Suck it, Cupid. You don’t work here!

Happy Valentine’s Day

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I hate romance in the workplace.  It doesn’t matter if it is an illicit affair, people who have actually found true love, or just sex in the building. It seldom works out well.

And being HR, you are going to get sucked in sooner or later.  Here’s one example of office romance I had to deal with a few years ago.

Two managers doing the classic office affair – stealing away for lunches, working late and being seen leaving the Holiday Inn located directly across the street from the office.  Finally,  they just driving their cars over and parking them outside the hotel to catch their post work quickie because of wintry weather and a lack of caring.   since they both reported directly to our plant manager, he asked me to speak them about this behavior.   More specifically, he asked me to speak the male involved because “he has a family involved here”.  Let’s call him “Cupid”.   The woman, with a husband and two kids at home, was apparently just a wastrel slut not worthy of counseling.  I’ll call her “Carol”.

I ask Cupid to my office one day after a meeting and tell him everyone knows about his romance with “Carol”.    He looks at me with his completely innocent face and tells me he has no idea what I am talking about.  They are just friends.  Yeah, they might have had a couple of drinks at the Holiday Inn after work, but he is just counseling her on her spiritual needs.  They both go to the same church after all.    Cupid assures me everything is fine, and asks me not to speak to “Carol” about this.  He doesn’t want her to get upset or scared.   She is going through enough already.  I suggest to Cupid that they might want to exercise some discretion and stop displaying such bad  judgment in where and how they comport themselves, and that as long as it stays outside the workplace, that is what I wanted to discuss.  Thanks for listening.

Five minutes later, “Carol” arrives on my doorstep screaming at me for spying on her, and sticking my nose into her personal life.  It is nobodie’s effing business who she has drinks with or who her friends are, or what she does with who after work anyway.  Keep your nose out of it.  She and Cupid are madly in love, and are making plans to be together. I make similar observations and suggestions to Carol as I made to Cupid. She leaves pissed.

The next week, Cupid get caught in the lady’s room engaged in wrongful workplace activity with another woman.  We fire him and the paramour.  Carol quits a week later to go move in with Cupid, and move to another state.

Turns out I was right all along about their bad judgment.

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Tagged as: Classroom, Cupid, DayValentine, holiday, Holiday Inn, Opinion, Romance, Valentine