Confraternization is a pretty big no-no across the corporate world.
In fact, last week, there was a firing of the head of the McD's top man due to having a relationship with an underling:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mcdonalds-ceo-steve-easterbrook-fired-for-violating-company-policy-having-consensual-relationship-with-employee/
About half of the companies out there have a policy against this. I have a poignant story from early in my career where this thing came into effect and I began to learn that the world is not always a nice place:
I was a young father, just out of college and early in my engineering career. I got a job at a bio-tech company in the Univ of Utah research park that I was excited about it as I would be able to literally walk across the street after work each night and knock out my MBA without having to put out a herculean effort. My first manager was Mark Preziosi - and we immediately hit it off in the interview. Things were so good, that I mentioned that his name means "precious" in Italian and I was back-slapping a month or so later after I was hired. If I can get a face to face interview, I can usually knock it out of the ball park. I come across pretty confident - unnerving to people that are not so confident. The "group interview" with my peers did not go off so well. The lead, Brett Kalish, a burned out Jewish hippee-type from the East Coast with a lot of experience and no MBA saw BYU on my resume and said, "Oh, you are one of those...". Yup, a moron. I have to say, I have never experienced a more sullen, nasty co-worker in my life. He was an expert blackmailer and would literally look at the logs to see how long you spent on the toilet and call you out on it in front of your co-workers - trying to humiliate you..... Disgusting. It was a Class III secure facility, so your every move was monitored from the "core" to the outer two perimeters in case there were ever problems with stealing of controlled substances. Well, in Brett's monitoring of others' activities, he somehow put two and two together with Preziosi having a liaison, in the very french sense of the word, with a single mother in the HR dept. - and that was against company policy. So, Brett, not having an MBA, and apparently worried that I would be able to walk in become his boss one day, put the screws to Preziosi to shut me down. When I went in to have Preziosi sign my paperwork for the tuition reimbursement, I was flatly told NO. I persisted and told him, this was one of the reasons I left my first job working for an opthalmological laser company and came up on the hill to work. He told me again I needed to drop my plans. I was VERY confused as to his motivation and persisted. He then explained that he comes from a mafioso family from Jersey (pharma - the corrupt hellish practice that it largely is, is big out there). He then asked me what was most important to me. I said, my wife and my new-born girl. He then said that its common practice in the mafioso world to find out what is most important to someone and use that to put the screws to the person to change their thinking. He then said, "I want you to drop your MBA plans; think of your wife and your kid!". I have been a Scoutmaster off and on for 12 of the last 17 years - and I know the classic signs of shock - and I was in it. My tongue would not even hardly work in my mouth - it was so dry. My pulse was elevated from the adrenaline rush - and who knows what the blood pressure was at.... I started to rebut one more time, and he said firmly, "Think of your wife and kid". There is a very real primal something that kicks in if there is a perceived threat to father of a young one. I found myself assessing what my wife would say if I were to come home after getting fired from this for letting him know how I felt.
At that point, I had no clue what was driving this radical change in my plans and in the relationship with my manager, but I was confused beyond words. He also told me as I turned to walk out of his office that I was not to mention a word of our conversation and that, "Who would they believe anyway? A manager, or a subordinate....?". My mind was reeling. I had just graduated from BYU (la-la land as I call it because its so "Ozzy and Harriet" perfect there) and was not acquainted with "the ways of men and things" and had no idea that stuff like this happened to ordinary people. For the first time in my life, I considered buying a hand gun in the off-chance this guy was for real and I needed to protect my little charge that was only 6 months old. I had been reading some book about how Joseph Smith had been jacked around by a bunch of jackals and, in his pleadings, he had used the phraseology, "let their folly be made manifest". For the first time ever, I dropped to my knees that night in my office after the others had gone home and pled my case before the Lord. I mentioned that I and my wife had faithfully paid a full tithe our entire lives in order that the blessings of heaven would rain down on us and that we had just started a family and I had covenanted with the Lord that I would do my best to bring up a righteous family if He would back me in the ability to put food on the table and a safe roof over their heads. I then asked that the Lord judge between me and the manager and that his "folly would be made manifest" to me before I left the company. It turns out an attempt was made to that end shortly after our meeting. I was put on second shift support full time and then the decision was made to cut the entire second shift out - we were called into the meeting area after we got in one day and all handed our final paychecks and escorted to the door. What?? I didn't know you could do that to an employee without some kind of advance notice so they could make plans. I felt like a used piece of meat that day.
