Unemployment would rocket if everyone who had an affair at work got the sack
I MET my husband at work. It is worth saying that before I wade in on McDonald’s firing of boss Steve Easterbrook following his relationship with an employee.
When my relationship began with my other half Paul, who played for Birmingham City between 1992 and 1994, I couldn’t see a problem with it.
We were single. We liked each other. We became friends. We fell in love and we got married. Our work lives, I can safely say, were in no way compromised by the relationship. Although it came close when I sold him, in 1996, to another team . . . for the second time.
That was 25 years ago. You could still smoke in pubs. When I went to my first match as City’s MD, I was escorted to the “Ladies’ Room”. Women in football existed only to adorn the arms of players and managers. We were banned from the boardroom. Thankfully, times have changed.
Clearly, in the #MeToo era, work-place relationships are no longer acceptable to some, especially when one half of the couple is “the boss”. Some might consider that a bit of a scorched-earth result. After all, if you spend most of your waking hours at work, surely the law of averages suggests some people will hit it off after spending so much time together.
But big companies are taking no chances these days. Once, boards of directors turned a blind eye to executives’ “skirt-chasing”.
The #MeToo and Time’s Up movements — sparked by Harvey Weinstein exploiting his power over employees to coerce them into doing things they didn’t want to — have recast things for ever.
Many companies now have a formal ban on work relationships. Relationships between supervisors and the people they manage MIGHT be innocent and fine. But what if someone is sleeping with the boss and gets a promotion?
'POOR JUDGEMENT'
Even if that promotion is deserved, it is bound to look like a conflict of interests. Worse, what if they are sacked? The bottom line is that if one half of a workplace couple is the boss, there is an imbalance — leading to the question of whether a junior colleague may feel coerced into agreeing to something they don’t want to do.
Perhaps the only way to prevent that is to ban all work relationships, even if that seems like the definition of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
But given the risks of lawsuits and litigation, you can see why some big firms have decided an outright ban is the best approach. It is neither here nor there that Steve Easterbrook’s relationship was consensual.
His wrongdoing, according to the US fast-food chain, was that he “violated company policy” and showed “poor judgment”.
I feel bad for him, though with the millions he will pocket in severance pay, he should survive. I believe axing Easterbrook, who is divorced and was appointed CEO in 2015, was a terrible business move. The firm’s share price more than doubled during his tenure in the US.
News of his departure wiped £4BILLION from the chain’s value. It has lost a great CEO but had to stick to its guns.
The affair is not necessarily the problem, so much as the fallout when and if things go wrong. That said, we are only human (not just human resources).
If you fall for someone at work, it’s hard to deny your feelings, especially if you are two single adults and there are no complications. If everyone who had an affair at work got the sack, unemployment would rocket.
You don't own your girl, T.I.
CAN it really be true that US rapper T.I. takes his 18-year-old daughter to the gynaecologist every year to find out if she is still a virgin?
On the Ladies Like Us podcast last week, he was asked if he had spoken to his daughter Deyjah Harris, who is in her first year of university, about sex.
“Not only have we had the conversation, we have yearly trips to the gynaecologist to check her hymen,” he said.
If this is true, it’s the grossest, most colossal invasion of her privacy.
And what message does it send to his daughter about men’s rights over women’s bodies? It’s horrific!
He doesn’t own her, or her virginity.
Workplace revolution
NO doubt many people will be interested to read about Labour’s plans to allow millions of workers to set their own hours under dramatic new plans for a “workplace revolution”.
If Jeremy Corbyn wins the election, Labour will bring in a new “presumption in favour of flexible working” – under which all staff will get the right to choose their work hours.
The party said bosses would have to give particular thought to women with the menopause who demand flexible hours.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? Almost . . . Utopian, some might say.
I want to know what they are smoking at the Labour Party HQ.
Game's up for kids in China
DID you see the news that a new law in China has banned children from playing online games for more than an hour and a half a day, as well as after 10pm?
And kids under the age of eight have been prohibited from playing games that require payment.
The rules were tightened this week in a bid by Beijing to curb gaming addiction among youngsters.
All I can say is I think it would take a Government ban to get some kids I know off their screens . . . so perhaps police states do have some advantages.
Show 'Em single life is ok
YES, the phrase “self-partnered” is clearly ridiculous. But good on Emma Watson – who described herself as such because she is unattached and childless at 29 – for celebrating and enjoying single life while it lasts.
Her silly term is another way of saying: “I love myself – and don’t assume I am failing because I am not married and don’t have kids.”
Being married with children is not the only hallmark of success or the only thing women want at 30. Bagging a husband was the least of my achievements. Still, there is so much pressure on women.
Maybe it is the pressure women feel about whether they are dating or not that made the actress feel she needed to coin a phrase to describe simply being single through choice – to emphasise that it is deliberate and she is happy.
When you are a man and you say you are single, people think, ‘Good for you, go and play the field’. All too often, though, when a woman says it, people think she is sad.
“Don’t worry, you will find someone – you should try Tinder,” they’ll say.
But what if you don’t want to find anyone – what if you like being on your own? Well, I guess these days you have to declare yourself “self-partnered”.
Perfect beach attire
LOOKING at pictures of singer Ciara in a tiny, sequinned hot-pink bikini – with matching elbow-length gloves, thigh-high pink glitter boots, a veil and a giant pink hat – all I could think was, ‘Perfect beach attire!’
No last orders
IT looks like the nation is turning a deaf ear to suggestions we curb our drinking.
Apparently, we drink almost a litre of pure alcohol more each year than the average American.
most read in opinion
A new report shows Brits get through nearly ten litres of alcohol every year.
In more everyday terms, that is 108 bottles of 12 per cent wine, or 342 pints of five per cent lager.
Dry January, anyone?
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