Nobody is special. Must follow rules. You will be reported. Zero sympathy. No exceptions. Are we in East Germany?

Imagine if you were French. Or had a pulse. I swear, society is overrun with gross troglodytes.

Look, lets be real honest here. The snitch is usually an unattractive jealous busybody, regardless of "rule breakage".

If the rule is so bad… shouldn’t they fix the rule? But it’s there for a reason, so they shouldn’t fix it. It’s not broken.

The person I responded to phrased it in a soul revealing manner:

> you chose to flagrantly violate the rules, thinking that you were special

Therefore the snitch will punish you and vengefully cut you down to size. You will be equally unspecial and unhappy compared to the snitch, don't you see?

We aren't talking some rule about borrowing red staplers. We're talking about private affairs between adults. Could be a perfectly happy couple.

This is very much the toxic vibe of East Germany and USSR societies. To a tee.

But the rule is there for a reason, a good reason, and everybody else had to follow it. I’ve heard of people leaving companies and having to effectively be demoted due to interpersonal relationships; that’s the responsible thing to do. It avoids the issues of conflict of interest and power dynamics. Choosing to simply flaunt the rules is not exactly admirable and maybe not even that romantic. The maximally romantic thing would be to give up the position as a sacrifice.

Do I get why someone wouldn’t want to do that? Sure, but you can’t eat your cake and have it too…

Hypotheticals aside, and with all due respect, what godly business is it of yours?

"Rules are there for a good reason and must be followed" is also called fascism under certain circumstances. The old soviet ladies watching like hawks from balconies the goings on in the hood were all about power trips and exploiting the situation.

If you wish to explore how one well intentioned rule building on another leads to atrocities I recommend you read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago

What is "maximally romantic" for other people to do is truly none of your concern. Other peoples affairs are their own, who knows if you even understand the situation properly and yet you rush to become their self appointed judge, jury, and executioner... why? For the greater good? Take a long honest look in the mirror.

Right, because things like rule of law and consistent application of rules are the hallmarks of a fascist polity.

We are too far apart in our assumptions and definitions to have a meaningful discussion.

Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition. The pope is infallible. And the cardinal surely knows best. Ours is not to question why.

You see, every two bit authoritarian is always so very sure that they are correctly interpreting and enforcing the rules. Strong sense of justice, all for the greater good.

And every two bit dictator learns to capitalize on these proclivities. All one has to do is create a rotten atmosphere of guilt, after all, who isn't guilty of something? And then just crown yourself enforcer-in-chief.

If anybody questions you just assert that they are morally inferior, insensitive or just don't get it and goose-step away in a huff.

You are not batman. You are Thunder Karen.

Sexual relationships between bosses and subordinates are seen a bad idea by many organizations. For the subordinate, is difficult to have a consensual sexual relationship with someone who is managing you, who is in charge of what you do on a day-to-day basis, and can decide whether you are fired or promoted. The power imbalance seeps in to everything. And then even if that was possible and there are no consent issue, there is the other looming accusations of preferential treatment. Did the subordinate get that promotion or that more lucrative assignment because they are sleeping with the boss? Finally, if these office relationships break-up (and many, many of them do), the resulting fallout can be devastating to the organization's productivity and legal liability.

For these reasons, many organizations make it a policy to require that these kinds of relationships be disclosed and prohibited. If a boss and a subordinate truly fall in love and want to live a life together more than anything else, then they can try to find alternative roles in the organization where one person in the relationship doesn't report to each other.

So that is the rationale. Agree or disagree if you want, but many organizations choose to have this policy. The second-order problem is what do you do if someone who is in a position of authority flagrantly violates an official, explicit policy? What other policies are the violating? Do they also think it is OK to charge personal expenses to a work account? People who are in power and who think the rules are meant to be broken often find their way into rationales to break all kinds of rules. They are a liability to the organization.

You don't need to laborousoly explain to me office romance, yet another obvious power trip.

These policies can hypothetically make sense, sure. You want to talk about a power imbalance, contemplate by whom and how these things are enforced and whether false positives are possible.

Are we dealing with subjective or objective things? And sweetness, this is a rhetorical question, I know your answer. I'll ask another one, have you yourself been in many successful relationships? Any?

Tell me, are you the HR lady human person in this situation or just some random busybody?

Is this not a whole profession that supposedly requires training?

> If a boss and a subordinate truly fall in love and want to live a life together more than anything else, then they can try to find alternative roles in the organization where one person in the relationship doesn't report to each other.

Gee, thanks for your permission, and what and who are you in all of this? Is this point really flying over your head? Suppose they, as human people, are in this process of figuring it all out.

Or that they aren't a couple at all and you misread.

And there you go and parachute in with your nonsense and force the issue for them on explicitly your personal terms, not some company policy.

Hero vigilantly rescuing the office from these ne'er-do-wells who no doubt are bad immoral people who no doubt also charge personal expenses to the work account and stole your lunch probably.

Also: if you could just as easily break vs. change a rule, want to do so, but still believe it's generally a good rule - is it better to just break it?

I guess this is what both sustains and dooms autocracies.

And the rules against romantic relationships with subordinates are there to protect the less powerful against exploitation by the more powerful. That's a really bad area for you to be extolling the virtues of breaking the rules. That's not how progress happens.

So I'm not very persuaded by this argument.

Tacitus is spinning in his grave.