Actually people are 13. When it comes to social behavior adults are just tall children.

I tend to favour the term "Savage Infants" personally, but "Tall Children" is a winner too, I shall remember that one.

"Try to act your age, not your shoe size" sometimes works when trying to restore order with a group of 25 rowdy teenagers (I'm a teacher).

Recently, however, the smart ones have been shouting back "British or European?"

Thanks for tall children...

European could either be French or Italian standard. Not sure if it's useful for a comeback though, since they are both in circa the same range.

It's a tough scenario. One of the first big managerial problems I had to face was when I was still a snot-nosed twentysomething working at a Fortune 100. I came back from lunch and was pulled into another director's office, who quietly told me that two of my employees had spent the last hour screaming at each other in the hallways and would I make sure they "stopped scaring the goddamned children." Turned out they had been secretly dating for the past six months, something that I was totally ignorant of. The relationship crashed, then burned, and then I had two senior-level sysadmins (each about 10-15 years my elders) who refused to work with each other. Even though we eventually worked through the professional problems (didn't realize that couples' counseling was going to be part of my ambit), they ended up with a lot of bruised feelings and I (for good reason) permanently lost a lot of political capital.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people who can be in a relationship while working with each other. Hard cases make for bad law, and I'm uncomfortable with blanket proclamations against relationships at work, as long as two people at different levels along the same management line aren't seeing each other.

Relationships breaking down are messy at the best of times, toxic at their worst. More people than not, when faced with the collapse of a relationship, will act like a 13 year old than a rational adult.

If the company is seen to have encouraged or even acknowledged the relationship it can create a huge liability, especially if one of the people involves feels like they got stiffed because of relationship issues (sidelined, transferred, had to resign, etc).

The number of couples who say they met at work suggests that blind eyes are often turned, but a company has those official bans on intra-office dating for good reason.

What you say is true, but I don't believe a contract of employment entitles any company to tell someone who they can or cannot date.

If, for the reasons you describe, they wish to maintain a public position of "we not encourage dating coworkers" that's one thing, so long as they don't actually think they have any say in this matter.

> I don't believe a contract of employment entitles any company to tell someone who they can or cannot date.

Shame that companies believe that just fine. They can and will fire an employee if "no dating coworkers" is a policy that said employee violated. You are welcome to avoid working for these companies, but that's your only recourse unless you have an overwhelmingly string case that discrimination was involved.

Reasonable is "don't date anyone in your line of management". Options in the case that you do start dating including transferring out to a different manager. That's reasonable, because it's a conflict of interest issue rather than a "who you are allowed to date".

Probably also reasonable is "don't date anyone in your building", at least that way you don't have to see them every day if it goes south.

In my observation, when opposite-sex dating occurs between coworkers in all but the largest enterprises where contact cannot be avoided after a breakup, one or the other employee will end up leaving -- usually the person with lower status or value. Even if they tie the knot, you may find one or the other partner wanting to work "somewhere else."

As a manager, you should be prepared for this eventuality once you become aware of the activity. It is unreasonable to forbid all dating since many happy marriages were established between people who met in the workplace. It is reasonable to let people know that they may face dismissal if their dating issues enter the workplace and prove a distraction for themselves or others.

On a practical level managers wish to avoid unnecessary turnover or drama in the workplace. Knowing that employee dating will almost inevitably lead to one or both of these things, I understand the "frown upon" aspect. The employees themselves should be adult enough to know that they are gambling with their jobs.