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A dysfunctional legal department at Google. Who would have guessed? The founder/CEO Gates marrying someone in Marketing. The CEO of a software company I worked for having an affair with his secretary. This is what one had to tolerate to work in the software industry, and now has to tolerate to work in "tech". A complete absence of ethics and common sense. Pathetic. Other industries employing intelligent people are not like that, not to the same extent anyway.
Other industries employing intelligent people are not like that, not to the same extent anyway.

Name one.

The news here (if it's news to you) is that tech is not special like everyone once thought. Everyone thought tech was above that kind of thing. It turns out everyone in tech is just human, just like the rest of the world.

The story here could not possible be more incredibly mundane and familiar and boring.

"Everyone thought tech was above that kind of thing."

That is news to me. Based on experience with the software industry in the 1990's, there was no reason for me to think that companies like Google would be any different.

Is this really how negatively you view the world? This is what I tell my kids about dating people at work.

"You guys have spent the first few years of adult life getting to the same place. You probably have similar values as a result. You probably even have similar values in your upbringing. Now you want to tell me that you should ignore people who have similar values to you and go meet random people at a bar or otherwise make your romantic life more difficult? It sounds kind of stupid."

I used to work in a family office where inter-employee relationships were more or less encouraged. And this was the reason.

More to your point though, with men having affairs with women who are "lower in status" at the company, I refer you to the following research:

https://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/attach/journals/a...

TL;DR: main determinants of divorce are NOT sharing of household chores, or a wife's financial independence, it is the lack of a job for the husband.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2...

TL;DR: women consider strong men more attractive

These combine to show that women are generally more attracted to men who are "strong" and have a job. In the context of work, there is a social hierarchy of men by default and those higher up would be considered stronger.

It's not like these women are "helpless" to choose their mates. They want strong men. Don't treat them like children.

> The CEO of a software company I worked for having an affair with his secretary.

Why do you think you have a right to talk about other peoples sex lives?

You even sound like you want to manage by force (hard or soft) other peoples sex lives within your moral code.

Not sure of your point exactly but it seems to be to me a complete absence of ethics really.

Quite a horrifying one in a world with a past and present of people being persecuted because of their sex lives.

What industries have you worked in? Long ago I worked for a magazine company where the owner came in drunk one day and chased an editor around the layout room. A photographer who freelanced for the company had been a professor until he ran off with a nineteen-year-old student. I could go on.
Where do people find the time to fit all this sexual harassment on their schedules?? I feel like I'm always sprinting towards completing 3 different projects at any given time.
I guess that’s why you’re sprinting 3 instead of 2.
You might notice these harrassment cases are almost always someone high up in the org chart.

They, I suspect, do not real work and thus have the time to conduct these activities.

What did she expect Google to do in her case? I understand she dated Drummond and had a consensual relationship with him, Google moved her to a different team (because there's a conflict of interest if somebody is the manager of their partner).

After their relationship ended, it got ugly, but what is Google's supposed role in their custody battle? And how is that related to sexual harassment?

Move the boss to another job, not the junior.

At my firm, the partner is forced out if they are caught banging juniors or staff.

In this case, moving the claimant to another position is text book retaliation because of the power mismatch.

> In this case, moving the claimant to another position is text book retaliation because of the power mismatch.

But the move happened before the break-up, so there really wasn't anything to retaliate for (other than "don't date within the company", which apparently isn't actually a problem at Google if what she writes is accurate).

It's a very different story if the company got involved in the custody battle and took the exec's side, but I understand that's not what happened - when she was moved they were still on good terms. She quit shortly thereafter (because of the move), while still being on good terms with him.

You misunderstood: the manager should be moved as punishment for them being stupid and screwing a subordinate. And yes, the move happens ASAP.
There is no legal reason that has to happen, in fact the subordinate can get moved to night shift for example and it’s still not considered retaliation.
It opens you up for a trial.

claimant - I told Mr Big at home that he should divorce his wife so he can help me with this incoming baby...then BOOM I am on the night shift.... => probably gets over summary judgment motion.

You would think but that does not appear to be the standard. The company merely has make an attempt to separate the two parties and it doesn’t have to be super equitable. Plenty of cases where the victim ends up being punished and the company does not have to pay
Why should it be the manager who gets moved and not the subordinate? The manager is almost by definition more important to the company, and it's a consensual relationship that both agreed to and both knew the rules.

Blakeley is claiming her career was damaged here, but what does she think should have happened? That Drummond's career was damaged instead? If you accept the principle people shouldn't report directly to their love partners, one of them has to change job and it's entirely reasonable to assume that the one lower on the rungs has less impact from moving (on everyone else). The alternative is to fire both if they have a relationship even if there's nothing wrong with their work or the relationship itself, which would be extreme and cruel.

This looks a lot like a repeat of the Rubin affair. Colleagues in a happy relationship. Relationship goes wrong, woman tries to drag Google corporate into it, presumably to gain some sort of advantage. It's not really any of their business.

The supervisor has more power and in many companies such relationships are frowned upon, because they open the company to lawsuits. If the supervisor is foolish enough to nevertheless enter such a relationship, they should bear the brunt of the consequences.

Unless they're covered by HR... then the underling gets burned.

But resolving that problem is exactly why the policy is someone has to move.

You seem to be arguing that such relationships should never even start at all, that if it starts wrong it can never be fixed, which seems way over the top.

Wow, if what she says in her original post is true, the guy is a regular sociopath. She claims he completely switched off his affection for the son and then used him as a tool against her. Then justified his philandering by giving Eric Schmidt as an example, and claiming it's his right as a powerful man.

No wonder the company's abusing the privacy of everyone and was keen to support a totalitarian regime with such "leaders".

Remember kids never date/marry into your workplace.