I had rubbed shoulders with a Director of Quality and Engineering (Preziosi's boss), a good God-fearing Christian man from the east coast and I guess I left a good impression with him. I got a personal phone call from him a week or so later and said that there had been a mistake and that I was supposed to be transferred to pilot-scale engineering - but the paperwork had been lost in the shuffle. I could start there in the next pay-period and there would be no loss of pay for the two weeks I had been off of work! Woohoo!! I was able to get alot done on our first fixer-upper house during those two weeks, too. I was a little nervous to go back after what I had been through, but relieved that someone was watching over me and my little family.
I went over there and had great success as I knocked out some daunting problems that two other engineers could not solve that had previously worked on; and then they had left. I was sent out to a drug coating and drying seminar in Boston for a week and was able to take my wife and visit holy sites in NY and other areas in our off time and the two weekends we had. With much prayer and pondering, I was able to solve a quality problem the company had been suffering with for years causing huge losses in manufacturing when drug concentration per unit area could not be maintained and entire batches would have to be scrapped at the manufacturing level. My salary doubled almost over night after I nailed that one (with God's help). I didn't feel like a piece of meat any more. I was safely able to observe from my pilot-scale perch what was going on over in my old manufacturing world. One day, Preziosi was fired along with the HR gal. I had then gotten a call from an old friend and was in the middle of interviewing and moving into my current job in Flight Test in aerospace - my dream job. Before I let the company know - gave them my two week's notice like they expected of me..... - I got called into the office of the manager who had hired Brett Kalish and she, in tears, asked me for forgiveness for having hired him several years before. She knew the hell he was creating over on the manufacturing side for me and others. I guess she had seen the trauma he had created for me - even though I did not know her very well. I told her it was no big deal (at that point, I had the added perspective of seeing that the Lord would back me) and let her know of my plans to blow that popsicle stand for my dream job trashing on quarter billion dollar wonders and getting paid to do it. I would let things sort themselves out according to the law of the harvest - to each their own. She let me know that Preziosi's wife had left him and took their three kids, the house and the retirement money. Preziosi then took off for Florida with his new girlfriend and her kid in tow to open a dive shop. Five years ago, I was telling a co-worker (who actually encouraged me to get this blog going) about this bizarre twist of events and we decided to electronically stalk Preziosi. We found him on LinkedIn - the last update from 10 years after being fired from our mutual employer, he still listed that as his last gig. Not sure if it had just not been updated, but truly God does answer the sincere pleading when we keep the laws associated with a principle. Truly, that folly was made manifest before I left the company and it taught me some deep lessons about life.
God is not floofy - one of the greatest lies perpetuated in our religious culture - that He will just beat us with a few stripes and let us go off to everlasting joy and happiness. He does not fool around and will drop the hammer when something is out of line. He is merciful ONLY when we are repentant and humble - and that mercy is manifest through His Son - our Savior. I re-iterate that we as a nation and a people are ripening and that we are about to be judged because we have not rooted out the secret combinations (ones that make the mafiosos look like kiddos on a playground compared to the ones who really run the show) because we have not heeded the message of the Book of Mormon; and they have gotten above us.
So, yeah. This whole chastity thing is a minefield and is why I declined several times to explain my religious beliefs to this co-worker at my former place of employment before she persuaded me to share them (after which came the verbal and social "beatings").
It is all in God's hands. I just get to watch from a distance and feel sorry for them. God is a much better disciplinarian of His children than I could ever be.
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