But is there any possibility that you may be biased and see your girlfriend in a more positive light than your coworkers? Given that "objective assessment" of a coworker is hard to define, yet alone hard to enforce, I don't find it very unusual if other colleagues cast aspersions on her motives in such case.
I'm sure there's some bias, but I think my view is overall pretty objective on her ability and intelligence. Largely because most of my impression of her intelligence was built before I had any feelings for her - and ended up being one of the largest contributions as to why I fell for her in the first place.
She's only a couple of years my junior in age, but went through the whole Bachelors -> Masters thing, so is lagging behind me by more than half a decade in the actual work experience department, so she still makes a fair amount of mistakes when it comes to office politics, and her degree, while related, isn't directly applicable to what we do, so she still has had a fair amount to learn as well. I've tried to stay objective on both sides of this, and point out things she can learn, since I figure that objectivity will help her in the long run.
There's some outside validation as well - she received her first promotion very quickly, and is on the fast track for the next one, based almost entirely on the mountain of positive feedback she's gotten from her work with outside teams and both internal and external customers.
>Given that "objective assessment" of a coworker is hard to define, yet alone hard to enforce, I don't find it very unusual if other colleagues cast aspersions on her motives in such case.
Yeah. I know it's not anything that can be enforced, I just don't think that I'd be receiving anywhere near the same attitude and comments if the tables were turned and she was the more senior engineer. It's also that I have no direct way to help her get ahead outside of feedback to the management, which admittedly carries a decent amount of weight... But it's also something that I've specifically told her I'm not able to provide since I can't guarantee I'll be 100% objective, and something she has no problem with.
Sorry for another long response, but it's something I wrestle with many days of the week, and have thought a lot about.
I've definitely spent a fair amount of time teaching her things, but it's been in no way her taking advantage of me, and I don't use any of my influence to help her more than I would anyone else. She's earned every accolade and piece of praise she's received, and it's heartbreaking to me to see these kinds of comments directed at her. Even without my help, she'd be incredibly successful - she's one of the smartest people I've ever worked with.
Due to this sort of thing, we keep the relationship fairly private. Some people know, either because we've shared it with them or because neither of us are particularly great at hiding it, but it means that we have to at least attempt to keep something that brings both of us a lot of happiness a secret. Since we have lots of co-workers on facebook, etc, I even have to be extremely conscious in things like tagging us together in group activities. We have to remember to try and keep at least some distance in work related social gatherings. That stuff is hard on me - as much as I try to imagine how hard that is on her, with everything else she deals with at work, I know it's even harder.
I have to quash a desire to be overprotective of her on this sort of thing, and other inappropriate encounters she's had at work, because she's an adult woman who wants to take care of things without me stepping in. I've got to respect that - but I would find it absolutely fantastic to be able to share with her stories of people who have been in similar situations and how they handled it.
I know none of that is expressly what was discussed here, but I think it's a problem that affects females in the workplace a hell of a lot more heavily than it does men, and it's certainly not the only thing. Sexism is alive and well, and I don't see how people talking about it does anything but help.