policy based on imagining single incidents. At scale, power dynamics will be abused, full stop.

But really, how is that different from any other decision an employee might do that prioritises their own personal gain over their company’s benefit?

I don't think it is different.

Companies that are large/sophisticated enough to have formal policies of employee conduct generally ban a wide range of behaviors that prioritizes the employee's personal gain over the company's.

Right, but what's being discussed isn't that the policies are there. It's if they make sense i.e. do they ban something that's actual bad or are they just arbitrary restrictions?

They are there to reduce risk and to reduce unnecessary drama.

It's also common for employees at the same level to give performance reviews to each other. This is better dealt with by having a higher-level manager adjust for relationships.

Yeah I never understood this either. Does that mean a bachelor US president can't date a US citizen?

Yes, power can be abused. But anyone with a knife at home can abuse that knife by stabbing someone. That doesn't make it wrong to own a knife.

>That doesn't make it wrong to own a knife.

There exist a subset of people in the UK (and in other places but the a subset of the UK subset is particularly vocal and influential) who believe the opposite with varying degrees of passion and with various exceptions carved out.

Edit: Pun not intended but I like it so I'm keeping it there.

> ... and with various exceptions carved out.

ISWYDT.

There are already restrictions on knives like switchblades, butterfly knives, bowie knives, stilettos, etc.

The president is not the boss of citizens the way a CEO is employees at her firm. If that's your view of american civics, time to update your civics lessons.

>Yeah I never understood this either. Does that mean a bachelor US president can't date a US citizen?

Is the difference in power between a US president and the given citizen larger than the difference in power between a 18 and 15 year old? If so, and if relationships should be banned based on power differences, then it seems the only logical conclusion is such a relationship should be banned.

Then again, our laws and social morals are rarely so consistent.

I'm more wondering, when is there not a power dynamic?

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